Instead of altruism, Nietzsche wants us to develop a sever kind of self-love. Instead of tranquility, he wants us to embrace danger, has a taste for it. Instead of compassion, he wants us not only to be indifferent to the suffering of other but willing to use them as a mere instrument of our own end. Instead of asceticism, he wants us to indulge in animalistic proclivity. Egalitarianism, slave morality, produces mediocrity; it limits the production of greatness. He wants to creation of higher men, e.g. Beethoven, Shakespeare. Let's take a closer look at these Christian Great Men. Beethoven nominally was a Christian; he did not motivate by love, or concern for other, or abstract contemplation on the beauty of God. He was but ruthless. "The devil take you. I refuse to hear anything about your whole moral outlook. Power is the moral principle of these who excel others, and it is also mine." In Beethoven’s word, 1801, he referred to has friends as "merely instruments on which to play when I feel inclined. Ivalua them merely for what they do for me." Was Christian' love that produced Cathodal in Florence? No. It's Machiavellian competition that rival Patron facilities Pagen psychological forces of artists themselves; that's what drove the Renaissance. The Nietzsche's point then is that Christian civilization only produces greatness only when it subverts its fundamental principles. Same for democracy. Democracy only produces greatness that actively reject its own idea of equality. I want to crush the competition. You will see in the biographies of the greats, Steve Jobs, Kobe Bryant, or Beethoven, you will see the similar theme of ruthlessness, disconcert for feeling of others. And only care for others is merely instrumental for their goal. Why Nietzsche advocates for sever self-love over altruism. This project requires total devotion. The project which demands you to leave and throw your identity behind. Not single person who has primary goal who want to make the world a better place. You are not going to have tie to be compassionate to others. Devotion means to treat everything as instruments. The great teacher of compassion, Buddha himself, ruthlessly abandon his family, his entire responsibility when his great project of Liberation was at stake. For Nietzsche, the telos of humanity is not the happiness of the majority but the projection of the few, inspiring individuals even the cost of majority. Why read Genealogy? First even the most egalitarian care deeply about having creative Geniuses in their society. We want to read Shakespeare. He wants the few to attain and liberate the the slave morality. And second is the perverse origin and manufacturing of slave morality: the mechanism of resentment.
Nietzsche is a philologist, studying the development of languages. And when he looked at Master Morality of the word 'good' is rooted from the word noble, aristocratic, high-minded; while bad is associated with plain, simple, and common. In German, the word for bad is closely related to word plain and simple. Nietzsche then said that Master Morality evaluate morality based on self-affirmation that I am privileged, beautiful, powerful, then the slave, you are none of that, you are absence of such qualities. But Slave Morality establishes the word Evil first, and his insight is that what slave labels as Evil, is precisely what master labels as good. They turn this virtue into vices. Ambition becomes greed. Appetite because gluttony. Sexual prowess becomes lust. Confidence because pride. So how Slave morality gets concept of good? It gets the idea of good by flipping whatever the master is. You are powerful and assertive, then I am other cheek. You are beautiful and. sensual; I value chastity and virginity. You are strong and vivacious; the meek will inherit the earth. You are wealthy, then it is harder for you to enter heaven. This is the perversion of how Slave Morality being contracted. Their internal psychology is negative; they are naysayers, beauty bad, wealth bad, power bad, privilege bad. They do not stand for anything but against things. It is of seething hate, loathing, and envy. For the master, they first say I am rich, I am powerful, I am competence. And this surplus of confidence provide for the master is ability to be somewhat indifferent to an external world; he embraces dangers, not easily offended, even when committing atrocities, he walks away cheerful. In Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morality,
[Master] step back into the innocence of the beast-of-prey conscience, as jubilant monsters, who perhaps walk away from a hideous succession of murder, arson, rape, torture with such high spirits and equanimity that it seems as if they have only played a student prank, convinced that for years to come the poets will again have something to sing and to praise.
A high school jerk, he is physical specimen, on top of social hierarchy, love danger, extreme sport, drunk, bullying. It is fun to lock someone in the locker. It is naive self-assurance, the willingness to indulge in one's simple desire; it is one's natural independence. Slave moral standard, moreover, promotes false value. Nietzsche suggested us to observe the type of people associated with this type of religion and it will tell everything. Who created to Greco Roman myths? It was the aristocratic artists Virgil, Sophocles. Who wrote the Hebrew Bible? It was a group who repeatedly suffered from enslavement and the New Testament is written by persecuted Jews. Christianity was not for aristocrats, in fact, the senatorial elite were the last to convert. It was the lower classes, marginalized groups, women, and slaves who were the early adopters of Christianity. Who were the Greco Roman myths about and for? It is for someone like Caesar who claim direct ancestry from Anas. And it is about these 'larger than life aristocratic warriors' likes Achilles. Odious people with thunderbolts. And who were the Christianity about? It is about the victim: Moses, not Pharaoh, Abel but not Cain, and Joseph but not his brothers. Christianity is about a lowly carpenter whose defining moment was getting executed by the Roman State. Nietzsche would say the Greco Roman myths are by victor, for victor and about victor. Whereas, Christianity is by victim, for victim and about victim. Our culture is so sufficiently influenced by the Slave Morality of Christianity. We are so victim obsessed. In today political conversation, how do you gain the most moral upper hand? You start by listing out all the way you're a victim: as an immigrant I think this, as a minority I think this, as a 20s single mom I think this. And how Achilles introduces himself, I am Achilles, son of Pilus. You start by listing your noble ancestral right, from victor, not from victim. Slave morality elevates things like Mercy, Chastity, and poverty; those are not really what they are advocating for. In Nietzsche's word, not being able to avenge oneself is called not wanting to avenge oneself. For Nietzsche, the weeks are not merciful, too weak to seek revenge, the are not charst, the are too ugly to get laid, they are too cowardly to act. The point is you cannot confuse impotent for virtue. To sum up, Slave Morality is life-denying, promotes bad value, and the Christian did not even believe in such value.
The invention of freedom or freewill further allows the slave to blame the master and praise themselves. From Nietzsche’s analogy, "The lamb say among themselves 'these birds of prey are evil; and whoever is as little as possible a bird of prey but rather its opposite, a lamb, isn't he good?'." The absurdity of the lamb praise themselves as moral creature is that the moral blame and praise require you to do otherwise. But the nature of lamb cannot hunt. The master is naturally strong, and they can't help but to bully, rate, burn, and pillage. The slave is naturally weak; they couldn't even do that even they want to. Nietzsche says that our resentment or psychology that determine our philosophical worldview. For instance, the lamb wants to blame the eagle, that's why they invent the freewill. But they are not starting from the first principle and reason it from there. This is the most important insight. The ad hominem argument where you criticize not the thought, but the thinker is not only valid but necessary. This is because we do not reason from first principle, we do not start from empiricism but because our ideas are helplessly shaped by our interest, our psychology. In Nietzsche's Twilight or idols, why Socrates like ideas so much, why he devalues the material world, why he elevates an abstract realm of forms. Nietzsche answered, because he is ugly. In Nietzsche's Twilight of the idols,
Socrates was a plebe. We know, we can even still see how ugly he was [...] The anthropologists among criminologist tell us that the typical criminal is ugly: monster in face, monster in soul [...] When a foreigner who was an expert on faces came through Athens, he told Socrates to his face that he was a monster—that he was harboring all the bad vices and desires. To which Socrates answered simply: "You know me, sir?"
What Nietzsche wants to say is this: If I had the ugliest nose but the biggest brain in all of Athens, I too would spend all my time thinking. I too would devalue the material world and elevate this world of abstract ideas. I too would rank beautiful bodies as less beautiful than contemplating the idea of beauty. I too would suggest the philosopher king. The Shape of what Socrates thought is determined by his thought, his ugliness. The Ad hominem thus is not just valid but also necessary for us to properly understand thought. The sum up, Slave Morality inverts the moral system of the Master, and they invent the notion of freewill, which further blame the master and praise themselves. This Nietzsche thinks Christianity won by inverting the Greco Roman value system, the Pagan value system, that they can appear to the resent of the vast underclasses that felt disenfranchised from Pagan religion. Now consider this question, the Egalitarian movements, socialism, communism, Christianity, feminism. Is the resentment the essence of these movements, or is it merely the likely perversion? There is new class between this war between master and slave, the priests. The priests are the leaders of the slave revolt because first they share a common attribute the slaves, the sickly of spirit: naturally depressive and does not have the same natural light-heatedness of the master. Second, priests do have, the something which neither master nor slave have, intellect. And the third characteristic of the priests which slave do not possess but master have the the strong will to rise to power. In Nietzsche's word,
Every animal [...] instinctively strives for an optimum of favorable conditions under which it can vent its power completely and attain its maximum in the feeling of power.
Like master, they have a proclivity for power. Like slave, they are naturally negative. Unlike master or slave, they are intellect. The closest approximation we must priests today is intellectual, especial progressive one, some who side with the victim against the oppressor. The asceticism deal seeks to deny oneself of all the natural desire of life, food, water, sex, sleep, and pleasures. But also deny themselves from social desire, money, reputation, honor. This is the form of Slave Morality because it is about limiting the ego and oneself, only take on different form: more of individualistic rather collective one. So, you may think of this as Buddhist mystic, Sufi Mystics or a monk who goes into the desert for 30 days to pray. This is the will to power to two ways. First, asceticism is the way by which the Slaves convince others of their political legitimacy. The example of this is the character in the Game of Thrones, High Sparrow, a quite misogynistic, yet less of villainous, and humble man who seem to be transcended of the natural desire. He is also the leader of powerful religious sects in the capital city, and he consistently shows concern and compassion, sweeping the floor. He was surrounded by the political elite and aristocrats, and you know that it is precisely because of his powerlessness that afford him his political power, it is the asterism itself that provide him the political legitimacy that allow him to rule over the village. If you see someone who deny the life most important desire: sex, money, power, and seems to transcend to something else. Another example is in many Tibetan Buddhist culture, there you have is an opportunity to ask one of the great livings master’s like a one-on-one office hour but more sort of ritualistic one. You enter the room, do a prostration, kneel on the floor, bang you head three time. The master sits on his good comfortable golden cushion chair, then you got to ask question. Now if Nietzsche see you that, he will have slop you in the face and say, 'is this how you are trying to learn to be selfless and egoless?'. His underlying critique would be to they could talk all the compassion, selflessness and needlessness, but to look at the society they built: the feudal order, class hierarchy, corporal punishment, or hierarchical rituals. These all serving these supposedly selfless nobles? The critique is that feudal theocracy of Tibetan Buddhism is propped up precisely by their asceticism. This is the first way ascetic ideal represent the will to power, a form of social control. Even a person who meditate by himself in the forests, perceivably possess no social will, is also willingness to power. This is because these represent the ideal situation or condition under which the asceticism peruse their greatest projects. In Nietzsche's word,
Poverty, humility chastity [...] look at the lives of all great fruitful inventive spirits close—one will always find all three to a certain degree. Certainly not, as goes without saying, as if these were their 'virtues' [...] but rather because their supreme load [philosophy] demand it thus of them, demands prudently and relentlessly: he has a mind for only [philosophy] and gathers everything—time, energy, love, interest—only for this, saves it only for this.
What Nietzsche wants to say is that poverty, chastity, humility, the philosopher did not choose this because he is virtue, but it is the condition under which it allows him to implement his great project. Philosopher does not choose to be poor, not because or the virtue of pursuing truth instead of money, but the focus of his life, his disposition and circumstance better suited him to exercise will to power in the domain of truth seeking. The top intellectual and top capitalist are seemingly different; the untextual is poisoning the world through idea and the capitalist are holding all the of resource. Yet, when getting up close, the similarity is greater than the difference, they all share the same maniacal focus, unrelenting drive to succeed, a super strong will to power. What makes them goes on different path is not because capitalist can help everyone or truth seeking is the most virtuous. Same goes for humility: philosopher is not humble because they are moderate, it is because they are immoderate to truth seeking that make them humble. It is not because of philosopher is more Enlighted, it is not that philosopher does not care about his name living on generation, but his found a better will to power route. A bit side story here. Nietzsche think that we get the idea of 'truth at all costs' from Christianity, that I am going to pursue this transcendental idea, sacrificing everything else. Think about Galileo, how much sacrifice, life, being sacrifice. In his word,
What triumphed over the Christian god? [...] Christian morality itself, the ever more strictly understood concept of truthfulness [...] translated and sublimated into the scientific conscience, into intellectual cleanliness at any price.
It is Christian desire for the quest of truth seeking that gave birth to science, which ended up destroying the Christian god itself. When people say Christianity gave birth to science, they mean it as a praise, but he means as critique to science: that science still operate under religious faith, truth at all costs, they science itself cannot justify; why we spend all the way beetle is doing. What sustain life core commitment is illusion. Back to ascetic, what is ascetic project? Nietzsche suggests that philosopher deny life for the sake of pursuing truth, the ascetic denying life for the sake of denying life: they are denying chats for the chat’s sake. Think about the goal of early Buddhism, the cessation of desire. Nietzsche saw the common strand amongst all the world mythical tradition: this life is suffering, this life is bad, we need to end it. What he thinks is happening is that some people are predisposed to make such judgement because of their natures. Buddha early life is grooming depressive future, but not all of us are like that. In other word, the mythical lessons are telling you of what they are rather about life. A young happily living girl inevitably getting sick just by habitually exposing herself to the idea of 'life is suffering', the more she here about it, the more she sees the world in that way, to which she concludes that the core of all desire is sufferings. She thus does not learn the world through objective, experiential reality. A once naturally happy made sick by the depressing priest who spread the idea. The ascetic then would reply, you get it all wrong, that we are not aiming to will nothingness, that we are not chats for the chat’s sake. We want to transcend this reality, the subjective reality, the ego. We want to get into objective reality. Nietzsche then response, objective reality is the oxymoron. All life is necessarily perspectival, it is from certain perspective, there is no god eye view to escape to. Even there is this god eye perspective, it is among many perspectives. So, when asceticism tells that they want to escape to objective world and leaving subjective ones, but life itself is subjectivity, what they are saying is they want to end life, back to nothingness’s sake. In Nietzsche words, "Man would much rather nothingness than not will". Our count is so strong that we will actively use our will-to-will nothingness. The first law from the First Council of Nicaea, convened by Constantine himself, establishing core doctrine of the faith. To not chopping your penis off. This is because too many early Christian ascetic was chopping their penis off. This is exactly what Nietzsche had in mind: man would much rather nothingness than not will. In this domain, willing would-be having sex, not willing would be being chats with penis attached, will nothingness be chopping it off. Most would rather chop their penis off rather than having it but not using it. Our will to power is so strong: that how much ball it would take to chop off your ball. To sum up, what appear to be not willing is essentially the will to power directed into two avenues: social control and willing nothingness.
Why do these ascetic ideal spread to people who are not priests. Nietzsche answered it is because of cruelty and sufferings. First, Nietzsche claimed that human has a fundamental motive to exercise cruelty. But we are no longer such ability in modern world, so Nietzsche think that without external cruelty, we turn inward:
"All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward [...] thus first grows in man that which he later calls his 'soul'. The entire inner world, originally thin as if inserted between two skins, has spread and unfolded, has taken on depth, breadth, height to the same extent that man's outward discharging has been obstructed [...] Hostility, cruelty, pleasure in persecution, in assault, in change, in destruction—all of that turning itself against the possessors of such instincts: that is the origin of 'bad conscience."
His observation is that the civilization or culture that give people avenue to let loose their cruelty, even make it spectacle, people end up happy; people turn destruction outwardly. But inability to exercise such, people resort to self-cruelty, not only self physical harm but a mental one. Thinking of the most negative internal dialogue we have with ourselves, you are not enough, fat, incompetence, observe that when we talk with ourselves in such a way, it is as if there exist second person—you, but not I. This makes us the subject and object of punishment. The priest then invents the notion of "guilt". The concept of original sin is a feature that we like it as it enables us to maximally exert self-cruelty. And this type of cruelty is nothing but the idea of asceticism. Secondly for why ascetic idea is so appear to normal people is the idea that life is suffering. The problem here is neither the amount nor intensity but the absence of meaning: 'He who has a why can bare almost any how'— Nietzsche. He thinks that people try to find this meaning by blaming others: slave blame the master, and master blame the god. But the problem is that this does not answer why me: why Athena punishes me, why the bird of prey attacks me? So, the priest presents the solution: that you are suffering not because of them but yourself, thus guilty. The five major’s world religions answer the question of suffering back to you: karma. You are the reason of suffering, and you can stop it by denying yourself. Now we can give the full answer of why Christianity won: Christianity inverted the Master Morality and fed them to resentment of the slave. Then by negating life, denying individual, creating guilt, it creates both an outlet for cruelty and give suffer a meaning. The fact that all religions pop up everywhere with common structure in story is because in appeal to our shared psychology, not because Buddha is got Enlighted or Jesus is the son of God. And what is our religion today, for how they convert, it is no longer miracle or reason in scripture.
To criticize Nietzsche, we can look at his life for how this has the obvious influence on his writings. If Nietzsche blames Socrates's decadent metaphysical speculation on his ugliness, then he is always be blamed for being the loser. In his mature life: his chronic sickness that eventually become insanity, barely scraping by with the university pension, the multiple rejection by multiple women that turn someone who support women into a misogynist. Every philosophical writing is the intimate confession of philosopher. And what we see here in Nietzsche's confession is unrelenting anger in unreceptive world. Nietzsche himself say the master does not think about willing to power. Nietzsche was only masterful psychologist of resentment because he is also a creature of resentment. The exaggerated emphasis on the notion of will power says more about Nietzsche than Christian psyche. Same for his over emphasis on individual severing, of a man being heroic individualism. It is the ideal through which Nietzsche tried to turn his lack of reception into the triumph. Nietzsche deeply think cared what everyone thought of him, and really being bothered by not being recognized. Most people suspicious Nietzsche because he parades the values of the winner. It but is also he lived the life of the loser. And who is attracted to the idea of Nietzsche, that is not academic. It is people like Nietzsche, sickly, marginalized, unattractive, resentful.