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I was born in Italy and emigrated to the States when I was just a little girl, and have been back to Italy many times. The reason I mention this, is that I noticed very early on that the peasant class, from which my lineage is derived, exhibits nearly all the tendencies attributed to them by Nietzche. And the most over-arching tendency being jealousy.

I'll give you an example: the last time I was there (2000) I met an old friend of the family, and he was doing very well financially. He's about my parents age of 70, and had done quite well for himself during the 60s and 70s, lost most of his wealth, and then climbed back out of that financial abyss.

I commented to some neighbors that Enzo was doing very well, and that his comeback was impressive. Their reply to me was, 'well maybe, but he's a little deaf, didn't you notice?' I didn't reply, except to shurg my shoulders in an attempt to relay the maxim that to argue against such entrenched obtuseness was obtuse in itself.

Anyway, my point is that rather than admit that he had indeed availed himself of some of his superior qualities, they had to find some unrelated defect, even if it meant naming something that was beyond his control.

The tendency of the inferior to do that is not confined to the peasants in Italy, or Europe in general. However, it flourishes there as opposed to here in the US, because here a man is judged and mostly admired (even if begrudgingly so) for his accomplishments.

That's the beauty of the US; a free society producing free minds. The greatest gift of my life, following the drawing of life's breath, was the gift of emigration to the United States.

Interesting story. It's good to have freedom, and more importantly, the freedom to know what is right and the freedom to do right.

The author mentions the chief distinction between nihilism and Camus: good and evil. But there may be another distinction which the consideration of death brings to light and even abhorrent "existentialism" points out: the meaning of good and evil is contingent on the meaning of death. In Marxism, which runs on class envy, the orientation of freedom and humanity is immanent, which means that the social order is for this world and this world alone, not after death. Death is easy come easy go, with trains and chambers etc.

Some pragmatic views in the United States still allow the consideration of the "future" to capture the meaning of justice, but more and more this is falling away in proportion to which death has become meaningless except for a good joke.