On this day in 1971 (50 years ago!), Leonard Bernstein presented “Thus Spake Richard Strauss”, a Young People’s Concert with the @New York Philharmonic. Bernstein explained to a national television audience Strauss’ Zarathustra “is a picture of man's greatest problem -- his mortality, the grim fact that he must die. This painful problem is shown in terms of a conflict…in musical terms: the struggle between one key and another, between one theme and another, between major and minor, between music

In this deeper dive into philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche we are going to look at his big ideas and his overall philosophy through the orienting generalisation of his thought as being health vs. decadence. Through this lens we can fruitfully place Nietzsche's "no-saying" work where he critiques Christianity, science and philosophy as well as his "yes-saying" work in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (with Zarathustra's three great ideas of the Ubermensch, the Eternal Recurrence and the Will to Power) and hi