← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Texas Dissident
Thread ID: 12097 | Posts: 10 | Started: 2004-02-01
2004-02-01 10:48 | User Profile
From [u]The Abolition of Man[/u] by C.S. Lewis...
This thing which I have called for convenience the Tao, and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgments, If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. Therefore never has been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems of (as they now call them) 'ideologies,' all consist of fragments of the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they possess. If my duty to my parents is a superstition, then so is my duty to posterity. If justice is a superstition, then so is my duty to my country or my race. If the pursuit of scientific knowledge is a real value, then so is conjugal fidelity. The rebellion of new ideologies against the Tao is a rebellion of the branches against the tree: if the rebels could succeed they would find that they had destroyed themselves. The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary color, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.
Does this mean, then, that no progress in our perceptions of value can ever take place? That we are bound down forever to an unchanging code given once for all? And is it, in any event, possible to talk of obeying what I call the Tao? If we lump together, as I have done the traditional moralities of East and West, the Christian, the Pagan, and the Jew, shall we not find many contradictions and some absurdities? I admit all this. Some criticism, some removal of contradictions, even some real development, is required. But there are two very different kinds of criticism.
A theorist about language may approach his native tongue, as it were from outside, regarding its genius as a thing that has no claim on him and advocating wholesale alterations of its idiom and spelling in the interests of commercial convenience or scientific accuracy. That is one thing. A great poet, who has 'loved, and been well nurtured in his mother tongue, may also make great alterations in it, but his changes of the language are made in the spirit of the language itself; he works from within. The language which suffers, has also inspired, the changes. That is a different thing - as different as the works of Shakespeare are from basic English. It is the difference between alteration from within and alteration from without: between the organic and the surgical.
In the same way, the Tao admits development from within. There is a difference between a real moral advance and a mere innovation. From the Confucian 'Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you' to the Christian 'Do as you would be done by' is a real advance. The morality of Nietzsche is a mere innovation. The first is an advance because no one who did not admit the validity of the old maxim could see reason for accepting the new one, and anyone who accepted the old would at once recognize the new as an extension of the same principle. If he rejected it, he would have to reject it as a superfluity, something that went too far, not as something simply heterogeneous from his own ideas of value. But the Nietzschean ethic can be accepted only if we are ready to scrap traditional morals as a mere error and then to put ourselves in a position where we can find no ground for any value judgments at all. It is the difference between a man who says to us: 'You like your vegetables moderately fresh; why not grow your own and have them perfectly fresh?' and a man who says, 'Throw away that loaf and try eating bricks and centipedes instead.'
Those who understand the spirit of the Tao and who have been led by that spirit can modify it in directions which that spirit itself demands. Only they can know what those directions are. The outsider knows nothing about the matter. His attempts at alteration, as we have seen, contradict themselves. So far from being able to harmonize discrepancies in its letter by penetration to its sprit, he merely snatches at some one precept, on which the accidents of time and place happen to have riveted his attention, and then rides it to death - for no reason that he can give. From with the Tao itself comes the only authority to modify the Tao. This is what Confucius meant when he said 'With those who follow a different Way it is useless to take counsel.' This is why Aristotle said that only those who have been well brought up can usefully study ethics: to the corrupted man, the man who stands outside the Tao, the very starting point of this science is invisible. He may be hostile, but he cannot b e critical: he does not know what is being discussed. This is why it was also said 'This people that knoweth not the Law is accursed' and 'He that believeth not shall be damned. An open mind, asking questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is not ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else.
In particular instances it may, no doubt, be a matter of some delicacy to decide where the legitimate internal criticism ends and the fatal external kind begins. But wherever any precept of traditional morality is simply challenged to produce its credentials, as though the burden of proof lay on it, we have taken the wrong position. The legitimate reformer endeavors to show that the precept in question conflicts with some precept; which its defenders allow to be more fundamental, or that it does not really embody the judgment of value it professes to embody. The direct frontal attack 'Why?' - "What good does it do?" - 'Who said so?' is never permissible; not because it is harsh or offensive but because no values at all can justify themselves on that level. If you persist in that kind of trial you will destroy all values, and so destroy the bases of your own criticism as well as the thing criticized. You must not hold a pistol to the head of the Tao. Nor must we postpone obedience to a precept until its credentials have been examined. Only those who are practicing the Tao will understand it. It is the well-nurtured man, the cour gentil, and he alone who can recognize Reason when it comes. It is Paul, the Pharisee, the man 'perfect as touching the Law' who learns where and how that Law was deficient.
In order to avoid misunderstanding, I may add that though I myself am a Theist, and indeed a Christian, I am not here attempting any indirect argument for Theism. I am simply arguing that if we are to have values at all we must accept the ultimate platitudes of Practical Reason as having absolute validity: that any attempt, having become skeptical about these, to reintroduce value lower down on some supposedly more 'realistic' basis, is doomed. Whether this position implies a supernatural origin of the Tao is a question I am not here concerned with. Yet how can the modern mind be expected to embrace the conclusion we have reached?
2004-02-05 01:24 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]From [u]The Abolition of Man[/u] by C.S. Lewis...
In the same way, the Tao admits development from within. There is a difference between a real moral advance and a mere innovation. From the Confucian 'Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you' to the Christian 'Do as you would be done by' is a real advance. The morality of Nietzsche is a mere innovation. The first is an advance because no one who did not admit the validity of the old maxim could see reason for accepting the new one, and anyone who accepted the old would at once recognize the new as an extension of the same principle. If he rejected it, he would have to reject it as a superfluity, something that went too far, not as something simply heterogeneous from his own ideas of value. But the Nietzschean ethic can be accepted only if we are ready to scrap traditional morals as a mere error and then to put ourselves in a position where we can find no ground for any value judgments at all. It is the difference between a man who says to us: 'You like your vegetables moderately fresh; why not grow your own and have them perfectly fresh?' and a man who says, 'Throw away that loaf and try eating bricks and centipedes instead.'[/QUOTE]
Evidently a grasp of Genealogy of Morals was beyond Lewis, perhaps because, as I suspect, he didn't even bother to read it. Contrary to the uninformed allegation above, Nietzsche in fact sought a restoration of traditional morals, properly understood, in displacement of the inversion thereof by Christianity in its beatitudinal and parabolic aspects. In Nietzsche's outstanding analysis, it is Christianity that represents the "innovation" in - and a disastrous perversion of - the historic moral order, the latter properly defined by uncontaminated aristocrats and the requirements of their society, which society accounts for the elevation of man such as it has been and can be. Nietzsche writes and is properly written about in terms of "immoralism" and a "revaluation" of values only with an implicit understanding of this context to his remarks - an understanding of which Lewis was likely incapable.
2004-02-05 09:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=NeoNietzsche]Contrary to the uninformed allegation above, Nietzsche in fact sought a restoration of traditional morals, properly understood, in displacement of the inversion thereof by Christianity in its beatitudinal and parabolic aspects.[/QUOTE]
So Nietzsche was a philo-semite who wanted to return to the moral code of OT/Talmudic judaic law.
Thank heaven for the Greeks and crypto-jew Paul.
2004-02-05 14:56 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]So Nietzsche was a philo-semite who wanted to return to the moral code of OT/Talmudic judaic law.
Thank heaven for the Greeks and crypto-jew Paul.[/QUOTE]
Tex,
No - were you familiar with Nietzsche's writings and the general moral circumstance of historic humanity, it would not occur to you that the only moral alternative to the bizarre New Testament had to be that of its distasteful predecessor. It is the case that Nietzsche favored the heroic story within the Old over the unseemliness of the account in the New, but his preference in moral codes was for that of Manu, rather than for something of Hebrew/Jewish derivation.
And your thanks to the Greeks and Paul also speaks of an innocence of the moral circumstance, and the limitations thereupon, of mankind in general, as if the primitive agriculturalist's belief and hope in his own eventual renewal and resurrection were of the essence of morality, preciously but very peculiarly vouchsafed first as a realizable expectation to a tiny bunch of miserable, thus-infected Mediterranids, according to their own unvetted account. Please do not make us go through that subsequent and consequent record of demented internecine sectarian atrocity, religious warring, crusading, inquisition, witch trying, etc., in response to some ludicrous claim of a moral superiority, properly speaking, attendant to the diseased devolution into Christian pretension and paranoia.
I hope you will continue, though, to work toward a grasp of these important matters.
Good to hear from you,
Neo
2004-02-05 17:01 | User Profile
[QUOTE=NeoNietzsche]I hope you will continue, though, to work toward a grasp of these important matters. [/QUOTE]
Thanks NN, but actually I'm not. I was only trying to tweak you.
The only N I've read is The Gay Science. That was enough to show me that with N you get some interesting insights, but ultimately no wisdom. I moved on.
2004-02-05 17:41 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Thanks NN, but actually I'm not. I was only trying to tweak you.
The only N I've read is The Gay Science. That was enough to show me that with N you get some interesting insights, but ultimately no wisdom. I moved on.[/QUOTE]
As if you had had any reasonable basis for having "moved on" evidenced by implicitly endorsing Lewis' radical misrepresentation of Nietzsche, in particular, and his incompetent discussion of the issue, in general.
No one who has not read Genealogy can make claims to judgments as to "wisdom". Or is ignorance bliss and thus your widely-shared brand of so-called "wisdom"? I would prefer to think not, but the burden is on you.
2004-02-06 03:02 | User Profile
Greetings gentlemen,
Most of what Lewis says here looks to me like garbled nonsense, as well as being arrogant nonsense, something that often evolves from the effort to rationalize over oneââ¬â¢s own religion ââ¬âhe should stick to art or faith. But I do sense that he is angling for an important point, one that constituted a central theme for Nietzscheââ¬â¢s philosophical project as a whole; namely, how to develop a critique of knowledge and value that is not constrained or predetermined by the very instruments that go into the making of the critique, i.e. words and the grammatical constructs in which they are couched. He argued that the language one need use to develop a revaluation of value, as well as to establish what would constitute ââ¬Åtruthââ¬Â, contained embedded, metaphysical assumptions that could not be overcome, and therefore had to be got around by other means. Cause and effect relationship was one prominent example, but importantly for this discussion, the notion of a ââ¬Åmoral-world-orderââ¬Â had become similarly imbedded and needed to be dislodged (moral-world-order essentially means that the universe, nature and human existence is imbued with moral qualities, to which we are answerable, rather than morality being seen as our invention).
Nietzscheââ¬â¢s approach to this predicament was to adopt a method that could be called experimentalism, captured by the metaphor of diving into icy water and coming up with something like pearls. Much of his writing in the aphoristic style is conditioned by this strategic approach to subjects of philosophical interest. Individual experiments in thought yielded many novel [I]perspectives[/I], and assembling perspectives, [I]many[/I] perspectives, was for him instrumental in challenging ââ¬âby necessarily [I]indirect [/I] meansââ¬â the inherited bias in language that framed and constrained what could be said and even thought from within the language itself. He called this [I]perspectivism[/I]. Truth, in the end, is more closely approximated by developing additional perspectives -the more perspectives, the closer to the Truth.
It seems to me that Lewis is more or less thrashing around within the constraints of language, and does not like the presumption that others might escape them. Essentially, he and Nietzsche are in agreement that one cannot preserve the existing edifice of Truth or value while abandoning the very materials from which it is made. For many people, a certain conventional nihilism or solipsism is likely to emerge from an honest encounter with Nietzscheââ¬â¢s project: it is dangerous material. But it has not shown itself to be more dangerous than Marxism or Christianity, at least if measured by their consequences. Lewis clearly feels that Nietzsche is dangerous, but he says nothing that demonstrates that Nietzsche was wrong ââ¬âand I canââ¬â¢t make sense of half of what Lewis says.
Genealogy of Morals consists of three extensive essays on moral themes, such as punishment, bad conscience, asceticism, guilt, etc. In the essay focusing on punishment, for instance, the primary methodology seems straightforward to me ââ¬âto go back and reconstruct the history of the concept and illustrate its evolution. The function of the concept and its nature as an artifact of society and a factor in human psychology have evolved over time. Whether it has evolved for better or worse in the West can be treated as an independent issue from the fact that it has evolved. However, Nietzsche is intent on demonstrating that the concept of punishment has had [I]different value[/I] at different times, and along with many other items and perspectives, he will apply the discoveries contained within the Genealogy for general and specific purposes in the revaluation of values that was to be his magnum opus. It does not seem that Lewis has a clue about how Nietzscheââ¬â¢s project was conducted, but only that [I]his [/I] worldview is threatened.
[I]ââ¬ÅIn order to avoid misunderstanding, I may add that though I myself am a Theist, and indeed a Christian, I am not here attempting any indirect argument for Theism. I am simply arguing that if we are to have values at all we must accept the ultimate platitudes of Practical Reason as having absolute validity: that any attempt, having become skeptical about these, to reintroduce value lower down on some supposedly more 'realistic' basis, is doomed. Whether this position implies a supernatural origin of the Tao is a question I am not here concerned with. Yet how can the modern mind be expected to embrace the conclusion we have reached?ââ¬Â[/I]
Nietzsche argues that once one has abandoned god, any morality predicated in any way on the supposition of god, must also be abandoned ââ¬âthe morality itself is not self-evident. It seems to me to be a tricky matter to separate morality from god in a civilization, when the two have evolved together. What elements of moral sensibility and the values they reflect in European culture are dependent on the god concept, and what elements are not? Since Lewis claims to be a Christian, he can personally ignore the question for himself, and frankly I think he should have ignored it altogether. But what he did was try to mandate a termination of the question for everyone, by resorting to a ââ¬Åpractical reasonââ¬Â (Kantââ¬â¢s?) that is not here defined. When he projects the prospects for those who might ignore his counsel, he suggests that the results of their efforts will necessarily assign values ââ¬Ålower downââ¬Â on some scale, the basis of which is false.
This ââ¬Åpositionââ¬Â is an utterly question-begging statement with no substance whatsoever - that I can detect, at least. But his concerns are real enough. In a sense, he is basically stating the whole challenge of relativism for any specific cultural stream, civilization, religion or people, when confronted by the need to compare itself or themselves to any other, under the effects of historicism, and the scrutiny of science and the whole body of comparative scholarship that are the very cause of the modern, human dilemma that he seeks to avoid, simply by wishing it away. His resorting to any kind of reason, practical or otherwise, doesnââ¬â¢t help. It was precisely reason, in conflict with tradition, myth, morality and religion that Nietzsche identified, as the great schism of his time.
When Nietzsche famously declared that god is dead, he was assessing the totality of Western civilization; and he offered his diagnosis of that civilization as one that had essentially killed its own god through a number of important developments ââ¬âprincipally, the whole secular regime founded upon the primacy of reason, and increasingly upon science and technology. What had been a long effort to reconcile reason and faith, reason and ââ¬Årevelationââ¬Â ââ¬âone more or less confined to a minority of intellectuals- had become the broad problem for the body politic as a whole, and ideologies were sweeping across the landscape most threateningly. Whatââ¬â¢s a guy to do?
Nietzscheââ¬â¢s answer? -When a thing is falling ââ¬â[I]push it[/I]!
From his point of view, Christianity contained a certain logical imperative that seems to have remained latent under the stewardship of the Catholic Church: that imperative is the prioritization of the individual. Jesus made this very clear: individual human beings are the [I]temple[/I], and the notion of building a church was completely alien to him ââ¬âas is virtually the whole of what constitutes Christendom (Kierkegaard surely agreed). This emphasis on the individual as the highest value is at the core of the democratic idea, and hence the basis for mass politics. In a sense, then, democracy is the union between reason and revelation ââ¬âor more precisely, the union between reason and one aspect of the ââ¬Årevealed truthââ¬Â as articulated by Jesus (and Christendom is not his responsibility).
A point that Nietzsche placed at the very foundation of his philosophy is that [I]life [/I] is biased in favor of itself. It is central to his identification of Will to Power (a multifaceted, subtle concept routinely misrepresented). I point this out because it fundamentally collides with core elements of the religion of Jesus that have necessarily been excluded from Christendom: one is the negative characterization of life on earth as a mere prelude (at best, a test) to the really important world to come; another ââ¬âand a corollary of the firstââ¬â is the imperative to [I]resist not evil[/I]. Consistent with this view, Jesus implores his audience to abandon all of their worldly interests and attachments, to not defend themselves from aggressors, and to care not for tomorrow, which will care for itself. In essence ââ¬âin the real worldââ¬â one must die. And I, personally, take him at his word when he makes these exhortations ââ¬â[I]he meant it[/I]. He wasnââ¬â¢t kidding.
It should be easy enough to see that a religion that patterned itself after the example of Jesus wouldnââ¬â¢t get very far. And so Christianity and Christendom, largely as a consequence of Paulââ¬â¢s energy, did everything it could to ignore Jesus, and to do and become something very, very different. I still find it astonishing to read the New Testament and realize that it has stalked alongside periods of great, priestly hatred, mob terror, up to the development of capitalism and imperialism in the West.
Anyway, I donââ¬â¢t want to emphasize this too much ââ¬âor to use it to mock or undermine Christians or Christianity. The important point is that life trumped Jesusââ¬â¢ example of an inspiring nobility of the soul. The emphasis on the centrality of the individual survived, however, and flourished in time to become a principle theme for Western civilization.
From Nietzscheââ¬â¢s view, this development is not without its unwanted consequences. In turn, popular participation in governance leads to the mediocritization of culture. Well, this is not the only force in the world, so itââ¬â¢s not a straight line. And, in my opinion, political economy was not Nietzscheââ¬â¢s forte. A personally restrained and considerate man who abhorred violence, he too was focused on the prioritization of the individual, and the preservation and development of high culture ââ¬âreally, how these values interact and enrich each other. He saw that the development of high culture had historically depended on the acceptance of an order of rank, where precisely one must accept that all people are not equal. Democracy in the most extreme sense is an unwarranted abstraction that threatens to debase humanity if allowed to degenerate to the lowest common denominator.
This is akin to his formula for [I]decadence[/I], and he saw Christianity as contributing to this in a profound way. The call to sacralize and sanctify the poor at heart, the sick and feeble, and the foolish things in this world is the slave revolt in morals that was begun by the Jews, founded on [I]resentment[/I] and conditioned by the cultivation of pity and guilt amongst the strong and optimistic. He argued that the genuine overman, of natural aristocratic composition and bearing, is obligated to mercy in victory, but that pity is a contra-natural, life negating and corrosive quality of mind. Pity is to be distinguished from sympathy and empathy. And, one must understand that for Nietzsche, the highest expression of the Will to Power is power over oneself ââ¬â[I]self-overcoming[/I].
Nietzscheââ¬â¢s attack on Christianity, like his assaults on metaphysics, can and should be judged by several criteria. One can ask if they are analytically sound ââ¬âare they accurate, true, self-consistent. There is a remarkable degree of art and style in his writing as well. He contributes insight to a wide array of disciplines and lines of thought, some of which he founded. One can also ask if his recommendations on living and acting publicly and privately are acceptable. Does a philosophy, which is supposed to be about getting to the "truth", need to be acceptable to our sentiments? Do his work contribute to a better life for individuals and in society? There is no one answer for all of these questions.
Regarding Nietzsche and Judaism:
Briefly, Nietzsche had a very complex regard for Judaism and the Jews, and he also had a big impact on Jewish intellectuals ââ¬âwhich they often hide (surprise, surprise). Neo-Nietzsche is right to point out that Nietzscheââ¬â¢s position on Jews and Judaism in ancient times will be different than his attitude towards them in a contemporary context. And depending on what aspect of Jews and Judaism he is considering, and in what historical context he was considering this particular aspect, -as well as what issue or issues he is relating it to- you will get from him a highly nuanced point of view.
As an example, his regard for rabbinical Judaism is fundamentally different than his regard for ancient tribal Judaism. In the former, you have the foundational corruption of the stated relationship between Man and World ââ¬âthe radical denaturing of Manââ¬â¢s identity. In the latter ââ¬âtribal Judaismââ¬â you have a profound example of the work of soldier-prophets, whose commanding attitude, arrogance, and will often new no limits. It would be, for Nietzsche, an excellent example of will to life, Will to Power and self-affirmation. When one scans history, such a strong tribal leadership and identity has counted for much ââ¬âincluding survival. That identity, that left as its legacy the writings of the Old Testament, was radically inverted during successive diasporas, and amazingly survived in its twisted form to this day.
You will find Nietzsche observing that Jews have the ââ¬Åtoughest, vital energyââ¬Â of any people, and also that they are the ââ¬Åmost catastrophicââ¬Â of peoples. He states that the Jews know how ââ¬Åto place themselves at the head of every decadence movement,ââ¬Â and yet he credits them with preserving a ââ¬Åmore rationalââ¬Â view of life in Europe ââ¬âwhich I have come to see as a very subversive project.
Nietzsche opposed nationalism, and felt that the destiny of Western civilization and culture would best be served by a consolidated Europe. He was an advocate of the mingling of Jews and the European peoples, perhaps believing that both Judaism and Christianity would be undermined in the process ââ¬âthus overcoming one of the pillars of the concept of moral-world-order.
It is my opinion that Nietzsche underestimated the persistence of the [I]Chosen People[/I] to retain their self-identity as the elect, despite the appearance of assimilation. Itââ¬â¢s a tough call, but because the struggle over assimilation amongst the Jews has been going on since the time of Moses, I tend to think that they will always have that stupid arrogance and continue to subvert every other culture they can.
Nietzsche should have spent more time amongst the Hasid -rather than reading Heineââ¬â¢s prose or Spinoza- to get a full sense of whatââ¬â¢s wrong with these people, and why the major cultures of the ancient world should have built a wall around Israel, kept them inside, and left them alone.
Anyway, reading Nietzsche is an important part of understanding what the Jews are all about, I believe. You will find no better description of the poisonous hatred that underlies and informs their culture ââ¬âthe hatred and mind-boggling arrogance that makes Judaism a form of destructive, cultural insanity. ]
2004-02-06 08:01 | User Profile
Good piece. Thanks for posting.
2004-02-07 09:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=NeoNietzsche]As if you had had any reasonable basis for having "moved on" evidenced by implicitly endorsing Lewis' radical misrepresentation of Nietzsche, in particular, and his incompetent discussion of the issue, in general.
No one who has not read Genealogy can make claims to judgments as to "wisdom". Or is ignorance bliss and thus your widely-shared brand of so-called "wisdom"? I would prefer to think not, but the burden is on you.[/QUOTE]
Neo:
I haven't read Geneology in years. I will re-read it, though. Just as soon as I'm finished with the wonders of Subpart F of the Internal Revenue Code, which currently absorb my attentions.
In the meantime, just for the sake of argument, let's forget about whether Nietszche really said the things Lewis asserts, and focus on the argument Lewis makes. Just replace "Nietszche" with "Strawman" in the passage above, and let's discuss the passage on those terms.
It seems to me that whether N actually argued as Lewis contends is beside the point, because the Strawman position (i.e. that there is no moral order to the universe) is an idea very much in currency (especially in American universities, as you know as well as I), and Lewis's response to that are worthy of discussion on that basis alone.
I would be most interested in hearing your thoughts on that. Are you saying that Nietszche believed in the Natural Law (or the Tao, as Lewis defines it above)?
Walter
2004-02-07 13:47 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Are you saying that Nietszche believed in the Natural Law (or the Tao, as Lewis defines it above)?[/QUOTE]
I would say that he certainly believed in a version thereof, emphasizing the order that naturally arises among, and that is imposed by, warriors and aristocrats:
"It's certainly true that, on average, even among the most just people even a small dose of hostility, malice, insinuation is enough to make them see red and chase fairness out of their eyes. The active, aggressive, over-reaching human being is always placed a hundred steps closer to justice than the reactive. For him it is not even necessary in the slightest to estimate an object falsely and with bias, the way the reactive man does and must do. Thus, as a matter of fact, at all times the aggressive human beingââ¬âthe stronger, braver, more noble manââ¬âhas always had on his side a better conscience as well as a more independent eye. And by contrast, we can already guess who generally has the invention of "bad conscience" on his conscienceââ¬âthe man of resentment!
"Finally, let's look around in history: up to now in what area has the whole implementation of law in general as well as the essential need for law been at home? Could it be in the area of the reactive human beings? That is entirely wrong. It is much more the case that it's been at home with the active, strong, spontaneous, and aggressive men. Historically considered, the law on earthââ¬âlet me say this to the annoyance of the above-mentioned agitator (who himself once made the confession "The doctrine of revenge runs through all my work and efforts as the red thread of justice")ââ¬ârepresents that very struggle against the reactive feelings, the war with them on the part of active and aggressive powers, which have partly used up their strength to put a halt to or restrain reactive pathos and to compel some settlement with it."
"I used the word 'State'ââ¬âit is self-evident who is meant by that termââ¬âsome pack of blond predatory animals, a race of conquerors and masters, which, organized for war and with the power to organize, without thinking about it sets its terrifying paws on a subordinate population which may perhaps be vast in numbers but is still without any shape, is still wandering about. That's surely the way the 'State' begins on earth. I believe that that fantasy has been done away with which sees the beginning of the state in some 'contract.' The man who can command, who is naturally a 'master,' who comes forward with violence in his actions and gesturesââ¬âwhat has a man like that to do with making contracts! We cannot negotiate with such beings. They come like fate, without cause, reason, consideration, or pretext. They are present as lightning is present, too fearsome, too sudden, too convincing, too 'different' even to become hated. Their work is the instinctive creation of forms, the imposition of forms. They are the most involuntary and unconscious artists in existence. Where they appear something new is soon present, a living power structure, something in which the parts and functions are demarcated and coordinated, in which there is, in general, no place for anything which does not first derive its 'meaning' from its relationship to the totality."
"Every elevation of the type 'man,' has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society and so it will always be--a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the pathos of distance, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes, out of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on subordinates and instruments, and out of their equally constant practice of obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping at a distance--that other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the longing for an ever new widening of distance within the soul itself, the formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more comprehensive states, in short, just the elevation of the type 'man,' the continued 'self-surmounting of man,' to use a moral formula in a supermoral sense. To be sure, one must not resign oneself to any humanitarian illusions about the history of the origin of an aristocratic society (that is to say, of the preliminary condition for the elevation of the type 'man'): the truth is hard. Let us acknowledge unprejudicedly how every higher civilisation hitherto has originated! Men with a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, men of prey, still in possession of unbroken strength of will and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more peaceful races (perhaps trading or cattle-rearing communities), or upon old mellow civilisations in which the final vital force was flickering out in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement, the noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their superiority did not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical power--they were more complete men (which at every point also implies the same as 'more complete beasts')."
"To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one's will on a par with that of others: this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary conditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals in amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relation within one organisation). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle more generally, and if possible even as the fundamental principle of society, it would immediately disclose what it really is--namely, a Will to the denial of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation;--but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped? Even the organisation within which, as was previously supposed, the individuals treat each other as equal--it takes place in every healthy aristocracy--must itself, if it be a living and not a dying organisation, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals within it refrain from doing to each other: it will have to be the incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendency--not owing to any morality or immorality, but because it lives, and because life is precisely Will to Power. On no point, however, is the ordinary consciousness of Europeans more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter; people now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which 'the exploiting character' is to be absent:-- that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should refrain from all organic functions. 'Exploitation' does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society: it belongs to the nature of the living being as a primary organic function; it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life.--Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is the fundamental fact of all history: let us be so far honest towards ourselves!"