Nietzsche: A Re-examination

Zeitlin’s critical exposition contains several distinctive elements. He gives considerable attention to Nietzsche’s theory of Ressentiment and the ‘inversion of values’ by elaborating the theory and applying it to the two classical cases with which Nietzsche was most concerned: the Jews and the Greeks. He analyses Socrates’ encounter with the “proto-Nietzscheans” of his time; Karl Marx’s rejoinder to Max Stirner, the boldest of Nietzsche’s precursors in the modern era; Nietzsche’s one-sided and erroneous interpretation of Darwin’s theory; and the dangerous implications of Nietzsche’s ‘beyond good and evil’ aestheticism. Finally, Zeitlin confronts Nietzsche’s protagonist, Zarathustra – that enthusiastic spokesman for the ‘master morality’.

Zeitlin’s critical exposition contains several distinctive elements. He gives considerable attention to Nietzsche’s theory of Ressentiment and the ‘inversion of values’ by elaborating the theory and applying it to the two classical cases with which Nietzsche was most concerned: the Jews and the Greeks. He analyses Socrates’ encounter with the “proto-Nietzscheans” of his time; Karl Marx’s rejoinder to Max Stirner, the boldest of Nietzsche’s precursors in the modern era; Nietzsche’s one-sided and erroneous interpretation of Darwin’s theory; and the dangerous implications of Nietzsche’s ‘beyond good and evil’ aestheticism. Finally, Zeitlin confronts Nietzsche’s protagonist, Zarathustra – that enthusiastic spokesman for the ‘master morality’.