Hello everyone. I'm Stephen West. This is philosophize this.

So I want to continue where we left off last episode, which means you may need to listen to that one before this one.

Just fair warning. I'm talking from here on out as though you've listened to it with little explanation.

It's called Nietzsche Returns with a Hammer.

Now I want to talk more about this life-affirming perspective that Nietzsche's bringing up in his later work.

What would it look like if someone woke up in the morning

and started their day from a place where they were affirming all aspects of life as they were

rather than renouncing them, rather than that overly rational, overly idealistic way of living that just

recreates a classic Christian renunciative way of looking at the world that in his

eyes is responsible for the decay of Western society. What would that world of life

affirmation look like?

And what would a morality structured around affirmation even be like?

I mean, these are questions that really captivated Nietzsche for a lot of his later career.

They're tough questions to answer too, by the way, and we'll get into what he had to say about them.

But first, real quick, if on this episode we're going to try to look at the world through

this life-affirming lens, you know, if you're trying to see things in a new way and

for someone who's intrigued by this story Nietzsche's telling of him

smashing the idols from the history of Western thought with a hammer, real quick

can we just take a second to appreciate?

What Socrates looks like from Nietzsche's perspective if he's right here?

I mean you know he doesn't like Socrates, I get that.

But just think about who this guy really is if Nietzsche's right. Think of his whole game.

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