morals – Observations and Misunderstandings

Good and Evil, Good and Bad

31/12/2021 Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Are you good or good? Bad or evil? Nietzsche may just have the answer. For this piece I will focus on the first essay in his On the Genealogy of Morality (GM) entitled ”Good and Evil’, ‘Good and Bad”. The crux of this is the debate surrounding the power play between two types of morality, that of the master or warrior noble, and that of the slave or ‘herd’. It is important too to understand what he means when discussing genealogy and I will begin there.

He refers to the ‘English psychologists’; such as Hobbes, Hume and his one time friend the German Paul Rée, who Nietzsche groups with them, and criticises for their utilitarian linear understanding of the term. Genealogy for Nietzsche was not about legitimising people, institutions or traditions; it is not something that could be used to lend credibility to our present structures and ideals. There is no origin story and certainly not one relating to a small group of people hanging out and moralising in Palestine two thousand years ago. Genealogy is about a series of varying events from different places with different process’ converging, influencing and evolving again with others later. Even if there were an origin it likely wouldn’t be one we would approve of with our sense of compassionate Judeo-Christian morals, more one involving violence, coercion and subjugation. Ironically three things littered throughout the history of Christianity. A linear understanding of morality in the sense of it’s genealogy merely highlights the Christian influence upon the history of Europe in the last two thousand years. Nietzsche’s aim is to delegitimise the Judeo-Christian manipulation of this term and the credibility it grants them.

We exist now in a time of the slave morality, our moral code has been created by the weak, by the herd, and it has been created out of a resentful hateful impotence towards that of the warriors. What is meant by that is that in the past, say pre-history, so pre-Christian history, those with power were the warriors. They held on to their power through their strength and subsequently dictated what should be deemed morally ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The warrior or noble of this time valued strength, courage and glory, and classed these as ‘good’ values to achieve. For them anything other was deemed ‘bad’ in contrast to merely not being them and their ‘good’; the common man, the unhealthy, the weak.

The priests were also part of the nobility but without the political power of the warrior noble. They had the expectations of the nobility and subsequently believed a certain type of life had value above all others. They desired the wealth and especially the political power of this life but were weak comparable to the warriors, it was impossible to achieve their desires through the same means. Despite this impotence they maintained a ‘will to power’, they maintained a commitment to their desired life. This refusal to accept their impotence, while also recognising it’s existence led to deep envy and hatred within the priestly caste and from this they developed ressentiment. Their ressentiment was a “repressed vengefulness” (GM 1 : 7), an inability to exorcise and a suppression of their envy and hatred. They resented their impotence and the shame that came with it. According to Nietzsche this ressentiment became creative and from that gave birth to the slave morality. They constructed a positive value in what the warriors deemed ‘bad’. While the priests may have proclaimed love and compassion, their morals were created out of hatred, envy and resentment.

“Priests make the most evil enemies…Because they are the most powerless. Out of this powerlessness their hate swells” (GM 1 : 7).

The priests changed our understanding of morality, they changed what it was to be ‘good’ and more importantly what it was to be now ‘evil’. The very values held by the warriors, the affirmation of their own self-worth, importantly what maintained their position in society yet repressed or constricted others, became ‘evil’. The priests ‘good’ was the antithesis of the warriors ‘good’. The worshipping of meekness and the weak became a way of demonising the values of the warriors and as a way of circumventing and empowering themselves. The priest doesn’t need strength to achieve power, instead the priest merely convinces others that power itself is unworthy. The ‘evil’ warrior wants power while the priest merely wants neighbourly love, they created value in political equality. The issue for the priest though is that their ressentiment has not disappeared, they may condemn the nobles but they both still desire the same “victory, spoil and seduction” (GM 1 : 8). The difference being that the warrior nobles acted out of this positive affirmation for themselves, while the priests acted reactively out of impotent hatred and rejection of others.

The society based upon this slave morality may in a sense empower us, the herd, but it doesn’t exists in our best interests. It valorises the qualities which would be the inverse of what made the warrior’s powerful and ‘good’, we now exist in a world which commends this new ‘good’. We are commended for passivity, for meekness, for submissiveness, and in Nietzsche’s eyes, ultimately for mediocrity. We have created and exist in what has become a mediocre society full of mediocre people. The man of ressentiment created a world which feared the outsider, or anything different, it is a world born as a counter to the warrior’s ‘good’ and as such is a reactive world. The slave morality has created a culture in which everything exists within a mediocre rulebook of flawed moralities. They are flawed because they’re born out of this reactive hatred and because they valorise weakness and mediocrity. The reactive man of ressentiment lacks the introspective thought to realise their own self-worth and break free of this mediocrity. While this mediocrity may suit the herd it also suppresses anyone who may try to rise above and out of it, keeping all in this substandard mediocrity. An inevitable acceptance of this leads to a belief in the pointlessness of life and an embrace of nihilism.

Nietzsche held onto the classical realist position that moralities exist because they are in the interests of whichever group pushes them. Those in power will push self-interested morals and language that conserves the hierarchy and their position within it, in that sense compassion and equality can be viewed as fundamental tenets of the morals of those without power. The slave morality in this case can be viewed as just another way of creating the conditions best suited to the empowerment of the herd, or at least the priests through the herd.

Words such as ‘noble’, ‘aristocratic’ or ‘high-minded’ were conceptually linked with and synonymous with the warrior’s ‘good’, and ‘common’, ‘plebeian’ or ‘low’ with ‘bad’. In ancient Greek words for ‘real’ and ‘genuine’ evolved into meaning ‘noble’, and contrastingly ‘dark’ and ‘black’ would be used to describe dangers or untrustworthiness, as well as the dark skinned common man in the field who the blond white Aryan conqueror displaced. There was a steady manipulation of language to create an ingrained perspective of the value of the nobility and it’s position as the ‘good’ in society. In time the priests merely did the same. They associated ‘pure’ and ‘impure’ with ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The resultant connection of pureness with abstinence and restraint, the very values that also came with the impotence of powerlessness that the priests and slaves had in abundance.

Nietzsche believes there are types of people, in a sense that we’re born this way. He uses the bird of prey and lamb analogy to explain this. The bird of prey kills the lamb not because it is ‘evil’ but because it is a natural action. This is a sign of the strength of the bird and weakness of the lamb. The lamb though believes the bird of prey could not kill if it wanted and that it’s action is a choice, a belief that “the strong man is free to be weak and the bird of prey to be a lamb” as Nietzsche put it in Beyond Good and Evil. However he believed the bird of prey is not separate from it’s action, nor free to kill or not kill. The naturalness of it’s ability to kill the lamb is what makes the bird a bird of prey yet it is the lambs ressentiment which makes it believe it is a choice. The bird of prey becomes ‘evil’ for existing as it does and the lamb ‘good’ for the same reason. The slave morality lauds those who do not kill or hurt, and in turn praises those powerless to do so regardless. The priests turn their impotence into a positive and demonise the strengths of others.

This is an overview of the first essay in GM more than any type of critique. The intention is to give a general understanding as opposed to swaying the reader towards any particular interpretation.

The Boss

07/12/2021 Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

You can’t study philosophy without dipping your toes into a little morality, or shall we say moralaki. Likely it’ll end up being a lot of morality but the Greek diminutive will make easing in a little less intense. Perhaps ‘The Boss‘ is not the ideal title either; sticking with the Greek theme the boss of western philosophy would likely be Plato or his invention Socrates were a poll ever conducted, and even from a contemporary stance it may not be the man in the picture either, but while reading him now it feels there could only ever be one god of philosophy and it must be Nietzsche. Yet to describe him as such would suggest totally missing the point of his ideas, and while Übermensch – a higher person – would make more sense he never saw himself as one of his own creations, which leaves us with some kind of depressed and insane rock star. Let’s just say he’s a big deal around these parts. So module two, Nietzsche and more precisely his Genealogy of Morality.

It’s early days and I’m just getting my head around some of his concepts. Seemingly he’s not a massive fan of Judeo-Christian morality. It gives power to the slave morality by putting a flawed value on weak concepts likes meekness. He believed this type of morality had a detrimental effect upon the advancement of the the higher person as it thwarted the development of human excellence. Too much focus was put on uplifting the weak herd at the expense of the potential of the higher person. In a sense the need to live by the rules of a morality which pushed empathy, selflessness and equality risked the higher person not fulfilling their potential, as they were forced to reign in their natural instincts. Think of some people who we class as great people, innovative genius’ perhaps, and without a doubt there will be an aspect of them and their single minded drive that falls foul of our sense of the good. Nietzsche’s point is seemingly that we shouldn’t force them to live by our own moral code, this universal moral code of good and evil, because people are quite clearly not universally the same. On the surface it is pretty clear to see why people dislike his non-egalitarian beliefs but it’s not a stretch to say there is an argument to be had for it. How much will become clear as I go through the module.

The influence of the great thinkers throughout history can only really become clear when you see which ideals of theirs have become commonplace within our general thinking. How many times have people reassuringly told themselves or others that if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger, well Nietzsche came up with that. He believed in the importance of the journey, especially if it involved a little suffering, and undoubtable saw little value in just being given the answer without having to work on it. Much of his life revolved around suffering, at the age of four he watched his Lutheran pastor father die from a devastating brain disease, and it was in these moments of suffering throughout his life he did much of his best work. It can’t be a coincidence that considering his own experience he believed moralities that held suffering to be a bad thing, to be so deeply flawed. Suffering for Nietzsche was a good and he put it to the test enough times.

He said without doubt his work would be misused in the future and seemingly the Nazi’s proved him right. They had a little help from his sister who edited and published some of his notebooks after his death to make him look as equally anti-Semitic and nationalistic as she was. While she may have been an old lady at the time she was a total Adolf fan-girl and he was more than happy to warp Nietzsche’s words to justify some Aryan master race bullshit. The truth was that Nietzsche hated nationalism as much as religion, yet spent the first half of the twentieth century mis-represented as a Nazi. Yet that’s the issue, as I said earlier he is very much open to interpretation to the point one esteemed Nietzsche expert will say he was anti-Semitic and other that he wasn’t. Who am I to know really after a few papers and a couple of podcasts.

Nietzsche spent the last eleven years of his life completely insane and died in 1900. In the late 1880’s just before being committed he wrote much of his best work. He wrote ferociously at this point almost as if he knew what was coming and just wanted to get his words and ideas out before it was too late. It isn’t a stretch to suggest there is a fine line between genius and crazy and seemingly Nietzsche lost that battle. He seems interesting though and while I have already made far more notes that this little introductory ramble would suggest, I look forward to attempting to really form an opinion on him as right now I’m likely just to be repeating the words of others if I try to make sense of the man. I’ll come back next time with something a little more detailed and philosophical, or at least an attempt at such.

The Wrong Herd

01/09/2020 Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

There are times we must question whether we are right. Nobody is ever one hundred percent right of course but let’s say more right than wrong. Someone who goes through life always believing themselves to be right in everything may not end up with many friends but could likely have successes in other respects. If someone goes through life always believing themselves wrong, would it be the opposite outcome? Probably unlikely. It must be important to be aware that we may just be wrong though. Is that humility? Maybe self-awareness?

I was thinking of discussing something in the news. One of those fallback pieces in which I decide to deride some politicians for their ineptitude, or an evolution in something on a geopolitical level that arouses some dissatisfaction within me. Usually a complaint of some sort. We’re less likely to be drawn to stories that have a positive and happy narrative remember. Maybe there’s something in that we could learn from. We’re drawn to stories of misery while living lives of misery. Like creates like as they say. Perhaps I should do a new ten day challenge and only write about happy positive things. I’ll probably pass on that one.

Usually the political stories I’m drawn to involve ones bashing the current government in the UK or the US, and commonly the opposition to both governments too. As you can imagine I’m not full of much belief in the political legitimacies of these two countries. Other people though must be. I say must be because not only did enough people vote in the two buffoons holding power but it also appears enough people want to vote in the establishment representatives who will most likely replace them at the next opportunity. When we see a large group of other people doing things we’re inclined to believe they may just be right and we may just be wrong. Herd mentally amongst many other names. It is easy to dismiss these people voting for these two sides as adherents of such a mental state but it’s likely I’m just swayed by another herd that I want to be part of. It’s likely a much smaller herd and one that feeds certain things in my fearful sense of survival but it’s a herd none the less.

With all this then we must all admit we’re being played one way or another. This huge game of power is rattling away as different groups battle it out for moral superiority and likely financial gain one way or another. Money corrupts, power corrupts, everything seems to corrupt, especially morality. Perhaps we’re just a corrupt species and we need to accept it. Or maybe we just need to stop worrying about whatever wrongs are happening in the world and focus on life as it unfolds before us. One extreme to the other yet again. It’s just exhausting that these arseholes continually manage to win power. More so when they’re clearly morally bankrupt and doing a bad job. It’s even possible to imagine things like this could finally defeat me and I stop giving a shit about the world. Maybe just give a shit in a different way. A detached way perhaps, or one that doesn’t get caught up in the hyperbolic nature of power. Or even my own perceived role within all this power. There’s got to be an answer somewhere. I’m sure we’ll see it too when we can finally figure out what it is that has been in front of our eyes all this time.