WEB LINK: Read some Nietzsche HERE. This is the famous passage where the madman proclaims that God is dead... It gives an excellent idea of the poetic and prophetic literary style which marked Nietzsche's writings.

Of one thing there is no doubt, however: he was a literary genius and a scholar of great learning. What follows is a brief summary of some (only some) of his ideas.

To Nietzsche, all previous philosophers were marked by disingenuousness. They all professed to seek truth but were actually merely confessing their own partisan attitudes towards life. They were unaware, he claimed, of the real motivations for their actions - and hence, for their writings. They were not indifferent observers of reality - they were actually forging reality according to their own perceptions and preconceptions.

Above all, claimed Nietzsche, they all dwelt in falsehood precisely because they erroneously sought polarities. They believed good was opposed to, and quite different from, evil - truth opposed to lies &c. They failed to see the real questions they should be asking : why should we prefer truth to untruth - good to bad. They also failed to see how these alleged polarities were inextricably linked into organic wholes. Good depends on, grows out of, is intertwined with, evil. Because of this they failed to see that there is not just one truth - one morality. It is more complicated than that. There will come, he prophesied, great men, truly free spirits, who will transcend good and evil, who will live and die by different standards from the masses of slavish men. Morality and truth will be different - and greater - for them.

Nietzsche scorned the great religions. Christianity was a slave cult which taught the littlness and pettiness of humans, which stupidly sought to protect and preserve the weakest and most deformed specimens of our species. Buddhism also was picked out for his contempt. If humanity is to bring forth its greatest specimens it must ruthlessly cull or use the weak and nurture the superman. The superman will be misunderstood (often he strives to be misunderstood) and his loneliness will be terrifying.

Nietzsche's philosophy is also marked by a deep affirmation of life. We should live each moment as though we willed it to reoccur, again and again. Each decision is made for eternity, not as if, once made, it evaporated like water in time's puddle. Milan Kundera wrote a book called The Unbearable Lightness of Being, taking his title from the opposite idea, that each action is of no consequence, and the first page of this book is a short commentary on this thesis of Nietzsche.

Nietzsche cried from the battlements that God was dead and that the stench of his decomposition was everywhere to be smelt, putrid and vile. One of his heroes, Zarathustra (in the book, Thus Spake Zarathustra), descended from his mountaintop with his eagle and snake (symbolically) and preached the new religion to the masses, but they did not understand him.

The primary human motivation, said Nietzsche, was the will to power - its primary good was joyous affirmation of life. This is an abundantly positive philosophy, trampling on the self-effacement and morbidity of the established religions. Humanity was not to be measured by its end (in the end, all are dead) but by its greatest specimens.

Nietzsche himself was, however, a sensitive and profound man. It is told that once he saw a horseman whipping his horse and he ran up, put his arms around the horse and cried. The world believed him mad.

You cannot judge Nietzsche, of course, without reading his books. But you can try some of his ideas out on yourself and let me know on Tuesday what you come up with. Look yourself honestly in the eye. Are you really a nice, kind, humble person, honestly and sincerely seeking the truth and to do what is right? Or is there a Machiavellian manipulator inside you, cowtowing to the slave morality only in the twisted hope of emerging triumphant even though you haven't the direct courage to stand up and fight? Do you believe in unconditional love for all, regardless of merit, or do you believe in the triumphant victory of the great over the little?

Do you believe in the will to goodness, to godliness, to simple, peaceful unity in the Divine or do you believe in the will to power, to freedom, to life?

Read comments on this week's session at MAILBOX.