The Genealogy of Morals: The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
The Genealogy of Morals: The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
Nietzsche · en
hostility, malice, or innuendo to drive the blood into his brain and
the fairness _from_ it. The active man, the attacking, aggressive man
is always a hundred degrees nearer to justice than the man who merely
reacts; he certainly has no need to adopt the tactics, necessary in the
case of the reacting man, of making false and biassed valuations of his
object. It is, in point of fact, for this reason that the aggressive
man has at all times enjoyed the stronger, bolder, more aristocratic,
and also _freer_ outlook, the _better_ conscience. On the other hand,
we already surmise who it really is that has on his conscience the
invention of the "bad conscience,"--the resentful man! Finally, let man
look at himself in history. In what sphere up to the present has the
whole administration of law, the actual need of law, found its earthly
home? Perchance in the sphere of the reacting man? Not for a minute:
rather in that of the active, strong, spontaneous, aggressive man? I
deliberately defy the above-mentioned agitator (who himself makes this
self-confession, "the creed of revenge has run through all my works
and endeavours like the red thread of Justice"), and say, that judged
historically law in the world represents the very war _against_ the
reactive feelings, the very war waged on those feelings by the powers
of activity and aggression, which devote some of their strength to
damming and keeping within bounds this effervescence of hysterical
reactivity, and to forcing it to some compromise. Everywhere where
justice is practised and justice is maintained, it is to be observed
that the stronger power, when confronted with the weaker powers which
are inferior to it (whether they be groups, or individuals), searches
for weapons to put an end to the senseless fury of resentment, while
it carries on its object, partly by taking the victim of resentment
out of the clutches of revenge, partly by substituting for revenge a
campaign of its own against the enemies of peace and order, partly
by finding, suggesting, and occasionally enforcing settlements,
partly by standardising certain equivalents for injuries, to which
equivalents the element of resentment is henceforth finally referred.
The most drastic measure, however, taken and effectuated by the supreme
power, to combat the preponderance of the feelings of spite and
vindictiveness--it takes this measure as soon as it is at all strong
enough to do so--is the foundation of _law_, the imperative declaration
of what in its eyes is to be regarded as just and lawful, and what
unjust and unlawful: and while, after the foundation of law, the
supreme power treats the aggressive and arbitrary acts of individuals,
or of whole groups, as a violation of law, and a revolt against
itself, it distracts the feelings of its subjects from the immediate
injury inflicted by such a violation, and thus eventually attains the
very opposite result to that always desired by revenge, which sees