Anyone Read On The Genealogy of Morals? - Friedrich Nietzsche

[Don Ro]

Recently read a short review of the book - haven't read it myself, maybe I will.
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1) In any population, you are going to have a group of people who are more talented/gifted/intelligent than average. Let’s call them The Strong. You are also going to have a group of people who are less talented/gifted/intelligent than average. Let’s call them The Weak.
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2) The Strong will naturally accrue the power in society for no other reason than they are more capable and talented than the others.
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3) Because The Strong won their greater power and influence through outsmarting or outperforming others, they will come to adopt ethical beliefs that justify their position: that might makes right, that they are entitled to their privileged position, that they earned what is theirs. Nietzsche calls this “Master Morality.”
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4) Because The Weak lost their power and influence by being outsmarted and outperformed, they will come to adopt ethical beliefs that justify their position: that people deserve aid and charity, that one should give away one’s possessions to the less fortunate, that you should live for others and not yourself. Nietzsche calls this “Slave Morality.”
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5) Master/Slave Moralities have been in a kind of tension in every society for all of recorded history. Many political/social conflicts are side effects of the struggle between Master and Slave Moralities.
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6) Nietzsche believed that the ideas of guilt, punishment and a “bad conscience” are all culturally constructed and used by The Weak to chip away at the dominance and power of The Strong. He also believed that Slave Morality is just as capable of corrupting and oppressing a society as Master Morality. He used Christianity as his primary example of this.
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7) Nietzsche believed that Slave Morality stifled man’s greatest characteristics: creativity, innovation, ambition, and even happiness itself.
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Notable Quotes:
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“Above all, there is no exception to this rule: that the idea of political superiority always resolves itself into the idea of psychological superiority.”
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"The weak people had to invent God so that they could believe their suffering actually meant something."

[M.D. Holloway]

Not unlike 'the Moral Animal'. Another good read is 'the naked ape' by Morris

[Don Ro]

I read 'the naked ape' a hundred years ago...might have to look at Amazon's reviews for a refresher.

[on2wheels52]

I'd need the Cliff Notes version (are they still in business?).
20 years ago a friend gave me a Nietzsche book, I didn't get very far. A tough read for me.
Jim

[M.D. Holloway]

Had a class in school just on him. Interesting man. Product of a tough life and culture. Went nuts due to syphilas (sp). Read Superman. He coined the phrase. Very interesting.

[dennis in se pa]

I like it. Makes sense to me. Going to get a copy right now.

[MRM]

I once had a doctor pronounce me so fit that I was an Übermensch, so I got that going for me.

I think he's one of those fuzzy headed intellectuals who created deeply layered theories that have a intuitive surface attraction but are complete garbage when you peel back the layers. The problem is that the layers are so deep that to argue successfully with someone like that you get stuck disproving premise on top of premise because his theories are so dense and each layer wraps around another. I think he did that on purpose to seem more intellectual and to make disagreeing with him harder.

Anyway, I think he's wrong and why he came up with his basic theory is pretty easy to understand. He was born in bad circumstances and like the Big Lewbowski, overcame his circumstances and achieved. So he came up with a theory of super achievers who are the superior beings in society because of their achievements, of which he is self-evidently one.

I think his whole premise is basically a Freudian self-justification for his place in the world. Since he became one of the elites (calling leaders the "strong" is a value judgment and misleading; they are elite but not necessarily strong) through his own efforts, I guess you could say he created his own morality based on what worked for him.

I think all of his work is just a Freudian exercise to justify and glorify people who are coincidentally just like old Freddy.

[mreid]

I read it or at least tried to read it. First 20 pages and last 20 pages were the best parts. As MRM points out, he drills so deeply that he loses himself and you need a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back out. There is some real truth to "those who can do, and those who can't take." However, this is often perpetuated by social class and status.

[scottmandue]

Too early for me to make a cognitive response but basically I agree with MRM.
For balance you may want to read some Kierkegaard.

[M.D. Holloway]

Correction - he may not have invented the concept Superman, German Übermensch, in philosophy, the superior man, who justifies the existence of the human race. “Superman” is a term significantly used by Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly in Also sprach Zarathustra (1883–85), although it had been employed by J.W. von Goethe and others. This superior man would not be a product of long evolution; rather, he would emerge when any man with superior potential completely masters himself and strikes off conventional Christian “herd morality” to create his own values, which are completely rooted in life on this earth. Nietzsche was not forecasting the brutal superman of the German Nazis, for his goal was a “Caesar with Christ’s soul.” George Bernard Shaw popularized the term “superman” in his play Man and Superman (1903)

[mreid]

Man, all the good words are already taken.

[scottmandue]

Kinda a slippery slope... the haves and the have not's... the gifted and non-gifted...

Are not all humans equal? Is not all life valuable?

Albert Einstein was considered a dullard growing up... what if he had been marginalized as a child?

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by M.D. Holloway

George Bernard Shaw popularized the term “superman” in his play Man and Superman (1903)

Sure but Ray Davies wrote the kick a$$ song in 1979... so there... neener neener

[M.D. Holloway]

In true European fashion, the intellectuals of the time tried to make every sentence so complex and long it was like living on pure Demi glas.

[Nostril Cheese]

One day, you will all cower in the shadow of my Chuck Taylors.

[M.D. Holloway]

FN had a privileged yet difficult life. His observations were somewhat novel and controversial at the time but not too far off. The class system then was severe and he rebuked it. His work was a reflection of his experiences like so many. He didn't transcend but rather reflect which made him even more difficult to digest. Many don't like looking at their pictures or listening to their voices on a recording. He had a way of showing all the blemishes. Those that recognize and embrace their flaws have less of an issue.

[M.D. Holloway]

The guy was a musician and poet. He gravitated towards very non-German work making him an iconoclast. He found his stride with that and never looked back. He was brilliant but suffered some brain disease (maybe like his dad). Who knows how much that affected his overall outlook.

[DanielDudley]

I have great respect for a man who builds a school brick by brick, so that children might learn in it.

I have little respect for a man who buys a great corporation so that he can tear it down brick by brick, and thereby profit by its destruction.

[rusnak]

I have read a lot of Nietzsche. Thus spoke Zarathustra may be the easiest to get started with. You need a long, lazy Sunday afternoon to really read his stuff. I don't think society is better off with his writing becoming widespread, so that's a good thing.

If you just want to delve into some philosophy, and not spend the rest of your life trying to understand it, I might recommend The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene.

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by MRM

I once had a doctor pronounce me so fit that I was an Übermensch, so I got that going for me.

I think he's one of those fuzzy headed intellectuals who created deeply layered theories that have a intuitive surface attraction but are complete garbage when you peel back the layers. The problem is that the layers are so deep that to argue successfully with someone like that you get stuck disproving premise on top of premise because his theories are so dense and each layer wraps around another. I think he did that on purpose to seem more intellectual and to make disagreeing with him harder.

Anyway, I think he's wrong and why he came up with his basic theory is pretty easy to understand. He was born in bad circumstances and like the Big Lewbowski, overcame his circumstances and achieved. So he came up with a theory of super achievers who are the superior beings in society because of their achievements, of which he is self-evidently one...

This works so well the modernist artists adopted the same strategery.