There’s an interesting video here on Nietzsche, as part of the BBC series on philosophy and happiness. It’s good to get some pictures of the Alps and places where Nietzsche lived, and the overall account seems pretty good. It’s unfortunate that de Botton sticks to the old syphilis diagnosis, and the story about Nz embracing a flogged horse (both surely false).
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Is the syphilis diagnosis a common misconception? The forward on my copy of “Thus Spake Zarathustra” talks about the irony of an STD killing a virgin.
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Yes, all too common. It’s sort of a hobby horse of mine, since I’ve recently written an article on it. You can find it here:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1197382
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So, Charlie, it is probably not true that in one of his final gestures before total insanity Nietzsche embraced a horse being flogged in the street? I’m sad to hear this, as Kundera’s treatment of it in ‘Unbearable Lightness of Being’ is quite touching.
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