2/26/19
Hello again everyone who might be seeing this blog. This past week we discussed, again, Nietzsche and his perspectives on morality, consciousness, and their universality. My goal for this post, ultimately, is to convey the idea that the sickness, as Nietzsche describes, within humanity is that of guilt and remorse. This so happened to be this week’s biggest contention between me and my other classmates, and hopefully by the end of this post, I will either, get you to see that this is so, or incite better discussion pertaining to this subject specifically.
I would first like to address what Nietzsche has to say on his self-proclaimed title of “The Immoralist”. When he calls himself an immoralist, this is a statement of his rejection of moral uniformity. It is his rejection of the presuppositions of objective morality. This, within itself, is not to suppose that Nietzsche lacks morals. Semantically, this might be labeled as an amoralist, one without morals, rather than an immoralist, someone who rejects the currently accepted, in this case Judaeo-Christian, subset of moralities.
This determination which he makes on the rejection of Judaeo-Christian morals is derived from where he believes morals are formed and reformed. He would argue that morality is not a constant, they are nonexistent within an objective world or through rational determination. He would argue that morality is subjective in nature and their interpretations are predicated on this particular notion. To him, it is the individual and their will to power that defines, what those morals are, how an individual goes about seeking them, and determines, in Nietzsche’s mind, the ultimate success in seeking fulfillment. This is what he calls, moral subjectivism. Uniform morals do not take into account things like culture, feelings, individual considerations or experiences, and the varying consequences that come with choice. Uniform morality is a futile attempt, to Nietzsche, to control or coerce people into acting or behaving a specific way, even if that individual is subject to different experiential circumstances. Morality is vastly more complex than a predetermined set of rules, ordained thousands of years ago by a group of people whose set of circumstances warranted this subset of beliefs, for a modern people, whose circumstances surely do not align in the same way. If morals are indeed subjective, and subject to the interpretation of the individual, then why does he reject the notion of morality as it relates to Christianity? And further, what is his retort to this? He rejects the Christian morals because of two things, the notion of uniformity which is something we just established he disbelieves, and Christianity asserts. As well as the two distinct moral determinations which he labels as slave morality and master morality.
The master morality is Nietzsche’s most desirable moral determination. Master morality is a liken to the pursuit of warrior interpretations of morality observed in the ancient world. This moral determination is the pursuit of virtue and excellence, which to Nietzsche, MUST be considered together and recognized as no different from the other. Virtuosity, in Nietzsche’s ancient interpretation, being described as things like trustworthiness or honor and excellence described as being athletic, or a good pottery maker. But together, breed things like being a good friend, wittiness, congeniality, etc. He models these values from the ancient Greeks and their pursuit of virtuous excellence. But rather, the era of Homerian epics and the emphatic nature of conquest, and again, warrior ethics. Why does he value this? He values this determination because of the master moralities flexibility in allowing the individual to achieve what gratifies their subjective moral interpretations of the good. (I will mention this again later so hold onto that for a second). The distinction here is not virtuous excellence for gratification of or to others but for its own sake. The statement, “I do not steal because it is bad” is an example of morality to prevent consequence, but the statement “I do not steal because I am not a thief” placates the Nietzschean sense of subjectiveness, as well as fulfillment of the individual.
Slave morality however is one reliant on rejection and resentment of the master moralities perceived successes in life, the perceived self-gratification of their master’s ability to pursue virtuous excellence. This is again an interpretation of the morality derived from the slaves of antiquity. Before I go any further with this, I would like to make the distinctions between a master’s good, a slave’s good, bad, and evil. What is good to a master moral subset is anything that enables the self-fulfilling pursuit of virtuous excellence. Things like wealth, promiscuity, aesthetic beauty, and what is bad, is anything that blocks their will to power, anything that prevents the ability to fill one’s intrinsic desires. Now, within the slave morality, the objective, it would seem to Nietzsche, is the utter and complete reversal of the interpretations of their master’s “good” as being “evil”. Wealth is likened to greed and labeled evil, promiscuity is likened as over-indulgence and labeled as evil, aesthetic beauty is likened to vanity and is labeled as evil. Anything, moreover, that prevents an uninhibited will to power is therefore seen as good to those within the slave morality. This is the distinction he makes therein, a defining element of Christian religion, of Christian moral values. And is the ultimate reason why he calls for us to be suspect of these ideals, of this particular system of values.
You might be saying to yourself at this point,
“Yeah dude we get it, what does this have to do with guilt?”
The answer, my impatient reader, lies within the dichotomy of these two moral distinctions, and how we come to feel guilty. As Nietzsche says in his work The Genealogy of Morals, “I look on bad conscious as a serious illness to which man was forced to succumb by the pressure of the change, whereby he finally found himself imprisoned within the confines of society, and peace.”
This ‘bad conscious’ as he describes it, is the sense of remorse, we have for enacting our desires. It is the guilt we feel for indulging our own supposed self-interest, as if it opposes in some sense, compliance with the herd; conformity to the societally accepted interpretations of morality. This, moreover, is the alignment with to the slave morality, and the slave moralities rejection of the individuals uninhibited will to power. He goes on to say that:
“It must have been no different for man, happily adapted to the wilderness, war, the wandering life and adventure than it was for the sea animals when they were forced to either become land animals or perish-at one go, all instincts were devalued and suspended. The poor things were reduced to relying on thinking, inference, calculation, and the connecting of cause and effect, that is, to relying on their mind; that most impoverished and error-prone organ”
We have come so far as to deny our instincts and reject even the most crucial aspects of ourselves for the sake of, to him, NOTHING! We have no return on the investments we take of denying ourselves that which most complies with building and fulfilling our own schedule of values. This denial of ourselves, is then pent up. Unable to be released, it is to become so directed inward in a very quiet and passively violent way which is manifested as the feeling of guilt, self-denial, remorse, etc. It is this such feeling which Nietzsche asserts blocks our pathway to becoming the master morality, it creates inhibitions and does not redirect them.
!!!*”Avatar the Last Airbender” spoilers ahead*!!!
I like to think of this lack of redirection being displayed in the scene of “The Last Airbender” where Zuko, one of the protagonists, is being taught by his uncle, Iroh, how to redirect lightning. The most powerful manifestation of a “benders” ability to control fire. It enters the body and is stored in the stomach (the gut feeling of guilt maybe?), then directed outward through the heart. If not redirected successfully it busts the heart and kills the being which it strikes. In order to do this one MUST have a clear conscious, one MUST receive the strike and, in accordance with clarity as well as technique, show no remorse in becoming a vessel for this to work without inevitable death. This feat was only accomplished by Zuko, ironically enough, AFTER he had overcome his overwhelming guilt from a number of conditions in his life which inhibited his own will to power, conditions where the choice was to either conform to predetermined concepts of Fire Nation morality or die (to put it briefly). This, I think, is an excellent metaphor for a very Nietzschean concept.
In the philosophical sense, redirection, as it relates to our mustachioed predecessor, is our ability to think of what fulfills us, what fulfills our intrinsic schedule of values, and then act on them. This is the way to avoid such a sickness. This is the way to avoid regret and guilt. This is the way to reestablishing a master morality, and this is the outset of the Übermench.
That is all I have for this week everyone. I leave you all with a GIF of the Lightning redirection scene. In this scene he is fighting his father, Fire-Lord Ozai, after defying his orders for Zuko to conform and to kill the Avatar. He is resisting moral conformity, and visually redirecting his desire to fulfill his own subjective morality outward.
Let me know what you all think, please! My blog has been far too quiet for my liking. LOL
~Put that in your pipe and smoke it~
