> Men were considered "free" only so that they might be considered guilty – could be judged and punished: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness (and thus the most fundamental psychological deception was made the principle of psychology itself).
Source: Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche
Nietzsches cheif argument was for a “revaluation of all values”—he believed that, given the major technological and scientific breakthroughs in the 17c - 19c, man had to reorient his relation to life. The old social forms, such as traditional Christian morals, were holding humanity back by valuing or prioritizing the wrong things (e.g. humility instead of the pursuit of knowledge). That’s the major thrust of his whole output. He was largely right about this. The point of my op is to say that we’ve more or less achieved what he sought minus the ordination of some new shceme of shared values to guide us (ubermensch).
People let Nietzsche’s admittedly amazing stylistics cloud their comprehension of his arguments which are actually rather straightforward—he saw that the world was changing and that societal change was lagging far behind technical change, as it in fact still does to this day.
That said, he’s still a delight to read. Some of the aphorisms are also still glittering gems. I just find the major concepts in his thinking are somewhat musty at this point.