Drew's Reviews > Twilight of the Idols

Aside from the intro of aphorisms, which is good, this book the epitome of bombast. The ethical system Nietzsche proposes is too fundamental and consequential for him to offer no justification for it. In this book, zero empirical, logical, metaphysical, etc. appeals are made to justify that the Dionysian is superior to Platonism/Christianity. To Nietzsche, the Dionysian is just ObViOuSlY the ideal, and anyone that disagrees with that is decadent. No need to explain why. In fact, to explain why would itself be decadent.

Nonetheless, for the sake of being contrarian, contrarians are attracted to Nietzsche’s ethical system. But it’s important for such contrarians to admit that—despite the sizable impact of Christianity—the Dionysian is in fact the crowd. Most people and most belief systems are unmistakably Dionysian. Even a large number of professing “Christians” are Dionysian in behavior. The notion that Nietzsche’s ethical system is contrarian is an illusion. Twilight of the Idols offers nothing new, just a bitter and cynical re-presenting of what most people de facto believe, dressed up as though it is a contrarian ethical system.

I give it 3 stars because, despite the bombast of the rest of the book, a number of the aphorisms at the opening are profound. Also because Nietzsche’s writing style throughout the book is the opposite of boring, even if it is typically void of meaning.