Beyond Good and Evil, My Arse

Beyond Good and Evil, My Arse

I watch true crime documentaries to research good and evil. We’d like more good and less evil, right? I just watched movie The Night Stalker, about Richard Ramirez, who terrorized California in the 1980s. A friend was there at the time and her boss made her take his big dog home with her for protection. Ramirez killed at random-broke in at night, usually shot any men present and raped any women, no matter how old, then killed the woman with a hammer, gun, knife, phone cord-whatever.

In court he said we can’t understand him because he’s beyond good and evil, quoting German philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, Ian Brady, the Moors Murderer of children. Brady was also smarter than the rest of us and also beyond good and evil. Ramirez and Brady died in prison and that’s fine with me, how about you?

Nietzsche, Ramirez and Brady figured they were different, special, heroic flouters of social norms. Well poor “God is Dead” Nietzsche lived a lonely, sickly life and died from a degenerative brain disorder. I say “poor” Nietzsche because his father died young, probably from the same thing. How terrible would it be to know that? And to be constantly sick and lonely? He said what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but his rotting brain did kill him, leaving him a drooling paralytic for his final years. Poor Nietzsche is dead. God lives on.

Nietzsche’s philosophy is tailor-made for sociopaths. The Nazis were big fans. He said most people are sheep, slaves, conformists, but some with superior DNA are heroic, aggressive, willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill their lofty destiny. We should be lions, wolves, solitary and glorious predators. Trouble is, humans are social creatures-as are wolves and lions! So his biological justification was BS right from the get-go. But I can see where a middle-schooler who feels like an outsider would slurp this up. Nothing wrong with them, something wrong with everybody else! C’mon, we’ve all been fourteen, you can see the appeal.

But we should grow out of this. Sure, we’re all different-there never has been and never will be a person exactly like you. And that’s OK-unless you get stuck in the adolescent idea that you’re beyond good and evil.