Notes on Nietzsche's The Gay Science I

Book 1:1

Teachers of purpose appear (these are ostensibly Philosophy teachers, religious heads, or any professor of the whys of existence and the insistence on preserving the whole of the human race. Nietzsche talks about laughing at oneself for this. It's laughable. That humans divide eachother up as good and evil then talk about the necessity of every "evil" attribute in the loftier goal of preservation of the human race. It's laughable because it will survive on its own. Then these professors come in with second lives that aspire to do what the life of the race will do by its own nature. He mentions drives again and then laughs about how we are the only species that from time to time must understand "why" we live when other species just go on living without needing an answer to this question.

Book 1:2

Where Nietzsche describe his type of "injustice." He describes people as having no intellectual conscience. Many people. And those that do have it are lost to his kind in "the most densely populated cites as if he were in a desert." I agree with him on this, that the majority of people do not find it contemptible to think this way or that, weigh this as good and that as evil, but never account for the "desire for certainty" within himself as a problem. However he sees people who question their own "desire for certainty" as elite.

Book 1:3

Where Nietzsche talks about the "common" complaining about "noble (morally magnanimous) types because they suspect selfish motives led them to this lifestyle and when they are convinced of noble motives they simply see the noble as stupid to enjoy leading a life of martyrdom or self-disadvantage. Conversely the noble treats the common well, but complains endlessly that they won't do what is "needful" and that is their injustice.

Book 1:4

On what preserves the species which Nietzsche says "In every teacher and preacher of what is new  we encounter the same 'wickedness'. that makes conquerors notorious, even if its expression is subtler and it does not immediately set the muscles in motion, and therefore also does not make one that notorious. New is "evil" because it wants to overthrow and change the old. Old = "good." All things good as evil are just as expedient in preserving the human race as the other.

Book 1:5

Manipulative tactics of those who speak of their "Unconditional duties," and of themselves as servants to a cause he says "Because they desire the unconditional confidence of others, they need first of all to develop unconditional self-confidence on the basis of some ultimate and indisputable commandment" so that they can feel like "instruments."

Book 1:6

Loss of dignity... Reflection never stops, and doesn't require enough preparation. Thinking refuses to stop.

Book 1:7

"Where could you find a history of love, of avarice, of envy, of conscience, of pious respect for tradition, or of cruelty? He mentions vegetarianism as a basis for philosophy, then discards it. How differently have man's instincts grown! He describe culture and counter culture... and how much study it would take to give a why answer to all these variants of human instinct... then science can't do what it sets out to do with study and empiricism.

Book 1:8

...

This is how I get into the book I guess. Now I'm into Book 2 where Nietzsche slights women, provides some insight into men forming opinions about women in their minds and then finding humans instead, to their disgust and crediting women with "willingness" to reform themselves into the vision the man has dreamt up.

And at long last I discovered I was assigned Human, All Too Human for tomorrow's class and not The Gay Science until later in the semester... the human brain, oh how it works against and with the rest of the social world... nonetheless I will enter class tomorrow more educated than I was at the last class period... I feel like my prof shouldn't mind a lapse in practical sense... I hope.