(029) Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”, One Paragraph at a Time

I’ve struggled in all my attempts to read and comprehend Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”. These blog posts are my attempt to better understand this material. I encourage any corrections or criticisms in the comments.

Chapter Two: The Free Spirit

29. It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure.

There are very few people who are up to the task of venturing out into the unknown by themselves to ponder deep questions about the nature of the human soul. Nietzsche refers to it as a “privilege of the strong” to do so, and that it requires “daring beyond measure”.

He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience.

Life itself is riddled with its own set of dangers, which become multiplied “thousandfold” when one ventures out alone. One such danger is that it becomes impossible for others to understand how one could become so independent in their thinking that they lost their way completely.

The image that comes to mind while reading Nietzsche’s line about some “minotaur of conscience” is of Theseus who, using a ball of thread given to him by Ariadne, left a trail behind him as he ventured into the labyrinth to slay the minotaur. Theseus was able to find his way out of the labyrinth.

Nietzsche never mentions Theseus by name, but perhaps by summoning this image implicitly, he is offering an answer to the problem of the labyrinth. When playing in the world of new ideas and forms of thought, one must remain connected to the world by a thread of one form or another.

Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to the sympathy of men!

The danger present in venturing into the unknown is that having ventured so far out beyond something resembling popular human understanding, one might be at risk of being beyond the realm of sympathy or even pity.

What do you think Nietzsche means in this last line?

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