I’ve just finished commenting on all the posts I’ve received and wanted to share a few thoughts and props:

• I’m impressed with the quality of your reading and writing over all: Nietzsche’s work is challenging, and many of your are reading/writing/thinking with great sophistication already, often pioneering into areas we left unexplored in our Zooms.
• Most of you grasped and nicely explained Nietzsche’s central polemic here, which is of course that “truth” as expressed in language and concepts is a network of “lies.” Thus, he’s not criticizing “liars” and urging them to tell the truth. If anything, it’s implicit that “liars” at least know they’re lying, whereas “truth-tellers” deceive themselves about the lying their language does.
• Relatively few of you ventured out into Nietzsche’s arguments about the implications of this first argument. What do we do if all our thinking and speaking yields “lies”? To review, and to make a long story very short, he explores the pathos and potential of the idea that humans are “architects” with language, and as such “superior to the bee” in that we create “hives” out of nothing. But when we forget that our constructions are just that–constructions–we imprison ourselves and live deadened lives. Instead, he wants us to boldly build and rebuild our reality, becoming people of “intuition” rather than solely pursuing the path of “reason” as modernity dictates we do.
• If you gave me something, you should have gotten something: a feedback sheet via Dropbox/email that I’ll continue using for you all term. Please reach out if you have questions.

All of you achieved some measure of success here, but a few students’ responses were especially keen, so I recommend that you check them out:

• Lizzie sums up the argument and closes with a convincing defense of how creative writers embody Nietzsche’s elevation of the person of “intuition” at the end of his essay.
• Evelyn compiles some well-chosen evidence and then closes with a provocative riff on what Nietzsche would think about extra-linguistic modes of expression, like music and dance. Great example of establishing the argument, then pushing beyond it to explore implications.
• Jason gives a thorough explanation of the argument that glosses the “reason” v “intuition” contrast nicely.
• Ayesha’s post is probably the most detailed walk-through of the argument, and she ends with a nice riff on style.

I’m not proposing these examples as cookie cutters for anyone, but I do think they make for valuable reading that we can learn from both in terms of sharper readings of the essay and of rhetorical examples to draw from. Thanks, you four!