SOCB42H3 Lecture 11: Lecture 11
Document Summary
Understand that the key to nietzsche"s thinking lies in his protest against modernity, which he believed to be both unsettling and stifling to individuals (in whom he had a much greater interest than in social structures). Understand his belief in the importance of unfettered expression of life force, which is always individual and includes urges to both good and evil. Know nietzsche explanation of the genealogy of morals . Understand why postmodernist sociologists find nietzsche, who had no interest whatsoever in social structures, appealing. Questions to guide the reading/to think about ahead of time for students. Nietzsche was the first major thinker in history, whose work centred around disenchantment with modernity. This disappointment explains the main features of his work: anti-universalism, extreme individualism, and extreme ethical relativism. While such attitudes will resurface strongly in european philosophy and sociology of the 1930s, and will become commonplace in the 1980s and 1990s, nietzsche has given them the first colourful and forceful expression.
