Why this book: I’ve studied Nietzsche off and on since I was in college.  Much in his philosophy appeals to me.  I have recently listened to a 24 lecture series in the Great Courses on his philosophy and I continue to be inspired by his “joyful wisdom.”   This book looked like an enjoyable way to explore another approach to Nietzsche through the eyes of a young philosopher who shares his fascination with Nietzsche, while looking at his own life through the lens of Nietzsche’s life and philosophy.

Summary in 3 sentences:  While still a teenager, John Kaag had become enamored with Nietzsche’s philosophy, and travelled to Switzerland lived in the village where Nietzsche had lived, hiked the trails Nietzsche had hiked, and immersed himself in Nietzsche’s life, as much as 19 year old could.  In this book, 20 years later, after attaining a professorship in philosophy, a divorce and a remarriage and a child later, he undertakes the same trip – but this time with his wife and daughter.  This book is about Kaag’s personal trip with his family,  and about Nietzsche – each chapter shares a part of Kaag’s own story from the trip as well as Kaag’s thoughts and perspectives on relevant aspects of Nietzsche’s life and philosophy.

My impressions: I really enjoyed this book – a relatively light and very engaging read, and a good way for someone new to Nietzsche, or someone like me who is familiar with his philosophy, to gain insights into Nietzsche’s life and philosophy.  Kaag gives almost equal attention to Nietzsche the man and his life, as he does to his philosophy.  This is appropriate, since Nietzsche once said that you cannot truly understand a man’s philosophy, unless you know and understand the man.  But in this book, we also get to know John Kaag – it is written in first person memoir form, and he reveals a lot about himself and his own growth process.  He personalizes his exploration of Nietzsche’s philosophy.

It was interesting to me that Kaag’s wife is also a philosophy professor, and a specialist in and advocate for Immanuel Kant, a philosopher is most closely identified with the opposite of Nietzsche’s philosophy.  Kant believed that the only true path to a good and moral life is through reason, and man’s great struggle in life is to suppress emotions that might interfere with reason, and through discipline and practice, to always let reason prevail.  Nietzsche was a leader in the movement against living according to such cold logic, and to let our passions and the human impulses define who we are.

Hiking with Nietzsche includes a great chapter entitled “Zarathustra in Love” which outlines Nietzsche’s personal struggles with romance and love as well as Nietzsche’s philosophy, expressed through his most famous character, Zarathustra, on the challenges and primacy of love.  Nietzsche’s book Thus Spoke Zarathustra is, according to Kaag, “a story of a man shuttling between darkness and light, isolation and togetherness.” (99)  “He will aspire to live alone – as beast and god – and be, in Nietzsche’s words, a philosopher….But he grows weary of his solitary wisdom, ‘like a bee who has collected too much honey.’  In other words, he becomes too lonely and decides to return to civilization. ”

I also really enjoyed the chapter entitled ‘Steppenwolf ” in which Kaag looks at Hermann Hesse’s famous book of the same name about professor Harry Haller’s confrontation with his own primal nature.  I read Hesse’s Steppenwolf a number of years ago, but didn’t really appreciate its Nietzschean implications.  In Steppenwolf, professor Haller’s becomes alienated from and rejects his highly civilized and structured life as a university professor, as he compares himself to a wolf on the steppes of Russia.   In Steppenwolf Haller surrenders to his primal self – in a fantasy or a psychotic episode (I couldn’t tell which)- and with that released repression, ultimately comes to better understand himself as a man.   Hesse through Haller expresses the same alienation  as Nietzsche from a life focused on achieving and sustaining comfort, safety and conformity to social norms.   I found Kaag’s exploration of this Hesse-Nietzsche connection interesting and insightful.

One of the more interesting philosophical challenges I have with Nietzsche and his “master morality”  is reconciling his condescension toward the “sheep” in society with what I believe is an imperative to empathy for those who by nature or environment may not be equipped,  or may choose not to aspire to Nietzchean übermensch morality.  Just go down to the DMV or to the local shopping mall and observe how the mass of humanity ardently seems to strive for those Last Man ideals of safety, comfort and pleasure.  And aren’t most of us at least partly guilty of the same?  In reading Nietzsche, I sometimes find in his writings compassion and understanding; in other parts, I find arrogance, bigotry, and condescension – tendencies which I admittedly fight in myself.

In my own view, no matter where we might be on the spectrum, from sheep to übermensch, there is always room for humility –  and room for those who not only love their own fate, but also love the fate of others.  It is indeed part of our fate to live with those who are less strong than we, as it is the fate of those much stronger than we, to live with us.

What Appeals to me about Nietzsche’s Philosophy:

• It is very life affirming.  Nietzsche screams an affirmative “Yes!” to life- in all its pain, adversity and wonder. In affirming life, he affirms risk, growth, learning, and the excitement of new possibilities.
• It is a philosophy that generally prioritizes the heart over the head, the emotions and passions over cold logic, reason, and practical self-interest.  He does not deny the role of reason in a good life, but in the tension between Logos and  Pathos, he will give a lot of weight to Pathos, and when in doubt, he’ll give his vote to Pathos nearly every time – except when Pathos is driven by “negative” emotions, such as resentment, hatred, envy, fear.
• I DO like his übermensch ideal.  Many will not – but the ideal of a person – a “mensch” – who believes in him/herself, is unwilling to pander, grovel, or beg, who accepts responsibility for who s/he is and the consequences of their actions – appeals to me. The übermensch is never a victim.  I like Nietzsche’s übermensch quite a bit more than I do Aristotle’s magnanimous man – though they do share similarities.
• I like what he recognizes as the primary tension in living well:  Finding the balance between our need to be unique, self-actualizing individuals, and our need for validation, love, and social connections from the greater society.  On the one hand we have an impulse to be authentic to ourselves, to assert our “will to power,” to own and act on our desires and impulses.  But we know that that if we act on these desires and impulses, we will alienate ourselves from conventional society.   Consequently, we often suppress these impulses and accept conventional values, and conform to the rules of polite society out of our need for social connection and validation.  We don’t threaten the status quo or its underpinnings, in order to fulfill a need for connection to and approval from what he referred to as “the herd.” We indeed need “the herd” to live.  But at what cost to who we are and our potential.  This fundamental dilemma of his “übermensch”  and master morality resonates with me.
• I find his imperative to “Amor Fati” – to love our fate – to be very powerful.  He tells us to be strong, be positive, be proud, laugh and love.  Own the good, the bad, the ugly – love without constraint or fear, be proud of who we are, make our life our own, make it sing – even though so many demand that we cower and conform, and demand that we follow their rules, and will shame us when we don’t.
• Nietzsche would have deplored as do I, the moral certainty, political correctness, and “virtue signaling” of both the left and the right in today’s “culture wars” and political discourse. He would have no time for those who look to a formulaic set of rules by which to act, feel, live and judge others.  To the stridently self righteous,  there is no room for being human, for proudly expressing who one truly is,  how one truly feels, for accepting (even savoring!) one’s failures, for accepting oneself as an “authentically” flawed and inconsistent human being, when one is always judging (and chastising!) oneself and others against an extrinsic set of values and code of behavior.  Nietzsche’s objections to these righteous cultural and political values would not be unlike his objections to religion.
• Nietzsche implores that we write our own rules. Live by them, and take full responsibility for the consequences.  Each of us is an artist, he says,  and our life is our art.  We shouldn’t resent others for resenting us for not living by their rules.  Resentment of others – that is what the herd does.   Living with the resentment of the herd is the price of being one of the authentic ones, living within but apart from, the herd. The übermensch will stand out, and be resented.  And will take the  hits, keep his head up, and carry on.
• Nietzsche tells us to be proud. Laugh, love, and enjoy.  “If you ain’t having fun doing it, you ain’t doing it right.” I love his line about laughter (see quote from p  214 below,):  “Laughter is the key to amor fati.“

That’s what I like about Nietzsche’s philosophy.

Some QUOTES from Hiking with Nietzsche

Nietzsche shared a deep contempt for the rise of bourgeois culture, the idea that life, at its best, was to be lived easily, blandly, punctually, by the book.  14

“It is only as an aesthetic experience ,” Nietzsch insist in The Birth of Tragedy, “that existence and the world are eternally justified.”  14

“There exists in the world a single path along which no one can go except you: whither does it lead? Do not ask,” Nietzsche instructs, “go along it.”  21

Nietzsche was drawn to Emerson’s Promethean individualism, his suggestion that loneliness was not something to be remedied at all costs but rather a moment of independence to be contemplated and even enjoyed.  21

Published in 1841, Emerson’s essay “Compensation, ” the sister essay to his more famous “Self -Reliance, ” promises that “every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor”  Nietzsche spent most of his life trying to internalize this message, echoing it repeatedly, most famously in the Twilight of the Idols: “What does not kill me,” he assured, “makes me stronger.”  23

But the ascetic response to suffering was to understand it as a complaint about life.  My challenge – the challenge Nietzsche raises – was to embrace life with all its suffering.  ….In fact Nietzsche often sounds as though happiness is at best a kind of secondary goal.  In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s most famous character, having spent this life in the mountains, concludes: “Happiness? Why should I strive for happiness? I strive for my work.” 28

Nietzsche insists that “if thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” 35

I’d often thought  that philosophy had a paradoxical effect on Nietzsche and Schopenhauer: it allowed them to come to terms with life, but it made living with others nearly impossible.   41

“Marrying,” Schopenhauer tells us, “means to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find an eel amongst an assembly of snakes.” 42

Kant embodied the Enlightenment ideals of order, harmony, rationality, and above all , duty – philosophical concepts Nietzsche spent his entire life trying to dismantle. 44

According to Zarathustra, the Last Man views safety and comfort as the root of all happiness. Life – like a red-eye flight – should pass as smoothly and painlessly as possible.  51

Nietzsche believed that this obsession with maintaining some semblance of health was far from actually being healthy.  …. According to Nietzsche, there are two forms of health: the futile type that tries to keep death at bay as long as possible, and the  affirming type that embraces life, even its deficiencies and excesses. 52

Human existence is cruel, harsh, and painfully short, but the tragic heroes of ancient Greece found a way to make the suffering and sudden endings of life beautiful, or aesthtically significant.  This is what he meant in the Birth of Tragedy when he claimed that existence can be justified only as an aesthetic experience. 53

…our deep desires for beauty and affection often stem from deprivation, melancholy, and pain.  62

The good is but a prejudice, often harmful, that neds to be stripped bare and reexamined.  66

Eternal recurrence:  “How well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal.”74

Of course you can choose anything you want, to raise children or get married, but don’t pretend to do it because these things have some sort of intrinsic value – they don’t.  Do it solely because you chose them and ar willing to own up to them.   75

“Before fate strikes us, we should guide it.”  76

(The self) flourishing depends on two things: first, that it can choose it’s own way to the greatest extent possible, and then, when it fails, that it can embrace the fate that befalls it.  Being in love can jeopardize both of these conditions…”to live alone, he writes, “one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both – a philosopher.”  97

(Zarathustra) needs followers and listeners, but he wants them to be free spirits – in other words, ones who wouldn’t deign to follow or listen.  99

The entire book (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) is a story of a man shuttling between darkness and light, isolation  and togetherness.  99

In a post- theological world, self-overcoming remains one of the few remaining goals.  100

(Self over-coming) involves three stages: First become the camel, loaded down with the baggage of the past, of tradition , of cultural constraints…..Second the spirit becomes a lion who would conquer his freedom and become the master of  his own (world)  Finally the lion must become the child.. a new beginning with a sacred Yes.   100-101

Marriage…can slip slowly but surely, into “love” of a neighbor, meaning one who lives in physical but not spiritual proximity.  102

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates comments that the reluctant ruler is the only one who should lead the polis.  119

At the birthplace of European civilization, there were two types of people, the masters and the slaves, and hence two different kinds of morality arose. 123

The “good” for the master is the power to advance, to assert oneself, to make progress.  That which is “bad” is the opposite: weak slow, cowardly, and indirect.  ….to be good is to be noble; being noble necessarily means that one is powerful; power is beautiful (although it can also be terrible.) 123

Slave morality is anything but straightforward.  The slave gives the master a steady sidelong glance and lies in wait.   124

The sheep blame the eagle for his carnivorous ways.  125

Fasting – Nietzsche saw through the veneer of good health straight to the core of something even more important: self-mastery. 129

“The individual, Nietzsche writes, “has always struggled to keep from being overwhelmed by the group. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.” 147

One way of retreating from pop culture is to embrace unabashed elitism.  This was culture -exclusive, but not oppressive. …Quiet: the one thing the herd cannot abide. Silence, the sound of oneself, enables –  even necessitates – thinking.  151-152

(Thomas Mann living in) California, the place where decadence came to roost, seemed so out of sync with Nietzsche’s intellectual project.  It seemed like acquiescing to, instead of fighting civilizations’s downward spiral.  162

“In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.” Nietzsche said.  164

But existentialists, following Nietzsche, suggest that our overblown risk aversion doesn’t track the actual danger of a particular situation but rather our own sense of anxiety.  166

According to existentialists such as Nietzsche, dread has no particular object or cause but rather emanates uncomfortably from the very pit of being human.  It is, in Kierkegaard’s words, the “sense of freedom’s possibility.”  166

Children remind us, in delightful and painful ways, what it is to be a person.  167

Adorno explains that “a human being only becomes a human at all by imitating other human beings….Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence: knowing that one is nothing.” 176

The last decade of Nietzsche’s life reveals many things: that life itself outstrips philosophy, that one can really live on in dreams and fantasies, that life and story are inseparable, that degeneration is often regarded as an embarrassment worthy of covering up, that dying at the right time is the greatest challenge of life, that the line between madness and profundity is a faint thread high in the mountains that eventually disappears.  179

Empedocles believed that the world operated under exactly two principles of order: love and strife. His cosmology envisions a dynamic cycle that, in turn, pulls things apart in strife and draws them together in affection, eternally….Nietzsche could wholly accept this description of reality.  182

To feel deeply the wisdom-tinged sadness of growing older, to understand that one’s youth isn’t long gone, but rather somewhere forever hidden from view, to face self-destruction while longing for creation – this is to grapple with Ecce Homo. 186

…a deep and unsettling truth about ourselves, one that nineteenth-centry authors like Melville and Nietzsche had begun to tap into: beneath the reasonable habits of our lives hides a little inexplicable something that has the ability to opt out, even against our better judgment.  191

Freedom allows us to act as a responsible agent, but it also allows us to do otherwise.  The very thing that we are to cultivate in our children – a fee will  – is the very thing that can, at least sometimes, make us lose the little person we love so deeply and painfully.  192

How did Empedocles or Nietzsche cultivate the existential defiance or courage that led each of them up the mountain?  It probably started something like this – in a very simple refusal to act on behalf of one’s obvious self-interest.  193

The attempt to be free, to retrace a path that I’d taken in my youth, had been cut short by my family obligations, and the journey had slowly morphed into a holiday taken in honer of Nietzsche’s memory rather than anything genuinely, authentically Nietzschean.  I had proven unable or unwilling to stop its gradual decline into mundane life. Harry Haller (in Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf) had similar thoughts, but he, unlike most of us, gave them free rein: “A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me,” he writes, “a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life.  I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages.” 202-203

How could a prickly life still, after all is said and done, lead one to renunciation and bitterness? As I’d come to enjoy adulthood, this worry had only intensified.  Privilege and leisure did nothing to mitigate the effects of existential crisis but rather heightened the sense that despite one’s best attempts, life was still largely unfulfilling. Most of modern life is geared toward achieving material success, but only after it is attained is its hollowness painfully apparent.  206-207

Perhaps the hardest part of the eternal return is to own up to the tortures that we create for ourselves and those that we create for others.  213

But (in Steppenwolf) his judges have other ideas:  Haller is condemned not to death but to life. “You are to live,” they instruct Haller, “and learn to laugh.”  It seems so simple, but given the madhouse of Haller’s mind, this was an infinitely harder task than committing suicide.  213

(Harry Haller in Steppenwolf) does after a moment of protest, not only accept but genuinely embrace the disasters of life. This is what Nietzsche calls the “amor fati,‘  the love of (one’s) fate. In the final scene of Steppenwolf, Haller reflects that he “felt hollow, exhausted ready to sleep for a whole year,”  but he had glimpsed something of the meaning of  “life’s game”: “I would sample its tortures once more and shudder again at its senselessness. I would traverse not once more, but often, the hell of my inner being. One day I wold be better at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh.”   Laughter: that was the key to the amor fati. 214

Nietzsche had such disdain for these animals (sheep): Masters and predators loved them only because they were delicious.   215

There is no such thing as an immutable self, at least not in my world….The self does not lie passively in wait fur us to discover it. Selfhood is made in the active, ongoing process…The enduring nature of being human is to turn into something else, which should not be confused with going somewhere else… What one is essentially, is this active transformation, nothing more, nothing less.   220

“Become what you are”:  it has been described as “the most haunting of Nietzsche’s haunting aphorisms.” It expresses an abiding paradox at the core of human selfhood: either you are who you are already, or you become someone other than who you are.  220

Human existence does not proceed from hell to purgatory to salvation – or if it does, it does so repeatedly, and its epicycles are so tight and short that you never fully arrive. 221

Becoming is the ongoing process of losing and finding yourself.  221.

To see the sacred in the prosaic – this might be the objective of life…224

“You must find your dream,” Hesse instructs, “but no dream lasts forever, each dream is followed by another, and one should not cling to any particular dream.”  224

Nietzsche: I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus; I would reacher be a satyr than a saint.” 225