Toward the end of his First Essay (#16), Nietzsche writes, in summary, "The two opposing values "good and bad," "good and evil" have been engaged in a fearful struggle on earth for thousands of years." The former of these value systems is that of the nobleman; the latter, Nietzsche associates with the herd animal and, especially, the spirit of ressentiment. Most of the essay develops the enormous differences between these, and there is little doubt where Nietzsche stands. Yet it is fair to ask whether Nietzsche would simply have condemned all of this out of existence, ruled it out of human history. At the end of #6 (First Essay), is a telling remark: "For with the priests everything becomes more dangerous, not only cures and remedies, but also arrogance, revenge, acuteness, profligacy, love, lust to rule, virtue, disease --- but it is only fair to add that it was on the soil of this essentially dangerous form of human existence, the priestly form, that man first became an interesting animal, that only here did the human soul in a higher sense acquire depth and become evil --- and these are the two basic respects in which man has hitherto been superior to the beasts!" In all of this, we have to observe that, while Nietzsche is very hard on the Jews for setting forth the path to "good and evil," he also has tremendous respect for what they actually achieved, in dividing human history from natural history.
The value system of "good and bad" begins with the noblemen whose natural self-satisfaction is expressed in a language that evolves into words of praise. The good is a natural self-identification. In opposition to this, the noblemen look down at the lowly with pity or contempt; this, too, is expressed in various ways that eventually come to mean "bad." The system of values simply reflects a system of social stratification in which one group is obviously superior and represents the good, while the other group is obviously inferior and represents the bad. It is a system that can be seen throughout the animal kingdom; it can erupt into violence and conquest; but doubtless it does elevate the superior individuals, setting a "standard" of what is humanly possible.
The transformation to a system of good and evil was, in Nietzsche's mind, a "slave revolt." It "begins when ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values. . . slave morality from the outset says No to what is "outside," what is "different," what is "not itself;" and this No is its creative deed." (#10) Nietzsche calls this an "inversion of the value-positing eye;" what it achieves is removal of tension from one's own attainments to an outward point of view and judgment. Rather than action, what we have is reaction. Value is placed in how we react (turning the other cheek) rather than how we act (as in doing something noble and exemplary). The noble is viewed with jealousy and hatred and eventually is reified as "the evil one." Thus, the value-system of ressentiment sets forth "creatively" by defining evil and, then, with self-satisfaction, resolving goodness in one's own (easy) humility. This is a system that tries to level everything rather than promote greatness; hence, the one who strives to reach beyond is always under suspicion, the evil one.
In Nietzsche's mind, the cultural impact of this slave revolt has been devastating. It is action that makes life interesting, worthy. Reaction settles everything down to a passive fatality. A people who fear what man can become has lost the love of what man is. "The sight of man now makes us weary --- what is nihilism today if it is not that? --- We are weary of man." (#12)
Nietzsche's Second Essay takes as its objective the discovery of the origins of bad conscience, or guilt. This essay can, and should, be read in close comparison with Freud's development of the concept of superego, the "brother clan," and the whole psychopathology of thanatos (the death instinct) and self-hatred.
We need to understand what guilt is. The essay begins with a recollection of the numerous and ghastly ways in which men have treated each other throughout time. Not only had Europeans invented unbelievably terrible, bloody, dismembering tortures and punishments for each other but, and this is the important part, they seem to genuinely enjoy these, even thrive on them. Something in the human psyche enjoys bloody punishments. This, in turn, Nietzsche connects with the creditor-debtor relationship and its own amazing history of debt-collection in dramatically physical, boody terms.
As history passes and men become more sophisticated, the brute pleasures of this blood bath have to be rationalized and, of course, hidden from view. This was ultimately achieved neatly by making men "responsible." If a person's life can be successfully interpreted as an obligation, a responsibility, then the next step to promise-breaking, punishable lack of responsibility, is obvious and virtuous. Nevertheless, punishment, as such, has never historically promoted a feeling of guilt. Quite the opposite, being punished allows one the sense of "paying the debt," leaving nothing to feel guilty about.
At #16, then, Nietzsche announces his very interesting psychological theory of the evolution of "bad conscience." "I regard the bad conscience as the serious illness that man was bound to contract under the stress of the most fundamental change he ever experienced --- that change which occured when he found himself finally enclosed within the walls of society and of peace." And "all instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward --- that is what I call the internalization of man: thus it was that man first developed what was later called his "soul." The entire inner world, originally as thin as if it were stretched between two membranes, expanded and extended itself, acquired depth, breadth, and height, in the same measure as outward discharge was inhibted." [Here we have Freud's basic theory of the conservation of psychic energy which leads to the crucial concepts of repression and sublimation.]
So what is the origin of bad conscience and guilt and what do these mean? The whole overarching system of "social contract" --- that is, civil life --- established as it is by the powerful over the weak and thoroughly invested with a rationalized system of responsibility and debt-punishment has substantially wounded the-animal-man by confining him in a world that prohibits discharge of his natural instinctive pleasures. Sexuality and violence (eros and thanatos) are both prohibited in their instinctive forms; both are confined to highly sublimated forms (to use Freud's term). The loss of externalized sexuality leads to gluttony and other forms of decadence; the loss of externalized violence leads to inwardly directed violence, self-hatred --- in short, bad conscience and guilt. It is not a pretty picture and, obviously, Christianity fits right into this picture as a major accomplice. Why not develop a theology in which we are born guilty? Why not place guilt and self-hatred at a truly metaphysical level logically prior to the lessons of civic society?
The Third (and final) Essay questions the meaning of what Nietzsche calls "the ascetic ideal" --- that is, the ideal of rigorous self-discipline, austerity, or self-denial and abstinence. The opening complaint about Wagner's Parisfal is, of course, prompted by Wagner's "adaptation of the myth to an orthodox Christian austerity in contrast to Wagner's own life, which was scarcely either austere or self-disciplined. The conclusion that there is probably little meaning to an artist's asceticism (because artist's are just functioning at the will of their publics) is a bit harsh and of little general value.
Nietzsche moves on to philosophers and suggests, as a first approximation, that the philosopher "wants to gain release from a torture." (III, #6) Proceeding onward, he declares, "there unquestionably exists a peculiar philosphers' irritation at and rancor against sensuality." In view of this, "the philosopher abhors marriage. . . A married philosopher belongs in comedy." (III, #7) The torture, then, is everyday life, life in detail, as it were; the philosopher sees the ascetic ideal as the "optimum condition for the highest and boldest spirituality." Nietzsche makes it clear that the philosopher's relation to the ascetic ideal is not out of any hatred of life but, rather, it is purely out of a love of life, the philosopher's own life. The philosopher, indeed, is possessed by a "maternal" mission, a "pregnancy," that requires full attention. But why have philosophers adopted the ascetic ideal as such in order to secure attention on their spiritual "children"? According to Nietzsche, the philosophical spirit has always been despised by the majority of men. And is it now different? Thus, philosophers were always forced "to use as a mask and cocoon the previously established types of the contemplative man --- priest, sorcerer, soothsayer, and in any case a religious type --- in order to be able to exist at all." (III, #10) Philosophers are no more advocates of asceticism than are artists, then; their embrace of asceticism is purely pragmatic.
Thus, Nietzsche turns to the priestly type as the only true advocate for the ascetic ideal. And the priestly form of this ideal is no mere attempt to hide from life; rather it is an outright judgment about life. "The idea at issue here is the valuation the ascetic priest places on our life. . . The ascetic treats life as a wrong road." (III, #11) The ascetic priest achieves this valuation of life by juxtaposing against it an otherworldly "life" and the judgment that this is the only true form of life. It is a form of the whole movement of ressentiment. But, in fact, "the ascetic priest [is] the predestined savior, shepherd, and advocate of the sick herd. . . Dominion over the suffering is his kingdom." (III, #15) Nietzsche uses the metaphor of a physician for the ascetic priest, in this role; but the priest is no benign practitioner. "Before he can act as a physician he first has to wound; when he then stills the pain of the wound he at the same time infects the wound --- for that is what he knows to do best of all." (III, #15) According to Nietzsche, the person of ressentiment is under the influence of a genuine "physiological depression," and the priest changes the direction of ressentiment by giving that depression a religious rationalization --- sin and guilt. "An even more highly valued means of combating depression is the prescribing of a petty pleasure that is easily attainable and can be made into a regular event." (#18). Worst of all, Christian asceticism overcomes depression and impotence with "orgies of feeling;" one can amply fill the time with orgies of self-doubt, self-incrimination, and self-inflicted punishment (guilt). "The ascetic priest has ruined psychical health wherever he has come to power; consequently he has also ruined taste in artibus et litteris (in arts and letters) --- he is still ruining it." (#22)
But where does science stand on all of this? Isn't science an antagonist of the ascetic ideal? No, says Nietzsche, picking up, here, the critique of science that began as early as The Birth of Tragedy in conjunction with his critique of the Socratic ideal. Science also pursues an ascetic ideal through positing another (theoretical) reality; science also is thoroughly invested in a concept of truth and a denial of worldly realities. "They are all oblivious of how much the will to truth itself first requires justification; here there is a lacuna in every philosophy --- how did this come about? Because the ascetic ideal has hitherto dominated all philosophy, because truth was posited as being, as God, as the highest court of appeal --- because truth was not permitted to be a problem at all --- Is this "permitted" understood? --- From the moment faith in the God of the ascetic ideal is denied, a new problem arises: that of the value of truth." (#24) [One should recall Book 3 of GS in this context.] Here we need to recognize that Nietzsche uses the word "science" for two purposes. There is theoretical science, the actual academic natural science of his age, and there is the "science" of The Gay Science, which is a heady, aggressively honest pursuit of truths about real life, not other-worldly realities. When Nietzsche asks whether we are brave enough to question realities, it is not a dialectic within an other-worldly theology or theoretical science that he is seeking, but rather he is asking whether we have the courage to accept the realities behind our own worldly value-positing. "A depreciation of the ascetic ideal unavoidably involves a depreciation of science: one must keep one's eyes and ears open to this fact!" (#25)
In the end, Nietzsche returns to a favorite topic, art. "Art, in which precisely the lie is sanctified and the will to deception has a good conscience, is much more fundamentally opposed to the ascetic ideal than is science: this was instinctively sensed by Plato, the greatest enemy of art Europe has yet produced." The greatest enemy of the ascetic ideal is the comedian.
But there is another "eneny," though unconsciously so, and that is Christianity's own "will to truth." The need to grasp truth, verily the morality of truth, in this sense, is ultimately Christianity's gravest danger. If Christianity had been content to remain a schematism it might still exist; but its will to absolute truth has undermined its credibility, especially in relation to its extravagant competition with science. As Nietzsche concludes, "In this way Christianity as a dogma was destroyed by its own morality; in the same way, Christianity as morality must now perish, too: we stand on the threshold of this event." (#27)
copyright 1995 by Tad Beckman