The Philosophy of Friedrich NietzscheMencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900; Philosophy, German -- 19th century
Nietzsche points out that, in the racial economy, the place of woman
may be compared to that of a slave-nation, while the position of man
resembles that of a master-nation. We have seen how a weak nation,
unable, on account of its weakness, to satisfy its will to survive and
thirst for power by forcing its authority upon other nations, turns
to the task of keeping these other nations, as much as possible, from
enforcing their authority upon it. Realizing that it cannot rule, but
must serve, it endeavors to make the conditions of its servitude as
bearable as possible. This effort is commonly made in two ways: first
by ostensibly renouncing its desire to rule, and secondly, by attempts
to inoculate its powerful neighbors with its ideas in subterranean
and round-about ways, so as to avoid arousing their suspicion and
opposition. It becomes, in brief, humble and cunning, and with its
humility as a cloak, it seeks to pit its cunning against the sheer
might of those it fears.
The position of women in the world is much the same. The business
of bearing and rearing children is destructive to their physical
strength, and in consequence makes it impossible for them to prevail
by force when their ideas and those of men happen to differ. To take
away the sting of this incapacity, they make a virtue of it, and it
becomes modesty, humility, self-sacrifice and fidelity; to win in
spite of it they cultivate cunning, which commonly takes the form of
hypocrisy, cajolery, dissimulation and more or less masked appeals to
the masculine sexual instinct. All of this is so often observed in
every-day life that it has become commonplace. A woman is physically
unable to force a man to do as she desires, but her very inability to
do so becomes a sentimental weapon against him, and her blandishments
do the rest. The spectacle of a strong man ruled by a weak woman is no
rare one certainly, and Samson was neither the first nor last giant to
fall before a Delilah. There is scarcely a household in all the world,
in truth, in which the familiar drama is not being acted and reacted
day after day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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