Apr 12, · Nietzsche says in his essay, “It is even a difficult thing for him to admit to himself that the insect or the bird perceives an entirely different world from the one that man does, and that the question of which of these perceptions of the world is the more correct one is quite meaningless, for this would have to have been decided previously in accordance with the criterion of the correct perception, which % Nietzsche introduces this essay by asking, "what is the meaning of ascetic ideals?" He answers that it has meant many different things to many different people, suggesting that we would "rather will nothingness than not will." The concept then seems to reveal much about theway Nietzsche saw life. This essay will attempt on seeing through, as much aspossible, the idea of overman by Nietzsche and life from the point of view ofan overman. An overman as described byZarathustra, the main character in ThusSpoke Zarathustra, is the one who is willing to risk all for the sake ofenhancement of humanity
Nietzsche: Genealogy of Morals: First Essay
On nietzsche essay Genealogy of Morals A Polemical Tract by Friedrich Nietzsche. Editorial comments and translations in square brackets and italics are by Ian Johnston; comments in normal brackets are from Nietzsche's text]. First Essay Good and Evil, nietzsche essay, Good and Bad, nietzsche essay. These English psychologists whom we have to thank for the only attempts up to this point to produce a history of the origins of morality—in themselves they serve up to us no small riddle.
In the way of a lively riddle, they even offer, I confess, something substantially more than their books—they are interesting in themselves! These English psychologists—what do they really want? We find them, willingly or unwillingly, always at the same work, that is, hauling the partie honteuse [shameful part] of our inner world into the foreground, in order to look right there for the truly effective and operative force which has determined our development, the very place where man's intellectual pride least wishes to find it for example, in the vis inertiae [force of inertia] of habit or in forgetfulness or in a blind, contingent, mechanical joining of ideas or in something else purely passive, automatic, reflex, molecular, nietzsche essay, and completely stupid —what is it that really drives these psychologists always in this particular direction?
Is it a secret, nietzsche essay, malicious, common instinct perhaps one which is self-deceiving for belittling humanity? Or something like a pessimistic suspicion, the mistrust of idealists who've become nietzsche essay, gloomy, venomous, and green, nietzsche essay. Or a small underground hostility and rancour towards Christianity and Platowhich perhaps has never once managed to cross the threshold of consciousness? Or even nietzsche essay lecherous taste for what is odd or painfully paradoxical, for what in existence is questionable and ridiculous?
Or finally a bit of all of these—a little vulgarity, a little gloominess, a little hostility to Christianity, a little thrill, and a need for pepper? But people tell me that these men are simply old, cold, boring frogs, which creep and hop around people as if they were in their own proper element, that is, in a swamp.
I resist that idea when I hear it, nietzsche essay. What's more, nietzsche essay, I don't believe nietzsche essay. And if one is permitted to hope where one cannot know, then I hope from my heart that the situation with these men could be reversed, that these investigators peering at the soul nietzsche essay their microscopes could be thoroughly brave, generous, and proud animals, who know how to control their hearts and their pain and who have educated themselves to sacrifice everything desirable for the sake of the truth, for the sake of every truth, even the simple, nietzsche essay, the bitter, the hateful, the repellent, the unchristian, the unmoral truth.
For there are nietzsche essay truths. So all respect to the good spirits that may govern in these historians of morality! But it's certainly a pity nietzsche essay they lack the historical spirit itself, nietzsche essay, that they've been left in the lurch by all the good nietzsche essay of history! Collectively they all think essentially unhistorically, in the traditional manner of philosophers.
Of that there is no doubt. The incompetence of their genealogies of morals reveals itself at the very beginning, nietzsche essay, where the issue is to determine the origin of the idea and of the judgment "good. Later people forgot how this praise began, and because unegoistic actions had, according to custom, always been praised as good, nietzsche essay, people then simply felt them as good, as if they were something inherently nietzsche essay. We see right away that this initial derivation nietzsche essay contains all the typical characteristics of the idiosyncrasies of English psychologists—we have "usefulness," "forgetting," "habit," and finally "error," all as the foundation for an evaluation in which the nietzsche essay man up to this time has taken pride, as if it were a sort of privilege of men generally.
This pride should be humbled, this evaluation of worth emptied of value. Has that been achieved? Now, first of nietzsche essay, it's obvious to me that from this theory the origin of the idea "good" has been sought for and established in the wrong place: the judgment "good" did not move here from those to whom "goodness" was shown!
It is much more that case that the "good people" themselves, that is, the noble, powerful, higher-ranking and higher-thinking people felt and set themselves and their actions up as good, that is to say, of the first rank, in contrast to everything low, low-minded, common, and vulgar.
From this pathos of distance they first arrogated to themselves the right to create values, nietzsche essay, to stamp out the names for values, nietzsche essay.
What did they care about usefulness! In relation to such a hot pouring out of the highest rank-ordering, rank-setting judgments of value, nietzsche essay, the point of view which considers utility is as foreign and inappropriate as possible, nietzsche essay. Here the feeling has reached the opposite of that low level of warmth which is a condition for that calculating shrewdness, that calculation by utility—and not just for a moment, not for an exceptional hour, but permanently.
The pathos of nobility and distance, as mentioned, the lasting and domineering feeling, something total and complete, of a higher ruling nature in relation to a lower nature, nietzsche essay, to an "beneath"—that is the origin of the opposition between "god" and "bad. Given this origin, the word "good" was not in any way necessarily tied up with "unegoistic" actions, as the superstitions of those genealogists of morality tell us.
Rather, that occurs for the first time with the collapse of aristocratic value judgments, nietzsche essay, when this entire contrast between "egoistic" and "unegoistic" pressed itself ever more strongly into human awareness—it is, to use my own words, nietzsche essay, the instinct of the herd which, nietzsche essay, through this contrast, finally gets its word and its words.
And even so, nietzsche essay, it nietzsche essay a long time until this instinct in the masses became ruler, with the result that moral evaluation got downright hung up and bogged down on nietzsche essay opposition as is the case, for example, in modern Europe: today the prejudice that takes "moralistic," "unegoistic," " désintéressé " [disinterested] as equally valuable ideas already governs, with the force of a nietzsche essay idea" and a disease of the brain.
Secondly, however, and quite separate from the fact that this hypothesis about the origin of the value judgment "good" is historically untenable, nietzsche essay, it suffers from an inherent psychological contradiction, nietzsche essay. The utility of the unegoistic action is supposed to be the origin of the praise it receives, and this origin has allegedly been forgotten: but how is this forgetting even possible?
Could the usefulness of such actions at some time or other just stop? The case is the opposite: this utility has rather been an everyday experience throughout the ages, and thus something that has always been constantly re-emphasized. Hence, instead of disappearing out of consciousness, instead of becoming something forgettable, it must have pressed itself into the consciousness with ever-increasing clarity.
How much more sensible is the contrasting theory nietzsche essay is not therefore closer to the truthfor example, nietzsche essay, the one which is advocated nietzsche essay Herbert Spencer: he proposes that the idea "good" is essentially the same as the idea "useful" or "functional," so that in judgments about "good" nietzsche essay "bad" human beings sum up and endorse the experiences they have not forgotten and cannot forget concerning the useful-functional and the harmful-useless.
According to this theory, good is something which has always proved useful, so that it may assert its validity as "valuable in the highest degree" or as "valuable in itself. I was given a hint in the right direction by this question: What, nietzsche essay, from an etymological perspective, do the meanings of "Good" as manifested in different languages really mean?
There I found that all of them lead back to the same transformation of ideas, that everywhere "noble" or "aristocratic" in a social sense is the fundamental idea out of which "good" in the sense of "spiritually noble," "aristocratic," "spiritually high-minded," "spiritually privileged" nietzsche essay develop—a process which always runs in parallel with that other one which finally transforms "common," "vulgar," and "low" into nietzsche essay concept "bad.
Originally these words designated the plain, common man, but without any suspicious side glance, simply in contrast to the nobility. Around the time of the Thirty Years War approximately—hence late enough—this sense changed into the one used now. In connection with the genealogy of morals, this point strikes me as a fundamental insight—that it was first discovered so late we can ascribe to the repressive influence which democratic prejudice in the modern world exercises over all questions of origin.
And this occurs in the apparently objective realm of natural science and physiology, a point which I can only hint at here.
But the sort of mischief this prejudice can cause, nietzsche essay, once it has become unleashed as hatred, particularly where morality and history are concerned, is revealed in the well-known case of Buckle: the plebeian nature of the modern spirit, which originated in England, broke out once again on its home turf, as violently as nietzsche essay muddy volcano and with the same salty, overloud, and common eloquence with which all previous volcanoes have spoken 1.
With respect to our problem—which for good reasons we can call a quiet problem, so refined that nietzsche essay directs itself nietzsche essay at a few ears—there is no little interest in establishing the point that often in those words and roots which designate "good" there still shines through the main nietzsche essay of what nietzsche essay the nobility feel they were men of higher rank.
It's true that in most cases they perhaps named themselves simply after their superiority in power as "the powerful," "the masters," "those in command" or after the most visible sign of their superiority, for example, as "the rich" or "the owners" that is the meaning of aryaand the corresponding words in Iranian and Slavic. But they also named themselves after a typical characteristic, and that is the case which is our concern here. For instance, they called themselves "the truthful"—above all the Greek nobility, whose mouthpiece is the Megarian poet Theogonis.
The word developed for this characteristic— esthlos [fine, noble] —indicates, according to its root meaning, a man who is, who possess reality, who really exists, nietzsche essay. Then, with a subjective transformation, it indicates the true man as the truthful man. In this phase of conceptual transformation it became the slogan and catch phrase for the nobility, and its sense shifted entirely over to "aristocratic," to mark a distinction from the lying common man, as Theogonis takes and presents him, until finally, after the decline of the nobility, the word remains as a designation of spiritual nobility and, so to speak, becomes ripe and sweet.
In the word kakos [weak, worthless] as in the word deilos [cowardly] the plebeian in contrast to the agathos [good, excellent] the cowardice is emphasized. This perhaps provides a hint about the direction in which we have to seek the etymological origin for the multiple meanings of agathos.
In the Latin word malus [bad] which I place alongside melas [black] the common man could be designated as the dark-coloured, above all as the dark-haired " hic niger est " [this man is black]as the pre-Aryan inhabitant of Italian soil, who stood out from those who became dominant, the blonds, that is, nietzsche essay, the conquering race of Aryans, most clearly through this colour.
At any rate, the Gaelic race nietzsche essay me an exactly corresponding example, nietzsche essay. The word fin for example, in the name Fin-Galthe term designating nobility and finally the good, noble, and pure, originally referred to the blond-headed man in contrast to the dusky, dark-haired nietzsche essay inhabitants.
Incidentally, the Celts were a thoroughly blond race. People are wrong when they link the traces of a basically dark-haired nietzsche essay, which are noticeable on the carefully prepared ethnographic maps of Germany, with any Celtic origin and mixing of blood, as Virchow does.
It is much rather the case that in these places the pre-Aryan population of Germany emerged. The same is true for almost all of Europe: essentially the conquered races finally attained the upper hand for themselves once again in colour, nietzsche essay, shortness of skull, perhaps even in the intellectual and social instincts: who can confirm for us that modern democracy, the even more modern anarchism, and indeed that preference for the "Commune," for the primitive form of society, which all European socialists now share, does not indicate a monstrous counter-attack and that the ruling and master race, nietzsche essay Aryans, is not being defeated, even physiologically?
Hence, bonus as a man of nietzsche essay, of division duoas a warrior. We can see what constituted a man's "goodness" in ancient Rome. What about our German word " Gut " [good] itself. Doesn't it indicate " den Göttlichen " [the god-like man]?
And isn't it identical to the people's originally the nobles' name for the Goths? The basis for this hypothesis does not belong here. From this rule that the concept of political superiority always resolves itself into the concept of spiritual priority, it is not really an exception although there is room for exceptionswhen the highest caste is also the priest caste and consequently for its total range of meanings prefers a scale of values which recalls its priestly function, nietzsche essay.
So, for example, for the first time the words "pure" and "impure" appear as marks of one's social position and later a "good" and a "bad" develop which no longer refer to social position. People should be warned not to take nietzsche essay ideas of "pure" and "impure" from the outset too seriously, too broadly, or even symbolically. All the ideas of ancient humanity are much rather initially to be understood to a degree we can hardly imagine as coarse, crude, superficial, narrow, blunt and, in particular, unsymbolic.
The "pure man" is from the start simply a man who washes himself, who forbids himself certain foods which produce diseases of the skin, who doesn't sleep with the dirty women of the lower people, nietzsche essay, who has a horror of blood—no more, not much more!
On the other hand, from the very nature of an essentially priestly aristocracy it is clear enough how even nietzsche essay early on the opposition between different evaluations could become dangerously internalized and sharpened.
And in fact they finally ripped open fissures between man and man, over which even an Achilles or a free spirit could not cross without shivering. From the very beginning there is something unhealthy about such priestly aristocracies and about the customary attitudes nietzsche essay govern in them, which turn away from action, sometimes brooding, sometimes exploding with emotion, as a result of which in the priests of almost all ages there have appeared debilitating intestinal illness and neurasthenia, nietzsche essay.
But what they themselves came up with as a remedy for this pathological disease—surely we can assert that it has finally shown itself, through its effects, as even a hundred times more dangerous than the illness for which it was meant to provide relief. Human beings are still sick from the after effects of this priestly naïveté in healing! Let's think, for example, of certain forms of diet avoiding meatnietzsche essay, of fasting, of celibacy, of the flight "into the desert" Weir Mitchell's isolation, but naturally without the fattening up cure and overeating which follow it—a treatment which constitutes the most effective treatment for all hysteria induced by the ideals of asceticism : consider also the whole nietzsche essay of the priests—so hostile to the senses, making men so lazy and sophisticated—or the way they hypnotize themselves in the manner of fakirs and Brahmins—Brahmanism employed as a glass head and a fixed idea Consider finally the only too understandable and common dissatisfaction with its radical cure, with nothingness or God—the desire for a unio mystica [mystical union] with God is the desire of the Buddhist for nothingness, nirvana—nothing more!
Among the priests, nietzsche essay, everything becomes more dangerous—not only the remedies and arts of healing, but also pride, vengeance, nietzsche essay, mental acuity, excess, love, thirst for power, virtue, illness—although it's fair enough to add that on the foundation of this basically dangerous form of human existence, the priest, for the first time the human being became, in general, an interesting animal, that here the human soul first attained depth in a higher sense and became evil—and, indeed, these are the two fundamental reasons for humanity's superiority, up to now, over other animals.
You will have already guessed how easily the priestly way of evaluating could split from the knightly-aristocratic and then continue to develop into its opposite.
Such a development receives a special stimulus every time the priest caste and the warrior caste confront each other jealously and are not willing to agree about the winner. The knightly-aristocratic judgments of value have as their basic assumption a powerful physicality, a blooming, rich, even overflowing health, together with those things which are required to maintain these qualities—war, nietzsche essay, adventure, hunting, dancing, war games, nietzsche essay, and in general nietzsche essay which involves strong, free, happy action.
The priestly-noble method of evaluating has, as we saw, other preconditions: these make it difficult enough for them when it comes to war! As is well known, priests are the most evil of enemies—but why? Because they are the most powerless. From their powerlessness, their hate grows into something immense and terrifying, to the most spiritual and most poisonous manifestations.
Those who have been the greatest haters in world history and the most spiritually rich haters have always been the priests—in comparison with the spirit of priestly revenge all the remaining spirits are hardly worth considering. Human history would be a really stupid affair without that spirit which entered it from the powerless.
Let us quickly consider the greatest example. Everything on earth which has been done against "the nobility," "the powerful," "the masters," "the possessors of power" is not worth nietzsche essay in comparison with what the Jews have done against them—the Jews, that priestly people who knew how to get final satisfaction from their enemies and conquerors through a radical transformation of their values, that is, through an act of the most spiritual revenge.
This was appropriate only to a priestly people with the most deeply rooted priestly desire for revenge. By contrast, you privileged and powerful people, you are for all eternity the evil, the cruel, the lecherous, insatiable, the godless—you will also be the unblessed, the cursed, and the damned for all eternity!
In connection with that huge and immeasurably disastrous initiative which the Jews nietzsche essay with this most fundamental of all declarations of war, I recall the sentence I wrote at another time in Beyond Good and Evilp. But you fail to understand that?
Genealogy of Morals - Friedrich Nietzsche
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The concept then seems to reveal much about theway Nietzsche saw life. This essay will attempt on seeing through, as much aspossible, the idea of overman by Nietzsche and life from the point of view ofan overman. An overman as described byZarathustra, the main character in ThusSpoke Zarathustra, is the one who is willing to risk all for the sake ofenhancement of humanity Nietzsche introduces this essay by asking, "what is the meaning of ascetic ideals?" He answers that it has meant many different things to many different people, suggesting that we would "rather will nothingness than not will." Nov 30, · Words | 8 Pages. Srivaishnav Gandhe blogger.com English 30 Nov. Thesis Nietzsche and his Influence on the Modern Western World “Nietzsche is an atheist, a life-affirming nihilist, an extreme pessimist, a trickster, a gleefully defiant irreverent rebel and a sick hero”, my father said when I asked, “What does Nietzsche mean to you.”
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