When reading Nietzsche, I have found myself frequently frustrated by the text’s relapses into moralistic judgements. One of these instances occurs in today’s reading when Nietzsche refers to a criminal as an “evil-doer” (53). In an attempt to understand why a text which began as a rebuttal of traditional morals started using the word “evil” to refer to criminals, I delved into Nietzsche’s understanding of criminality.
To Nietzsche, crime is the result of individuals failing to pay their debt to society. He believes that “the community stands in the same important fundamental relationship to its members as the creditor does to his debtors” (52). The primary benefit which members of society gain from their debt is protection from the hostility of others. Those who fail to repay this debt of protection by obeying society’s laws find themselves expelled from society and that “every level of hostility may be vented on him” (53). Society is therefore an interconnected system of debt, where each participant agrees to obey laws in return for being protected by them. Unfortunately, this does not explain why those who break laws are seen as “evil”--rather, it changes the question of evil from criminals to disobedient debtors.
Nietzsche views economic and societal debt as interrelated, and goes so far as to claim “the contractual relationship between creditor and debtor, which is as old as the concept of ‘legal subjects’ itself and which points back in turn to the fundamental forms of buying, selling, exchange, wheeling and dealing” (45). As demonstrated above, legal subjects are a type of debtor. All debtors must serve creditors, and as such both economics and government are based upon debt owed to an outside force. Nietzsche argus that this debt may be paid in monetary funds or corporal punishment, so that “instead of a direct compensation for the damage done (i.e. instead of money, land, possessions of whatever sort), a sort of pleasure is conceded to the creditor as a form of recompense” (46). This payment involves a transfer of strength, as the debtor is giving the creditor “something over which he still has power--for example, his body or his wife or his freedom or his life” (45). This transaction gives the creditor more power, and therefore strength; because creditors gain physical power over other humans, Nietzsche claims they partake in a “privilege of the masters” (46). By gaining strength through the debt of others, individuals and societies can become more powerful and, under the views of noble morality, more “good” (14).
In this way, debtors (and legal subjects) grow less powerful and strong through their debt, while creditors grow more powerful and more strong. Therefore, under Nietzsche’s understanding of naturalism, debt transforms society so that the noble dominate not through physical strength but through debt owed to individuals and the government, in other words, their position in the political economy. Thus, criminals violate Nietzsche’s laws of nature when they rebel against their creditors, who are stronger and therefore better than them. This would make the criminals bad, if one is drawing from the vocabulary of noble morality. The use of the word evil is likely an exaggeration of the criminals being bad, employed to give emphasis to Nietzsche’s sarcastic commentary.
Question: Does Nietzsche view the natural order as being “good”? If so, why? Is there another reason he may have referred to criminals as “evil-doers” on page 53?
Lachlan, I have also at times found myself a bit frustrated with Neitzsche's text. When Nietzsche first makes the claim that everything is based off of the relationship between the creditor and the debtor, he provides absolutely no support for the claim. He says, "No level of civilization, however rudimentary, has been found where something of this relationship [of creditor and debtor] cannot be discerned" (51). But Nietzsche does not then provide any examples of these early forms or where they were found. It is in this same sense that I understand why you are struggling with Nietzsche using the word "evil" in reference to the criminal. It seems to be another one of the assertions that Nietzsche makes that does not seem to sit well with his argument or is not supported.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Marlee I think that the concept of the debtor and creditor is posed in Nietzsche's opening statements when he described the "responsibility" of the sovereign individual in his own future. Describing the sovereign individual as being able to lay a claim to future action or account of himself. If another accept this projection, trusting the individual then becomes an act of credit that is paid when the action is completed. For example if you were to tell a friend you would meet them to help them with an assignment you are technically doing them a favor but according to the accord if you don't make the meeting you failed in your obligation making you the debtor and the other individual the creditor. Interestingly if the obligation is met there is greater trust and the person who needed help may even be a debtor to you for doing the favor. Most simply I believe Nietzsche presents a the creditor and debtor situation as a sort of social capital which further evolves into a basis for economical interaction where collateral is no longer in the form of the trust you may have for the individual but more specifically a tangible collateral like a house or as Nietzsche likes to harp on the concept of suffering your own body.
ReplyDeleteLachlan, I agree that Nietzsche is confusing here. I would guess that he is very aware of his word choice, especially because he has used the word evil to mean something very specific. In the first essay "evil" is a reactionary label that a person puts on something they dislike. "Evil-doer" therefore is one who labels something evil. Nietzsche says "the criminal is a debtor who not only fails to repay the advantages and advances offered to him but even attacks his creditors" (52). It is implied that the attack on the creditor that defines a criminal is like the lamb attacking the morality of the bird of prey. The act of attacking as retaliation and response for something not wrong in and of itself is "evil" in the sense described in the first essay.
ReplyDeleteI believe, to answer Lachlan's second question, the concept of evil-doers is being phrased in context of the society's view towards the law-breaker. As Emma quoted on Morgan's blog, "what in its eyes passes as permitted, as right, and what as forbidden, as wrong" (56). Society itself determines good and evil. Since modern civilization is comprised largely of people with slave mentalities, those who react by trusting the legal code to exact penalties on those noble men who act in a way that threatens them, the mentality exhibited is good-evil rather than good-bad. By allowing themselves to be subjected to the power of the law, the noble demonstrate that they are actually slaves. It is the system itself that becomes more noble, not the people within it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lachlan that using the word evil to describe people is simply an exaggeration of them being bad. I think that calling people who commit misdemeanors "evil-doers" is a good expression of this. When discussing the community, it is important to note that Nietzsche is discussing the real world community that he is mocking. He may have different views about what is just or moral or good or bad, but there are creditors and debtors all the same. Therefor it is definitely possible that using the phrases "evil" and "evil-doers" is simply Nietzsche mocking society.
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