Nietzsche: His Life and WorksLudovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario)
Philosophy
Nietzsche: His Life and Works
Ludovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario)
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900
Nietzsche reminds us before we start, however,[1] that in most communities
the two moralities have become so confused and mingled, in order
to establish that compromise which is so dear to the hearts of the
peaceful, that it would be almost a hopeless task to seek any society
on earth in which they are now to be seen juxtaposed in sharp contrast.
Be this as it may, in order to recognise the blood of each when we come
across it, we have only to think of what must have occurred when the
ruling caste and the ruled class took to moralising.
Taking the ruling caste first, it is clear that in their
morality, all is _good_ which proceeds from strength, power, health,
well-constitutedness, happiness, and awfulness; for the motive force
behind the people who evolved it was simply the will to discharge
a plenitude, a superabundance, of spiritual and physical wealth. A
consciousness of high tension, of a treasure that would fain give and
bestow,--this is the mental attitude of the nobles. The antithesis
"good" and "bad" to this first class means the same as "noble" and
"despicable." "Bad" in the master morality must be applied to the
coward, to all acts that spring from weakness, to the man with "an eye
to the main chance," who would forsake everything in order to live.
The creator of the master morality was he who, out of the very fulness
of his soul, transfigured all he saw and heard, and declared it better,
greater, more beautiful than it appeared to the creator of the slave
morality. Great artists, great legislators, and great warriors belong
to the class that created master morality.
Turning now to the second class, we must bear in mind that it is the
product of a community in which the struggle for existence is the
prime life-motor. There, inasmuch as oppression, suffering, weariness,
and servitude are the general rule, all will be regarded as good that
tends to alleviate pain. Pity, the obliging hand, the warm heart,
patience, industry, and humility,--these are undoubtedly the virtues
we shall here find elevated to the highest places; because they are
_useful_ virtues; they make life endurable; they are helpful in the
struggle for existence. To this class, all that proceeds from strength,
superabundance of spiritual or bodily power, or great health, is looked
upon with loathing and mistrust, while that which is awful is the worst
and greatest evil. He is good who is amenable, kind, unselfish, meek,
and submissive; that is why, in all communities where slave morality is
in the ascendant, a "good fellow" always suggests a man in possession
of a fair modicum of foolishness and sentimentality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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