Self-Proclamation of Goodness

            In the preface and first nine sections of On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche presents the origin of the definitions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and the opposition between them. In the beginning of the preface, Nietzsche poses the question, “Under what conditions did man invent the value-judgments good and evil?” (5). In this question, Nietzsche automatically assumes humankind did invent the value-judgments, for he does not question the origins of the concepts themselves. The question he wishes to answer is the how or why the lasting definitions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ came to be. Nietzsche claims that “all human concepts from earlier times were…initially understood in a crude,…unsymbolic way,” meaning that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ did not represent any person or object, but rather defined one’s actions (17). The transformation from the definition of one’s actions into the definition of the person him-/herself begins with subjective embodiment of that definition.

            Human concepts such as humility, for example, “were simply felt to be good, because they were habitually always praised as such—as if they were in themselves something good” (12). One who practices humility, therefore, will always be praised as ‘good’ because the orthodox understanding of humility is that it is something good. When one begins to embody a ‘good’ concept, they themselves become ‘good’ due to subjective evaluation. The use of passive voice was intentionally used by me for “to be praised,” because Nietzsche claims “The judgment ‘good’ does not derive from those to whom ‘goodness’ is shown! Rather, the ‘good’ themselves…were the ones who felt themselves and their actions to be good…and posited them as such” (12). The actors on the verb ‘to praise’ are the ones praising themselves through the subjective self-proclamation that habitual, orthodox understanding of human concepts supports. The most notable culprit of this boasting is the aristocrats, as Nietzsche posits.

Though examination of the etymology of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ Nietzsche proposes that the aristocrats exploit this self-proclamation, mutating the concept of ‘good’ to reflect whatever unique traits the aristocrats possess rather than ‘good’ actually reflecting habitually ‘good’ qualities. In the Gaelic language, “the word characterizing the nobility…ultimately meant the good, the noble, the pure, but originally [meant] the blond-headed, in contrast to the swarthy, dark-haired original inhabitants” (16). Here, the aristocrats transform whatever unique trait that sets them apart, blond hair, into something ‘noble’ that reflects nobility. The blond-headed aristocrats may never have been ‘noble’ by possessing any ‘noble’ quality, but their exploitation of subjective self-proclamation made them ‘noble’ regardless. But where does ‘bad’ fit in? The key element in the Gaelic word for nobility is its separation and distinction from a lower class. Nietzsche calls this separation the “pathos of nobility and distance, which is “the fundamental overall feeling of a higher ruling kind in relation to a lower kind, to a ‘below’—that is the origin of the opposition between ‘good’ and ‘bad’” (13). In order to posit themselves as ‘good,’ the blond aristocrats separated themselves from a lower class by physical trait. Therefore, those outside the trait do not fall under ‘noble’ definition, whether his or her actions warrant noble praise or not, and assume the antithesis of ‘noble.’ Those with brown or red or black hair are automatically ignoble. Through this paradigm, whoever does not possess whatever trait the aristocrats use to dignify themselves as a positive quality becomes the antithesis of that quality. Conflict ensues.

Discussion questions: How and why do aristocrats have so much influence over the definitions of human qualities? Why is separation between types or classes of people necessary to define opposing human qualities?