Second Essay. “Guilt,” “Bad Conscience,” And The Like.
Have these current genealogists of morals ever allowed themselves to have even the vaguest notion, for instance, that the cardinal moral idea of “ought” originates from the very material idea of “owe”? Or that punishment developed as a retaliation absolutely independently of any preliminary hypothesis of the freedom or determination of the will? — And this to such an extent, that a high degree of civilization was always first necessary for the animal man to begin to make those much more primitive distinctions of “intentional,” “negligent, ” “ accidental , ” “ responsible , ” and their contraries , and apply them in the assessing of punishment .
Page 21 · the fact that it is nowadays so cheap , obvious , natural , and inevitable , and that it has had to serve as an illustration of the way in which the sentiment of justice appeared on earth , is in point of fact an exceedingly late , and even refined form of human judgment and inference ; the placing of this idea back at the beginning of the world is simply a clumsy violation of the principles of primitive psychology . Throughout the longest period of human history punishment was never based on the responsibility of the evil – doer for his action , and was consequently not based on the hypothesis that only the guilty should be punished ; on the contrary , punishment was inflicted in those days for the same reason that parents punish their children even nowadays , out of anger at an injury that they have suffered , an anger which vents itself mechanically on the author of the injury — but this anger is kept in bounds and modified through the idea that every injury has somewhere or other its equivalent price , and can really be paid off , even though it be by means of pain to the author.
Page 27 Speaking generally, there is no doubt but that even the justest individual only requires a little dose of hostility, malice, or innuendo to drive the blood into his brain and the fairness from it. The active man, the attacking, aggressive man is always a hundred degrees nearer to justice than the man who merely reacts; he certainly has no need to adopt the tactics, necessary in the case of the reacting man, of making false and biased valuations of his object. It is, in point of fact, for this reason that the aggressive man has at all times enjoyed the stronger, bolder, more aristocratic , and also freer outlook , the better conscience . – –
Page 27 On the other hand, we already surmise who it really is that has on his conscience the invention of the “bad conscience, ” — the resentful man !
Page 31 The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast , are the increase of fear , the sharpening of the sense of cunning , the mastery of the desires : so it is that punishment tames man , but does not make him “ better ” — it would be more correct even to go so far as to assert the contrary ( “ Injury makes a man cunning , ” says a popular proverb : so far as it makes him cunning , it makes him also bad . Fortunately, it often enough makes him stupid)
Page 31 Just like the plight of the water – animals, when they were compelled either to become land – animals or to perish, so was the plight of these half – animals, perfectly adapted as they were to the savage life of war, prowling, and adventure — suddenly all their instincts were rendered worthless and “switched off . ” Henceforward they had to walk on their feet — “carry themselves,” whereas heretofore they had been carried by the water: a terrible heaviness oppressed them. They found themselves clumsy in obeying the simplest directions, confronted with this new and unknown world they had no longer their old guides — the regulative instincts that had led them unconsciously to safety — they were reduced , were those unhappy creatures , to thinking , inferring , calculating , putting together causes and results , reduced to that poorest and most erratic organ of theirs , their “ consciousness . ” – –
Page 31 But thereby he introduced that most grave and sinister illness , from which mankind has not yet recovered , the suffering of man from the disease called man , as the result of a violent breaking from his animal past , the result , as it were , of a spasmodic plunge into a new environment and new conditions of existence , the result of a declaration of war against the old instincts , which up to that time had been the staple of his power , his joy , his formidableness . Let us immediately add that this fact of an animal ego turning against itself, taking part against itself , produced in the world so novel , profound , unheard – of , problematic , inconsistent , and pregnant a phenomenon , that the aspect of the world was radically altered thereby . In sooth, only divine spectators could have appreciated the drama that then began , and whose end baffles conjecture as yet — a drama too subtle , too wonderful , too paradoxical to warrant its undergoing a non – sensical and unheeded performance on some random grotesque planet ! – –
Page 34 – The feeling of owing a debt to the deity has grown continuously for several centuries, always in the same proportion in which the idea of God and the consciousness of God have grown and become exalted among mankind. (The whole history of ethnic fights, victories, reconciliations, amalgamations , everything , in fact , which precedes the eventual classing of all the social elements in each great race – synthesis , are mirrored in the hotch – potch genealogy of their gods , in the legends of their fights , victories , and reconciliations . Progress towards universal empires invariably means progress towards universal deities; despotism, with its subjugation of the independent nobility, always paves the way for some system or other of monotheism.) The appearance of the Christian god, as the record god up to this time, has for that very reason brought equally into the world the record amount of guilt consciousness. – –
Page 34 – Granted that we have gradually started on the reverse movement, there is no little probability in the deduction , based on the continuous decay in the belief in the Christian god , to the effect that there also already exists a considerable decay in the human consciousness of owing ( ought ) ; in fact , we cannot shut our eyes to the prospect of the complete and eventual triumph of atheism freeing – –
Page 34 – mankind from all this feeling of obligation to their origin, their causa prima. Atheism and a kind of second innocence complement and supplement each other. – –
Page 34 – So much for my rough and preliminary sketch of the interrelation of the ideas “ought” ( owe ) and “ duty ” with the postulates of religion . I have intentionally shelved up to the present the actual moralization of these ideas ( their being pushed back into the conscience , or more precisely the interweaving of the bad conscience with the idea of God ) , and at the end of the last paragraph used language to the effect that this moralization did not exist , and that consequently these ideas had necessarily come to an end , by reason of what had happened to their hypothesis , the credence in our “ creditor , ” in God . – –
Page 34 · The actual facts differ terribly from this theory. It is with the moralization of the ideas “ought ” and “ duty , ” and with their being pushed back into the bad conscience , that comes the first actual attempt to reverse the direction of the development we have just described , or at any rate to arrest its evolution ; it is just at this juncture that the very hope of an eventual – –
Page 34 – Redemption has to put itself once for all into the prison of pessimism , it is at this juncture that the eye has to recoil and rebound in despair from off an adamantine impossibility , it is at this juncture that the ideas “ guilt ” and “ duty ” have to turn backwards — turn backwards against whom ? There is no doubt about it ; primarily against the “ower , ” in whom the bad conscience now establishes itself , eats , extends , and grows like a polypus throughout its length and breadth , all with such virulence , that at last , with the impossibility of paying the debt , there becomes conceived the idea of the impossibility of paying the penalty , the thought of its inexpiability ( the idea of “ eternal punishment ”) — finally , too , it turns against the “ creditor , ” whether found in the causa prima of man , the origin of the human race , its sire , who henceforth becomes burdened with a curse (“ Adam , ” “ original sin , ” “ determination of the will ” ) , or in Nature from whose womb man springs , and on whom the responsibility for the principle of evil is now cast (“ Diabolisation of Nature ” ) , or in existence generally , on this logic an absolute white elephant , with which mankind is landed ( the Nihilistic flight from life , the demand for Nothingness , or for the opposite of existence , for some other existence , Buddhism and the like ) — till suddenly we stand before that paradoxical and awful expedient , through which a tortured humanity has found a temporary alleviation , that stroke of genius called Christianity : — God personally immolating himself for the debt of man , God paying himself personally out of a pound of his own flesh , God as the one being who can deliver man from what man had become unable to deliver himself — the creditor playing scapegoat for his debtor , from love ( can you believe it ? ) , from love of his debtor!
Third Essay. What Is The Meaning Of Ascetic Ideals?
Page 49 · But let us turn back. Such a self-contradiction, as apparently manifests itself among the ascetics, “Life turned against Life,” is — this much is absolutely obvious — from the physiological and not now from the psychological standpoint, simply nonsense. It can only be an apparent contradiction; it must be a kind of provisional expression, an explanation, a formula, an adjustment, a psychological misunderstanding of something, whose real nature could not be understood for a long time, and whose real essence could not be described; a mere word jammed into an old gap of human knowledge. To put briefly the facts against its being real: the ascetic ideal springs from the prophylactic and self – preservative instincts which mark a decadent life, which seeks by every means in its power to maintain its position and fight for its existence; it points to a partial physiological depression and exhaustion , against which the most profound and intact life – instincts fight ceaselessly with new weapons and discoveries . The ascetic ideal is such a weapon : its position is consequently exactly the reverse of that which the worshippers of the ideal imagine — life struggles in it and through it with death and against death ; the ascetic ideal is a dodge for the preservation of life . – –
Page 53 · You can see now what the remedial instinct of life has at least tried to effect , according to my conception , through the ascetic priest , and the purpose for which he had to employ a temporary tyranny of such paradoxical and anomalous ideas as “ guilt , ” “ sin , ” “ sinfulness , ” “ corruption , ” “ damnation . ” What was done was to make the sick harmless up to a certain point , to destroy the incurable by means of themselves , to turn the milder cases severely on to themselves , to give their resentment a backward direction ( “ man needs but one thing ” ) , and to exploit similarly the bad instincts of all sufferers with a view to self – discipline , self – surveillance , self – mastery . It is obvious that there can be no question at all in the case of a “ medication ” of this kind , a mere emotional medication , of any real healing of the sick in the physiological sense ; it cannot even for a moment be asserted that in this connection the instinct of life has taken healing as its goal and purpose . On the one hand , a kind of congestion and organisation of the sick ( the word “ Church ” is the most popular name for it ) : on the other , a kind of provisional safeguarding of the comparatively healthy , the more perfect specimens , the cleavage of a rift between healthy and sick — for a long time that was all ! and it was much ! it was very much!
Page 55 “Good and Evil , ” quoth the Buddhists , “ both are fetters . The perfect man is master of them both . ” – –
Page 61 · What is the significance of the power of that ideal , the monstrousness of its power ? Why is it given such an amount of scope ? Why is not a better resistance offered against it ? The ascetic ideal expresses one will : where is the opposition will , in which an opposition ideal expresses itself ? The ascetic ideal has an aim — this goal is , putting it generally , that all the other interests of human life should , measured by its standard , appear petty and narrow ; it explains epochs , nations , men , in reference to this one end ; it forbids any other interpretation , any other end ; it repudiates , denies , affirms , confirms , only in the sense of its own interpretation ( and was there ever a more thoroughly elaborated system of interpretation ? ) ; it subjects itself to no power , rather does it believe in its own precedence over every power — it believes that nothing powerful exists in the world that has not first got to receive from “ it ” a meaning , a right to exist , a value , as being an instrument in its work , a way and means to its end , to one end . Where is the counterpart of this complete system of will , end , and interpretation ? Why is the counterpart lacking ? Where is the other “ one aim ” ? But I am told it is not lacking , that not only has it fought a long and fortunate fight with that ideal , but that further it has already won the mastery over that ideal in all essentials : let our whole modern science attest this — that modern science , which , like the genuine reality – philosophy which it is , manifestly believes in itself alone , manifestly has the courage to be itself , the will to be itself , and has got on well enough without God , another world , and negative virtues . – –
Page 61 – With all their noisy agitator – babble , however , they effect nothing with me ; these trumpeters of reality are bad musicians , their voices do not come from the deeps with sufficient audibility , they are not the mouthpiece for the abyss of scientific knowledge — for today scientific knowledge is an abyss — the word “ science , ” in such trumpeter – mouths , is a prostitution , an abuse , an impertinence . The truth is just the opposite from what is maintained in the ascetic theory . Science has to – day absolutely no belief in itself , let alone in an ideal superior to itself , and wherever science still consists of passion , love , ardour , suffering , it is not the opposition to that ascetic ideal , but rather the incarnation of its latest and noblest form . Does that ring strange ? There are enough brave and decent working people , even among the learned men of to – day , who like their little corner , and who , just because they are pleased so to do , become at times indecently loud with their demand , that people to – day should be quite content , especially in science — for in science there is so much useful work to do.
If you are interested in reading books about unmasking human nature, consider reading The Dichotomy of the Self, a book that explores the great psychoanalytic and philosophical ideas of our time, and what they can reveal to us about the nature of the self.