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Part 2 of 16 in Nietzsche’s TSZ 2.0, my second reading of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, read aloud from my Substack essay series with added commentary. We keep working through the book, looking at what Nietzsche was actually trying to say and why it still matters.

Read the essay: https://michaelkuhlman.substack.com/p/piety-crossing-the-abyss-and-his

New to the series? Start with Part 1: https://michaelkuhlman.substack.com/p/thus-spoke-zarathustra-part-1

Follow the show for the next part. If this was helpful, leave a rating or review and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

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Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part 1 (Second Reading)

Nobody reads anymore. Lucky for you, I like reading to people.

This is my second time through Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I reread the whole book and wrote more than 15 new essays on it for Substack. Over the coming weeks I’ll be releasing all of them here on The Michael Kuhlman Show, read aloud with added analysis and commentary on what Nietzsche was actually trying to say and why it still matters.

This is Part 1.

Read the original essay on Substack: https://michaelkuhlman.substack.com/p/thus-spoke-zarathustra-part-1?r=1v11kx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

New parts drop regularly. Follow the show so you don’t miss one.

If this was helpful, leave a rating or review and share it with someone who needs to hear it. To support the show directly, join me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/michaelkuhlman

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Never doom

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Nietzsche is great, he's one of the best writers ever

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Nobody reads anymore. But lucky for you I like to read to people.

This is the final part of a four part series of essays on Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, his first book and his strangest. You don't need to have read it. You don't need any earlier videos. Everything you need is right here.

The argument: Nietzsche stole fire from gods he didn't believe in. He took the Greek pantheon, gutted it of any real metaphysical claim, and used the empty gods to build a theory of art, suffering, and how to be a self in a world without divine help. Apollo is the dream. Dionysus is the intoxication. And somewhere between them, Nietzsche the atheist smuggles in a mystical experience he refuses to call divine.

We cover the satyr, the witch's brew of lust and cruelty, the famous claim that existence is only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon, and a strange convergence with Plato's Ion, where the Greeks described being possessed by music two thousand years before Nietzsche felt the same current rise up from inside himself.

Fair warning: this book is confusing by design. Reading it is like staring into a sphere of black magic. That's part of why it's worth your time.

If this lands for you, drop a comment and tell me what piece of music has ever possessed you. And share this with someone who thinks Nietzsche was just an angry atheist.

Read the full essay on Substack: https://michaelkuhlman.substack.com/p...

Watch/Listen to Parts 1, 2 and 3 on YouTube or in the RSS feed.

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This is a channel about Nietzsche, Plato, Jung, and the ideas that built the Western mind.

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Nobody reads anymore. But lucky for you I like to read to people.

This is Part 3 of my deep dive into The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche's first book and one of the strangest things he ever wrote. If you have ever wondered why a young classics professor got run out of his field for a book about Greek theater, this is where it gets good.

We are talking Apollo and Dionysus. Order and chaos. Beauty and suffering. The two forces Nietzsche thought every great art and every great life is built on.

You do not need to have read the book. You do not need to have watched Parts 1 and 2. Jump in here and I will catch you up.

If you liked this, here is how to go deeper:

Follow me on Substack: https://michaelkuhlman.substack.com

Support the channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/michaelkuhlman

Subscribe for more content.

And do me a favor. Drop a comment with what you think Nietzsche got right or wrong, and share this with one person who would actually watch it. That is how this channel grows.

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Don't Fit In

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Enjoy this one, check out the substack or other podcasts thanks

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95% of creative effort goes nowhere. I'm looking for that 5%.

check out the youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelKuhlman

check out the substack articles: https://substack.com/@michaelkuhlman

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Nobody reads anymore. But lucky for you I like to read to people.

This is Part II of my Birth of Tragedy essay series on Substack. If you'd rather sit back and listen than read the essay on your phone, this one is for you.

A few lines from the piece:

"Nietzsche was actually a pretty decent guy in real life. But in his writing he constantly plays the heel."

"First you hate him, then you laugh at him, then his work starts to click and you see his genius."

"I read Nietzsche to discover what he means by 'evil'."

"His bedridden, half-blind ass would have been a delicious Viking victim."

"You must embrace the fact Nietzsche is, in a real sense, evil."

"Strip the gold out, because there is some gold."

We get into Nietzsche's method of constructing opponents just to destroy them, the villain origin story hiding inside his prose, the Viking thought experiment that exposes the whole project, and why you can still love the guy while calling him wrong.

Read the written version on Substack: https://michaelkuhlman.substack.com/p/part-ii-evil-nietzsche-the-birth

If this series is doing something for you, here are a few ways to keep it going: Become a Patreon member: https://www.patreon.com/c/michaelkuhlman

Or hit the Join button below this video to become a channel member. You get perks, I get to keep making this stuff.

Drop a comment with your take on Evil Nietzsche. I read them. And please share to help the show grow.