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Beyond Food and People


Nietzsche shows us how to embrace our connection with nature – without denying its essential conflict, strife and suffering

Documentaries such as My Octopus Teacher(2020) show humans forging friendships with other species, Japanese animations such as Princess Mononoke(1997) celebrate fragile connections with ecosystems, and big-budget Hollywood films such as Avatar(2009) tell the stories of imaginary beings who are bonded with their planet’s biosphere. This belief serves the same purpose as spraying your lawn with an insecticide like pyrethroid: it erects a barrier that separates humans from the frightening reality that we are exposed to the chaotic entanglements of the natural world. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche likens this transcendence to the viewpoint of an Epicurean god, a divine being whose sphere of concern is much larger than the limited scope of humanity’s suffering, and who could therefore gaze upon the world as if it were a comedy – a joyful, laughter-inducing play.

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