In Nietzsche’s Third Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals, he
introduces ascetic ideals as a way to rid the fear of the unknown. Nietzsche
states, “ the ascetic lifestyle offered mankind a meaning” (136). He describes
this lifestyle to eliminate the fear of nothingness or the lack of a
satisfactory reason for existence, and with this analysis, it gives meaning to
the humanity’s creation of ascetic ideals. In fact, he points out “the ascetic
ideal is derived from the protective and healing instincts of a degenerating
life, which seeks to preserve itself and fights for existence with any
available means” (99). Within his statement, he describes this ideal originates
from humanity trying to protect themselves from any sorts of suffering at any
cost. If there is any suffering, they seek to find some explanation of their
suffering, which is not being self-inflicted, but caused by another source. Thus,
they desire power to eliminate their sufferings; the ascetic ideals endow them
with power to blame other things or people for their misery and then cause this
sickness.
This sickness, according to
Nietzsche, originates from the need of power to eliminate their suffering and
receive satisfaction. He states, “the sick represent the greatest danger for
the healthy; it is not the strongest but the weakest who spell disaster for the
strong” (100). In his statement, he describes the ideals of these sickly people
to be contagious and infect the healthy. They infect the healthy by instilling
the idea: if some of humanity is unfortunate and suffering, others cannot be
fortunate. He argues, “the whole misery as such into the conscience of the
fortunate: so that these latter would one day begin to feel ashamed of their
good fortune” (103). Once the healthy feel ashamed of their fortune, then the
sickly succeed in bringing satisfaction to their miserable lives. This power
allows the sickly to blame the healthy for their misfortune, and while blaming
them, it gives the sickly satisfaction of understanding why they are suffering.
They believe their suffering originates from others inflicting it upon them.
Thus, their power allows them to eliminate their suffering by making others
feel the same suffering as they do. However, this suffering upon the healthy is
false because they are the ones, who are fortunate, but believe they are not as
the sickly infect them with their ideals.
The ascetic ideals of the sickly
represent many of the problems of slave morality. Slave morality designates the
bird of prey to be evil because it inflicts harm upon the lamb, thus it
suffers. Nietzsche notes “that lambs bear ill-will towards large birds of prey
is hardly strange: but is in itself no reason to blame large birds of prey for
making of with little lambs” (29). The lambs blame the birds for their
misfortune and desire for justification for their sufferings, even though there
is no reason why there should be blame put upon the birds for doing something
natural. In other words, the lambs of slave morality are the same as the sickly
as they bring their misfortunate on those who are fortunate. By establishing
the blame on something more powerful or more fortunate, they believe to find meaning
to the reason of their sufferings. Nietzsche points out “the meaninglessness of
suffering and not suffering as such, has been the curse which has hung over
mankind up to now-and the ascetic ideal offered mankind a meaning” (136)! In
his statement, he describes humanity’s drive to find the meaning of all their
misfortunate, which ascetic ideals provides for them. The real complication is
truly not the suffering, but one finding the real meaning of “why do I suffer?”
(136). The absence of an answer or a meaning is frightening to humanity, which
explains the reason for the need of ascetic ideals to provide those “answers.”
The sickly incorporate ascetic ideals to provide meaning to their misfortune
and thus gain power to eliminate it by placing blame on the healthy. However,
they take up these ideals to truly eliminate the fear of not understanding why
they suffer. Therefore, ascetic ideals create false meanings for humanity in
order to eliminate the fear of nothingness.
Discussion Questions:
“It explained suffering; it seemed
to fill he gaping void; the door was closed against all suicidal nihilism”
(136) Since the majority of the focus of the meaning of suffering comes from
slave morality and their blame upon the nobles, what would be the suffering of
noble morality? Alternatively, what void would ascetic ideals bring meaning to
for the nobles?
Yes, based on your discussion question, I definitely think Nietzsche posits that slave morality causes the majority of suffering due to their blaming others for their misfortune. That is the super-majority of the population blaming a small number of nobility, but causing all of the sickness. I think the nobles give themselves a comforting, though subjective, reason for their superiority, reassuring them of their supremacy. Maybe this discrimination is a form of festive punishment (for the nobles discriminating against the proletarians) to put the proletarians in that state of blame. And they pay for it by the proletarians blame that they're actually evil in nature, the nature against which they discriminated themselves as superior in the first place.
ReplyDeleteWhile Liezel is correct in her analysis of the lambs wanting the birds of prey to become weak, this metaphor is taken out of context when referring to the suffering which Nietzsche refers to in section 28 of the third essay. The suffering described in this section is not physical, like the suffering of the lamb, but metaphysical, and refers to all humans, not simply those with slave morality. This suffering is because “man, the animal man, has had no meaning up to now” (135). Because of this lack of meaning, “[man] did not know how to justify, explain, affirm himself; he suffered from the problem of his meaning” (136). It is true that at the same time man suffered throughout being “for the most part a sickly animal” (136), which is the sort of suffering referred to by Liezel, “his problem... was not suffering itself, but rather the absence of an answer to his questioning cry: ‘Why do I suffer’” (136). Understanding that Nietzsche is referring to a metaphorical crisis rather than physical comfort when he refers to the suffering which led to ascetic ideals, the rest of Liezel’s blog post does a good job explaining how these ideals were invented to give a reason for suffering.
ReplyDeleteTo answer Liezel's discussion question, I would argue the suffering of the nobles is derived from two things, their interactions with those of the slave mentality, and an inability to live up to their own standards. As is mentioned in the post above, on page 103 Nietzsche speaks as to how many of the slave morality derive satisfaction, namely, by dumping their suffering on those of the noble class. This suffering is transferred to the noble class, who feel responsible for causing the suffering of those others although in truth, Nietzsche argues, it is not their fault. Judging everything by inner standards can also be infuriating, if one has high natural standards. This is of lesser impact than the first suffering, because it is difficult to have standards without measuring oneself against others, that is to say, it is difficult to have completely objective standards, but for some it is a reality.
ReplyDeletei miss this kind of interaction :(
ReplyDelete