Rick Roderick in his overbearing sarcastic style thrashes popular culture and modernity with the aid of Nietzsche’s writings.
He describes Nietzsche as a ‘Master of Suspicion’, a phrase taken from Paul Ricœur. Nietzsche’s definition of truth, the coin worn out by constant use losing its real value and leaving just the metal behind, is epitomical of his method of suspicion. So often we take our understanding of truths for granted, not bothering to see what it really is.
Rick Roderick reads Nietzsche in a much more metaphorical way than other scholars I have come across. For him, Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence is not a theory about cosmology, rather it is meant to challenge you to live a life that you would want to relive over and over. Same applies to Nietzsche writings about God.
Rick Roderick finds plain and simple atheism boring as it doesn’t add value or tell you anything meaningful. On the other hand, writers like Nietzsche are interesting as they understand the significance of religion for humankind and feel the gravity of our condition.
Rick sarcastically criticizes modernity and popular western culture. Donald Trump and other names prop up from time to time in this regard.
In the lecture on the genealogy of morals, Rick talks about the immoral beginning of our morals and the values behind our values. He questions all the talk about love by preachers and looks at it with suspicion. In particular, he cites Thomas Aquinas regarding the desire of believers to watch bad people burn in hell and take satisfaction out of it.
On Nietzsche’s will to power, Rick Roderick defends him on the charge of providing philosophical fuel for fascism. He spends the most time with Michel Foucault’s expansion of Nietzsche’s arguments in his book, Discipline and Punish.
Rick praises Nietzschean analysis of how knowledge is always surrounded by structures of power.
For detailed notes, check out this link.
