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Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
On Beyond Good and Evil1
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche is one of the most prolific philosophical writers of the 19th and the 20th
centuries. Though he passed away at the turn of the 20th century, his writing continue to be some of the
most discussed and comprise some of most controversial philosophical ideas even today, in the 21st
century. Why? Simple, when a person of such stature writes that “God is dead” and that “The falseness of
a judgement is […] not necessarily an objection to a judgement” (11),
and that untruth is as valuable as Truth (11), many are will to take
objection. In addition to his deep philosophical musings, what has also
and continues to keep Nietzsche in the fore of philosophical discussions
is his alleged direct or indirect connections to the philosophical
underpinnings of the infamous Nazi party and the subsequent
Holocaust.
While some of the language of the Nazi party is reminiscent of
Nietzsche’s “superman” or obermensche, and while the principles of a
superior class with respective privileges is also reminiscent of the
practices and statements of Nazi party leaders, including Adolf Hitler,
there is much dispute as to whether Nietzsche “set the stage” for Hitler
and the Nazi party or if the Nazi party leaders hijacked the philosophy
as they hijacked the swastika as the party symbol. Because
Nietzsche’s notion that most people are “Slave” like and that only a few
become a “Master” moralists, some critics argue, he must then have
believed those who are Master-moralists are beyond the law, beyond
judgement and therefore “dangerous” to the more prevalent Slavemoralist mentality. Yet, as like party members, these “Master moralists” would be beyond the reach of
social justice. That ultimate power would ultimately corrupt those who possessed it.
While for some critics connected Nietzsche to Nazi immunity from social justice, others focused on
his suggestion that “To recognize untruth as a condition of life—that
certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous
way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place
itself beyond good and evil” (12). “Beyond good and evil?” Beyond
religious dogma? These ideas were surely a sort of validation of the
Nazi party’s assertion that as Aryans they and their attempt to
exterminate German and world Jewry were beyond judgement in this
world or the next.
For others, Nietzsche is about everything anti-Nazi, from the notion of
national “father figure” to idea of dieing for a cause or signing on to
party membership. The very characteristics of a Master-moralist would
preclude even the concept of a “party platform” and would especially
exclude such Master-moralists from performing the work of the Lord,
such as is explicated in Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, when the
future Fuhrer claims he is doing God’s work as he rids the world of the Jewish people.
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You be the judge. Nietzsche: Pro-Nazi or Anti-Nazi?
In addition to noting that earlier philosophers have claimed to have sought the Truth (with a capital T), as in
the one-and-only Truth, Nietzsche, in Beyond Good and Evil, argues these earlier conclusions have all
been shaded, motivated, by their the philosophers’ own social, religious, economic, and even biological
drives. When he writes, “There is a point in every philosophy when the philosopher’s ‘conviction’ appears
on the stage […]” (15), he is arguing that their searches for the Truth have really been their searching for
and their shaping of what they find into support for their own earlier “inspirations” or moral schema, that
their conclusions have shaped their discoveries, and therefore, those Truths are not truths at all. Instead he
writes, “I do not believe that a ‘drive to knowledge’ is the father of philosophy; but rather that another drive
has, here as elsewhere, employed understanding (and misunderstanding) as a mere instrument” (13).
These religious philosophers of whom Nietzsche primarily speaks, in fact, he argues, lead people away
from discovering the Truth*—that man is limited and cannot understand his/her own existence let alone
some Truth that extends beyond this life.
The left side of the diagram above is meant to indicate Nietzsche’s belief that man uses intellectual
systems as his vehicle for getting to the ultimate “Truth.” Yet, Nietzsche also believes that there is no
“ultimate” Truth. Therefore, man’s systems lead man only the “truths” that man creates. The diagram on
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the Right of the illustration above is meant to indicate that it is not the “systems” that will lead man to what
Truth there may be—even if that be that there is no “ultimate” Truth. Systems will continually lead our
understand astray. Instead, Sutton believes, that Nietzsche would argue that it is man’s persistent and
courageous “questioning” that will lead man to a further understanding of the reality of which man is a part.
Instead of exercising what Nietzsche calls a “will to Truth,” the philosopher asserts we should be
exercising our inherent “Will to Power”: The power to shape our own lives, to create our own values and to
live a life that each of us determines worthy. Historical western societies have equated
this “Will to Power” of which Nietzsche speaks with aristocratic and corporate exploitation of the working
and lower classes, that type of exploitation that led to guillotines of the French Revolution and the 1989 and
2001 stock market crashes that impoverished millions and made millions for the few thieves who designed
and executed the Enron and Worldcom debacles. Yet, for Nietzsche, according to Professor David O.
Sutton, there is no reason to believe that such a Will to Power will have negative effects; contrariwise,
Nietzsche, and later Jean Paul Sartre, the 20th century French existentialist, believes we would discover
many of the values that are necessary for personal and social development--including an abiding respect
for elders who have lived in the world before us, a willingness to suffer the hardships that come with living
in a changing world, as well as a conviction that the search for value rather than for an absolute objective
“Truth” will help each of us create a life that is better for all of us.
For the Slave-moralist, who, according to Nietzsche, is a lesser developed human being, following and
staying safe and comfortable are the primary forces that drive decision making and action. While a Master
moralist respects his ancestors, he does not bind himself to trying to relive their lives—falsely believing that
reliving life is safer than recognizing the uniqueness of our own lives and having to decide for ourselves
what life is. Nietzsche, as Professor Sutton also asserts, is not talking of Slave moralists as the slave of
African-American slavery, during which time the individual slave was deprived of the very essence of
individual control. Nietzsche’s Slave-moralist, instead, is a slave to his/her desires to suppress the
anxieties of life by surrendering that control and conforming to the predominant common sense and
religious values of the times. A Slave moralist is one of many of his/her type, always lured by the false
promises of moral right and religious Truth and in that way releases himself of his responsibility to make
himself. Only a Master-moralist can “make” him/herself.
Yet, no one is a Master moralist at all times; one slips and slides. One constantly struggles to bring his/
her life into existence. Few, if any, are always Master-moralistic.
Ironically, in terms of analysis, such Master/Slave characteristics can only rarely be discerned from the
outside world. The only persons who can really “know” the source that drives the action are those who
commit the act. Whether one rescues a child from a burning building because he/she is expected to (Slave
moralist) or because he/she has decided that his/her doing so is good in itself (Master moralist) may never
be known to any degree of certainty from an outside observer, for it is the invisible “motivation” of the act
that makes it a Master or Slave moralistically motivated act. Yet, from outside, is the only position from
which observers can begin to determine the character of others.
Was Adolf Hitler and Nazi party members Master moralists who came together while pursuing their own
truths or were they Slave-moralists conforming to the masses around them, abiding by the values created
for them, afraid to oppose the Fuhrer? Such questions can, for the most part, be determined by examining
the context of the different situations and identifying the motivating forces that led to action. Was the
motivation to be one of the many? Was the motivation to fulfill the individual’s unique potential? Was the
action the result of following predetermined values or the result of creating and determining one’s own
values? We can look around ourselves, at the actions of those who live among us and understand or we
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can look away, close our eyes and be moved by those who would lead us. But determining what it takes to
make an authentic, unique life, requires critical reading skills that take practice to master.
Master Moralist Traits
Slave Moralist Traits
(bottom to top)
Self-satisfaction
Creating Value
Comfort
Conformity
Will to Power
Takes Risks
Avoids Anxiety
Suffers Hardships
Desire for Freedom
What did it take to survive the Nazi death camps? Was it better to stand out or blend in?
Nietzsche, as noted earlier, observes that “There is a point in every philosophy when the
philosopher’s ‘conviction’ appears on the stage […]” (15). So too, do our driving forces, as do the driving
forces of others, reveal themselves if we learn to look and read situations and our actions closely enough.
Our task in this unit is to search out such actions by examining the survivor narratives of two men
who were at the Polish/German death camp known as Auschwitz at the very same time, through the end of
the war, and whose experiences are notably different. We must in no way suggest that these survivors
wrote of their experiences as illustrations of Master and Slave moralistic qualities. And, it is also true that
overcoming our sense that the juxtaposition of the words Slave moralist and survivor is somehow immoral
is challenging, and so it should be.
In this exercise of critical reading skills, the task is not to label the survivors this or that but practice
seeing motive in action, to have an opportunity to look deeper into the reasons people act as they do.
Such practice might be useful in our lives by helping us to critically read the historical significance of events
going on around us. To achieve this end requires that we familiarize ourselves with the characteristics and
terms associated with both the Master and Slave moralist, then to identify and explain how particular
incidents within the survivor writings might have Nietzsche to consider them Master or Slave moralistic.
Remember, we are never judging the survivor: How dare we? We are, through a process of
presentist reprocessing, only considering certain actions and the possible motives for those actions
described in the works as they can be related to Nietzsche’s Master-Slave moralistic categories.
For instance, when Moshe the beadle returns to Sighet, Eli asks why Moshe continues to try and
warn the people of his experience even though they turn away and call him crazy. Moshe responds by
explaining that he does it because it is the right thing to do. Perhaps Nietzsche might have seen Moshe’s
persistence as an act of a Master moralist because Moshe suffers the hardships of ridicule, takes the
chance that he will be denounced, but chooses to act because doing so, he has decided, is the right thing
for him to do.
Watch for similar examples.
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1.
Sutton, David O. Diagram (see powerpoint).
2.
Nietzsche, Fredrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Walter Kaufman. New York: Vintage Books, 1966.
Click here for a download of this reading
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