But herd morality is not just hostile to higher men, it’s hostile to all positive development in mankind in general. If you glorify everything which makes weak and weary, you trap society in a prison of its own making.
Sometimes Nietzsche will use terms like “life” in e.g. “[a] tendency hostile to life is therefore characteristic of [herd] morality.” But in context this refers to the higher type (in this specific passage to the man “raised to his greatest power and splendor”). The term “anti-nature” is the same way.
This is complicated by the sense in which herd morality is considered harmful to life in an indirect way, because Nietzsche’s response to Schopenhauer’s challenge of life’s suffering is that “it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.” So herd morality is also injurious to life generally because it hinders the Goethe/Beethoven-style aesthetic spectacle that makes life worthwhile.
Importantly, I’d say with confidence that Nietzsche’s opposition to herd morality is driven only by its direct effect on the norms of higher men, without any consideration for its good or bad effects on those of the lower men.
Zarathustra starts out with chapters like “despisers of the body” and “Preachers of death”. In “The Will to Power”, you’ll find quotes like: “A kind of self-destruction; the instinct of preservation is compromised. -The weak harm themselves. -That is the type of decadence” And: “In the doctrine of socialism there is hidden, rather badly, a “will to negate life”; the human beings or races that think up such a doctrine must be bungled. Indeed, I should wish that a few great experiments might prove that in a socialist society life negates itself, cuts off its own roots.” He also often speaks of the degeneration of the species, as if what morality is doing is a kind of eugenics which weakens the species. This is harmful to our collective health, and much in tune with “weak men create hard times” (semi-famous quote, but not by Nietzsche). I’m reading a translation here, I don’t know the original German, but I’m seeing words like “destructive elements”, “decay” and “rot”. He also calls the evaluation of peace over war “anti-biological”, criticizing Mr. Herbert Spencer as both a biologist and moralist. That he brings up biology as well as morality tells me that he’s not speaking purely aesthetically.
When Nietzsche speaks of biology, psychology, physics and evolution, most of what he says still holds up today. Unlike many philosophers before him, he isn’t basing all his ideas on a naive misunderstanding of reality and human nature. Here’s another quote from Will to Power: “In order to understand what “life” is, what kind of striving and tension life is, the formula must apply as well to trees and plants as to animals”. Nietzsche even traces back this “Will to Power” to the fundemental laws of physics.
In either case, a society which can produce geniuses and higher men must have a certain level of quality. Nietzsche must have realized that one cannot optimize for just one thing at the cost of something else, since everything is interconnected. If great men are apples, then society is the tree, meaning that harming the tree would be a bad idea.
Sometimes Nietzsche will use terms like “life” in e.g. “[a] tendency hostile to life is therefore characteristic of [herd] morality.” But in context this refers to the higher type (in this specific passage to the man “raised to his greatest power and splendor”). The term “anti-nature” is the same way.
This is complicated by the sense in which herd morality is considered harmful to life in an indirect way, because Nietzsche’s response to Schopenhauer’s challenge of life’s suffering is that “it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.” So herd morality is also injurious to life generally because it hinders the Goethe/Beethoven-style aesthetic spectacle that makes life worthwhile.
Importantly, I’d say with confidence that Nietzsche’s opposition to herd morality is driven only by its direct effect on the norms of higher men, without any consideration for its good or bad effects on those of the lower men.
Zarathustra starts out with chapters like “despisers of the body” and “Preachers of death”.
In “The Will to Power”, you’ll find quotes like: “A kind of self-destruction; the instinct of preservation is compromised. -The weak harm themselves. -That is the type of decadence”
And: “In the doctrine of socialism there is hidden, rather badly, a “will to negate life”; the human beings or races that think up such a doctrine must be bungled. Indeed, I should wish that a few great experiments might prove that in a socialist society life negates itself, cuts off its own roots.”
He also often speaks of the degeneration of the species, as if what morality is doing is a kind of eugenics which weakens the species.
This is harmful to our collective health, and much in tune with “weak men create hard times” (semi-famous quote, but not by Nietzsche).
I’m reading a translation here, I don’t know the original German, but I’m seeing words like “destructive elements”, “decay” and “rot”.
He also calls the evaluation of peace over war “anti-biological”, criticizing Mr. Herbert Spencer as both a biologist and moralist. That he brings up biology as well as morality tells me that he’s not speaking purely aesthetically.
When Nietzsche speaks of biology, psychology, physics and evolution, most of what he says still holds up today. Unlike many philosophers before him, he isn’t basing all his ideas on a naive misunderstanding of reality and human nature.
Here’s another quote from Will to Power: “In order to understand what “life” is, what kind of striving and tension life is, the formula must apply as well to trees and plants as to animals”. Nietzsche even traces back this “Will to Power” to the fundemental laws of physics.
In either case, a society which can produce geniuses and higher men must have a certain level of quality. Nietzsche must have realized that one cannot optimize for just one thing at the cost of something else, since everything is interconnected. If great men are apples, then society is the tree, meaning that harming the tree would be a bad idea.