Just for Matt (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, January 07, 2010, 01:57 (5231 days ago) @ David Turell

Matt: Is this quote accurate about Nietzsche:
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> "In an earlier post I commented on Alasdair Cochrane's efforts to jettison "inherent dignity" as a criterion for determining whether it is moral to treat certain classes of humans as objects. Cochrane is impatient with the "dignity criterion," because it prevents actions that he deems beneficial, for example medical experiments on human guinea pigs that might lead to advances in medicine. 
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> As I thought more about Cochrane's thesis, it became clear to me that our old friend Nietzsche was lurking just beneath the surface of his arguments. Nietzsche had no use for what he called "slave morality." For Nietzsche, "good" does not mean adherence to a moral standard. Instead, it is more or less a synonym for "strong." Thus, the "master's morality" (characterized by words such as "healthy," "powerful," "vigorous," "vital," and "wealthy") is good, and the "slave's morality" (characterized by words like "weak," "poor" "decrepit," "sick," and "infirm") is "bad." 
> -This is a reading that is certainly possible if you read Nietzsche Linearly. My Special Topics prof is the school's expert on N, and he says flat out "Nietzsche is dangerous." But not in the way interpreted here. N is dangerous if you don't couple a holistic (or mystical, if you will) engagement of the text. It's also important to note that you can't treat any of N's works as a discrete volume: everything intertwines with everything else. -If N attributes being "infirm" to "bad," then he includes everyone he ever wrote about including himself. In "Beyond Good and Evil," he actually goes so far as to say that all mankind is sick,though with what will take me abreast of the appraisal. -> Nietzsche posited that the slaves (the vast majority of people) had conspired to impose their slave morality on the masters as an act of self-protection against the "natural" dominance of the masters, and that the slaves had especially used Christianity (which he called a "slave religion") for this purpose. The remedy for this unnatural state of affairs was for the master (the "ubermensch," i.e., "superman") to throw off the constraints of traditional slave morality and follow his own "inner law." And of course a subjective inner law is no law at all. Nietzsche was inviting the ubermensch to do whatever he desired, and if he were able to do it ... i.e., if he were able to impose his will on others ... then by definition it was good.
> -The problem with an interpretation of N relying on the ubermensch as some kind of ultimate end, is that it is refuted throughout the only book where it is directly mentioned, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." When you read TSZ, the entire fourth section helps to parody the entire work, but drills through the point that each man "masters one virtue," and that it is clear (to me) that the ubermensch is a metaphor to mankind itself.-Also missing is that N viewed the concept of being a "great man" as one that was actually achievable: he wouldn't have agreed with a "natural leader" in the idea that a person was simply born to a position of leadership--because to N all things worthwhile come from great struggle, and the meek are those that don't rise to the challenge.-It is important to note that much of N's criticism is directed at Victorian Lutheran Christianity--and that religion stuffs the concept of "sheep," "meek," and other metaphors of servitude to the point that to me it does transform it to a slave religion. -> In Cochrane's conception of morality, the strong dominate the weak and defenseless to the point of killing them on a whim (abortion) or using them as objects (medical research subjects). And don't bother him with your slave morality and its concepts of inherent human dignity. For Cochrane, imposing one's will on another is, by definition, "good." God help us if his view prevails."
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> I know nothing about him.-It's a mainstream christian view of Nietzsche. Don't put too much stock in it. Evangelicals hate him because he wrote "God is Dead," but if you read Emerson--a grand influence on N--you realize that Emerson said it first; and Emerson was a protestant preacher.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"