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Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good And Evil

1177 Words5 Pages

In Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical work, Beyond Good and Evil, he accuses every age of having its excesses, meaning that society is overindulgent in some of its habits and overly critical of other practices. In response to the excesses, Nietzsche says that philosophers “have found their task, their hard, unwarranted, inescapable task, but eventually also the greatness of their task, in being the bad conscience of their time” (section 212). In his work, Nietzsche recognizes that the excesses that are reflected in society throughout the ages change, so a good philosopher will change with the times and provide lessons that correspond to the excesses of the age. In accordance with Nietzsche’s beliefs about the world, I believe that the modern …show more content…

Individuals believe that by buying luxury things, they will be able to possibly feel better or more confident about themselves in addition to impressing others. However, there are many negatives that the excess of material possessions can have on individuals as well as society in general. The people who rely on their possessions for self-worth are not living life as fully as they might be able to. Many psychological research studies have been conducted that show that such a reliance on materialism can lead to higher rates of depression and less happiness in people. Additionally, when some people see the luxuries owned by others, then they become jealous of those possessions, which will impact the happiness of their lives as well. A solution to this excess in the modern world is for people to try to incorporate aspects of a minimalist lifestyles into their own lives. This lifestyle involves getting rid of excess possessions and only keeping things that are used frequently. Minimalists recognize that we should not be placing significant meanings on everything that we own because most of it is replaceable. If people in our age were able to remove their focus from their possessions, then they would be able to focus more on their happiness and relationships that they have with others around

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