Slave Morality was more than just a lack of individuality for Nietzsche, it was an indication and denial of the human condition. By following a church, or any other form of leadership, one is succumbing to the ‘herd mentality’ and also allocating for classes, or divisions of power, to arise; as is a natural response in a human society. A line from the text emphasizing this is, “and at the bottom of her heart no mother doubts that in her child she has borne a piece of property, no father disputes his right to subject it to his concepts and values… unhesitatingly see in every new human being an opportunity for a new possession”. (Nietzsche 117-118) Humans will naturally gravitate towards the best self-preservation and positions of leadership …show more content…
As for those who do not achieve a position of strength, they become part of the herd. For them the opportunity to escape becomes nearly unfathomable, according to Nietzsche, “he who is only a measly tame domestic animal and knows only the needs of a domestic animal… has no reason to wonder, let alone to sorrow”. (Nietzsche 80) By Nietzsche’s understanding people will fall to the aimlessness of the following denying their individuality but fulfilling the prophecy of the mediocre acquisition of humanity whilst sacrificing the very ability of a strength of will all humans possess. This is the very basis of slave morality in relation to the Christian faith, “The Christian faith is from the beginning sacrifice: sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, at the same time enslavement and self-mockery, self-mutilation.” (Nietzsche 75) Next, it proves beneficial to examine the opposite of someone entrenched in carrying a slave morality; someone who follows, as Nietzsche states, a master morality. Having a master morality means …show more content…
Interestingly, despite Nietzsche’s uncertainty of a self existing he does promote selfishness as a component involved in becoming master minded. This appearance of contradiction further supports his quest for going ‘beyond good and evil’. He chose not to reject the possibility of a self existing because both truth and untruth have worth according to his philosophy and there is much knowledge that we lack, “here and there we grasp that fact and laugh at how it is precisely the best knowledge that wants most to hold us in this simplified, altogether artificial, fabricated, falsified world, how it is willy-nilly in love with error because, as a living being, it is – in love with life!” (Nietzsche 55) To say that because something is uncertain or stereotypically a negative attribute are both actions that go against Nietzsche’s overall philosophy and categorize those articles into being definable as good or evil. Therefore, Nietzsche unabashedly defends selfishness as being a positive characteristic due to it not only being a means to acquire the power he thinks is required to create a master morality, but also because he questions whether the honored characteristics are always being considered worthy for the right reasons. He proposes the following, “Lofty spiritual independence, the will to stand alone, great intelligence even are felt to be dangerous; everything that raises the individual above the herd and makes his
Douglass continues to describe the severity of the manipulation of Christianity. Slave owners use generations of slavery and mental control to convert slaves to the belief God sanctions and supports slavery. They teach that, “ man may properly be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained by God” (Douglass 13). In order to justify their own wrongdoings, slaveowners convert the slaves themselves to Christianity, either by force or gentle coercion over generations. The slaves are therefore under the impression that slavery is a necessary evil. With no other source of information other than their slave owners, and no other supernatural explanation for the horrors they face other than the ones provided by Christianity, generations of slaves cannot escape from under the canopy of Christianity. Christianity molded so deeply to the ideals of slavery that it becomes a postmark of America and a shield of steel for American slave owners. Douglass exposes the blatant misuse of the religion. By using Christianity as a vessel of exploitation, they forever modify the connotations of Christianity to that of tyrannical rule and
Nietzsche thought nobility was to see one’s self as the center and origin of value. He believed that people in power force common people into bidding their will, and those in charge are separated based on good or bad measures of their value. The rulers, or people in charge have master morality, the people who do their bidding have slave morality. Slave morality is how common people make their lives more bearable by using Christian ethics such as kindness and sympathy.
Slavery, the “Peculiar Institution” of the South, caused suffering among an innumerable number of human beings. Some people could argue that the life of a domestic animal would be better than being a slave; at least animals are incapable of feeling emotions. Suffering countless atrocities, including sexual assault, beatings, and murders, these slaves endured much more than we would think is humanly possible today. Yet, white southern “Christians” committed these atrocities, believing their behaviors were neither wrong nor immoral. Looking back at these atrocities, those who call themselves Christians are appalled. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, Harriet A. Jacobs describes the hypocrisy of Southern, Christian slave owners in order to show that slavery and Christianity are not congruent.
The system of justice that Nietzsche employs although somewhat cynical has a substantial amount of merit as a form of justice, which is present in our society. This is demonstrated through the depiction of the creditor/debtor relationship that exists in our democratic societies, and the equalization process that occurs, and furthermore that Nietzsche is correct to assess justice as such a principle. The issue is most obvious in the penal system; however it is also prevalent in personal day-to-day relationships as well as political structures.
According to him, the noble individuals who praise themselves and their actions, egoistic or egoistic, as good are defined as ‘good’. For Nietzsche, it is the feeling of superiority, powerfulness over the low class from where the concept of good originates. In contrast to the original morality, Nietzsche marks the modern morality as a product of Jewish radical reevaluation of values. Spilt off between the knights and the priests led to reevaluation; as per him, priests make the evilest enemy. Although physically weak, priests are more intelligent and have more say over the knights, and can do anything when it comes to power, virtue, revenge, pride. Comparing the Jews with the priest, Nietzsche marks the radical reevaluation when the Jews rejected the aristocratic definition of good and divided modern morality from the original
Because it offers them the possibility of community and identity, many slaves find themselves strongly attached to religion. They cannot build a family structure and they cannot be identified by family name, but through the church, they can build a community and identify themselves as Christians. This comfort becomes virtually non-existent for it too is controlled by the slaveowners who “came to the conclusion that it would be well to give the slaves enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters” (57). The fact that one person could have the ability to control the amount of religion another person has and his purpose for having it diminishes any sense of community or identity that it may have initially provided.
However, Nietzsche debunks Edward’s idea of sin, claiming it as a contrivance used to invoke fear in the believers of Christianity and to denote ruling power to the Priest (Nietzsche, Sec. 49). Nietzsche proceeds to deride the value system of Christianity, spelling out what he sees through the will to power as definitions for happiness, good, and bad (Nietzsche, Sec. 2). For Nietzsche, happiness is the feeling bolstered by power: “that a resistanc...
Nietzsche's master-slave morality describes the way in which moral norms shifted through the through eras, from pre-scocratic times to the modern age founded upon Christian and Jewish beliefs. During pre-socratic times, value was dominated and enacted by the master class, who saw themselves and what they did as good. Value was defined along their terms of good- what was good for the master class was itself good. This notion of value was designed along the lines of nobility and purity, which included traits such as courage, beauty, strong-will and happiness. The master-class said yes to existence, and their values affirmed their belief system, which, due to their position of control, created their disposition as elite and influenced the norms for morality at their time. Since the master-class viewed themselves as good, they distinguished themselves from the weaker individuals, those not in power, as bad. The weaker individuals, in pre-socratic times known as plebeians, according to the master-class, were weaker for various reasons. Be it due to their unhappiness, victimization to unfortunate circumstances, weak-will or a lack of courage, pride, or a combination of any of these despicable or non virtuous values. According to the master-class, adherence to these weak values initiated a form of fear within the plebeian, which created a lack of self worth and a lack of freedom or self-consciousness, deemed as slavery.
While critical of the attitude found in the ressentiment of slave morality, Nietzsche’s includes it as an important factor contributing to the bad conscience of man. Even though Nietzsche dislikes the negative results of bad conscience – man’s suppression of his instincts, hate for himself, and stagnation of his will -- Nietzsche does value it for the promise it holds. Nietzsche foresees a time coming when man conquers his inner battle and regains his “instinct of freedom.” In anticipation of that day’s eventual arrival, Nietzsche views the development of bad conscience as a necessary step in man’s transformation into the “sovereign individual.”
From Douglass’s narrative, we can conclude that slavery brings out the worst in slave owners. Although one human should not treat another in such tortuous ways, slave owners’ actions towards their slaves deemed socially acceptable among their community. Keeping other human beings as property presumed natural. Slave owners retained wealth from this economic opportunity, resulting in the most valuable possession of all—power. Eventually, the authority they possessed over other human beings led to their abuse of power. Their addiction to dominate diminished all traces of their morality, and unfortunately, transformed them into tyrants. Moreover, the curse of slavery created immoral beings out of even the most virtuous men and women.
We have grown weary of man. Nietzsche wants something better, to believe in human ability once again. Nietzsche’s weariness is based almost entirely in the culmination of ressentiment, the dissolution of Nietzsche’s concept of morality and the prevailing priestly morality. Nietzsche wants to move beyond simple concepts of good and evil, abandon the assessment of individuals through ressentiment, and restore men to their former wonderful ability.
Christianity is that slave revolt. The problem for Nietzsche is the New Testament - the introduction of Jesus. He thinks that linking the Old Testament with the New Testament is very cheeky. They are two different books with complete different ideas and so should not be linked together. The Old Testament is full of power - Nietzsche likes that.
Nietzsche was a man who questioned the morality of his time. He dug deep in to what good really meant, and if there was a difference between bad and evil. He sought to look at the world by stepping back and looking at it with out the predisposition of what morality was/is. He looked at what he called slave and noble morality. He looked passed what was on the surface, and gave us many things to digest and discuss. In this paper I will discuss how Nietzsche’s writing can be seen as favoritism towards the noble morality by touching on how he believes the noble morality and slave morality came about, then I will talk about his “birds of prey and lambs” example which shows his fondness of the bird of prey, and I will end with my interpretation
The dynamic of the relationships between slaves and their master was one which was designed to undermine and demean the slave. The master exercised complete authority and dominion over his slaves and
Nietzsche’s central message is “the basic drive of all living things is not a struggle to survive, but a struggle for power …” (p.530). Meaning that organisms don’t just struggle for basic necessities, but for power and domain over others. Once they gather and complete their basic necessities, they subsequently focus on achieving their desire for power. When the organism then achieves this power he voluntarily uses it to compete, annihilate the competition, expand their territory, and reproduce. “If organisms were struggling merely to survive, then once food and security have been attained the struggle would cease and organisms would go into stasis” (p.350-5351). This quotation shows Nietzsche’s demonstration about humans’ urge for power, and why it motivates human behaviors. There fore as humans are not just satisfied whit having the basic amenities they sometimes have to risk all just to obtaining more power. Nietzsche’s point can clearly be classified as existentialist, because it talks about how man is after power that he can use with free will to determine his own development. Humans chase power for the sole purpose of using it with free will, and by doing so they construct their own future. The quotation “w...