Sections 10-12 of Nietzsche’s first essay
deal with the idea of the slave morality. This “slave revolt,” he explains,
begins with “ressentiment,” and is a
purely reactive move, stating “in order to exist at all, slave morality from
the outset always needs an opposing outer world…its action is fundamentally
reaction”(22). The slave morality therefore requires some sort of opposition
within the world, which allows them to develop contrary beliefs. Nietzsche does
not, however, champion this idea of the slave morality. In contrast, he says,
“there is, in fact, too much nonchalance, too much levity, too much
distraction…mixed up with this aristocratic contempt for it to be capable of
transforming its object into a real caricature and monster” (23). The slave
morality takes those who descend from nobility and make them the ‘bad’ within
society. Unlike the nobility, which exist largely in a position of contentment,
Nietzsche makes it clear that those in the lower classes with ressentiment have developed from the
Greek words for ‘unhappy’ (23).
From this festering hatred come the
differences between ‘bad’ and ‘evil.’ Because the perspectives of the parties
involved shift, there are in fact two different examinations of ‘good’ at play,
and We see that the nobleman’s ‘good’ is the ‘evil’ of the man filled with ressentiment. The nobleman, which
Nietzsche refers to as a “blonde beast,” is the “hidden core [that] needs to be
discharged from time to time, the animal…must return to the wilderness” (26). Inciting
nature imagery, Nietzsche illuminates the difference between the slave morality
and the nobleman; while the nobleman is dangerous and sometimes violent, the
man filled with ressentiment is
purely unexceptional. Every action of the man with ressentiment is in reaction to the nobleman. This slave morality,
which seeks to define what is bad against the actions of the nobleman is
innately mediocre. Nietzsche states, “there is no ‘being’ behind doing, acting,
becoming; ‘the doer’ is merely a fiction imposed on the doing—the doing itself
is everything” (29). Therefore, because the actions of those with the slave
morality are reactionary, they are peripheral, boring, and unmotivated.
Discussion
Question: Nietzsche says that, “a race of such men of ressentiment is bound in the end to become cleverer than any noble race” (24). Why do you think Nietzsche
believes that the nature of the slave morality is worse than the ‘barbarian’
nature of the nobleman?
In response to the discussion questions I think that your post laid out nietzsche's consensus on the subject quite neatly. The slave morality is the degradation from the master morality because it facilitates a stagnation of society. It stipulates that the slave existence is a given not simply a state of inaction, this promotes, as nietzsche describes it the "poisoning" of man. There is no motivation to supersede or separate because that action is an evil in the perspective of the slave morality because the domination of those that are active, the nobility, is an injustice and a break from this new designated norm of existence for existence's sake rather that existence for the purpose struggling. I see an interesting correlation between darwin's concept of the "struggle for existence" and Nietzsche's Master morality.
ReplyDeleteI really liked Lauren's points on the slave morality needs to act against the opposition for it to create its own beliefs. While the nobility have power over society, their morality and designations of good qualities influence all of society, which creates the lower classes, the slaves, to react and claim that good things are not the same as the things of the noble morality. In order for the development of slave morality, there needed to be the nobility's morality, they acted against the nobles to create their opposing beliefs. I think that Nietzsche may find the nobleman's nature to be better maybe due to the fact of they are an active force in society and not simply opposing an existing, influential force. Nietzsche states, " Just as the common people distinguish lightning from the flash of light and takes the latter of doing, as the effect of a subset which is called lightning, just so popular morality distinguishes strength from expressions of strength, as if behind the strong individual there were an indifferent substratum which was at liberty to express or not to express strength" (29). Within his statement, he analyzes the difference from being the strong character and the strong action, which of the different moralities they define strength to be completely different things. In slave morality, a strong person could represent weak qualities to a nobleman. I think Nietzsche finds the good in slave morality to represent actual weak qualities and nothing that is truly powerful. They are active in only opposing the nobleman's morality, but are passive in characters.
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