Trajectory (plain list)
Master and slave morality
From the typology of BGE 260 into the historical struggle of the Genealogy — Rome against Judea inside modern valuations, never a settled dualism.
1886 · Introduces
Beyond Good and Evil · §260
Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
Master-morality and slave-morality first typologised: two origins of the word “good.”
In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical distinction was brought to light. There is MASTER-MORALITY and SLAVE-MORALITY,--I would at once add, however, that in all higher and mixed civilizations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of th…
Bei einer Wanderung durch die vielen feineren und gröberen Moralen, welche bisher auf Erden geherrscht haben oder noch herrschen, fand ich gewisse Züge regelmässig mit einander wiederkehrend und aneinander geknüpft: bis sich mir endlich zwei Grundtypen verriethen, und ein Grundunterschied heraussprang. Es giebt Herren-…
Sources: gutenberg:4363 · gutenberg:7204
1886 · Anticipates
Beyond Good and Evil · §257
Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
Elevation of the type “man” requires aristocratic distance and some form of slavery.
EVERY elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society and so it will always be--a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the PATHOS OF DISTANCE, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes, out of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on subordinates and instruments, and out of their equally…
Jede Erhöhung des Typus "Mensch" war bisher das Werk einer aristokratischen Gesellschaft - und so wird es immer wieder sein: als einer Gesellschaft, welche an eine lange Leiter der Rangordnung und Werthverschiedenheit von Mensch und Mensch glaubt und Sklaverei in irgend einem Sinne nöthig hat. Ohne das Pathos der Dista…
Sources: gutenberg:4363 · gutenberg:7204
1887 · Develops
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §2
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
The Genealogy begins from the pathos of distance — noble naming as the first valuation.
All honour, then, to the noble spirits who would fain dominate these historians of morality. But it is certainly a pity that they lack the _historical sense_ itself, that they themselves are quite deserted by all the beneficent spirits of history. The whole train of their thought runs, as was always the way of old-fashioned philosophers, on thoroughly unhistorical lines: there is no doubt on this point. The crass ineptitude of their genealogy of morals is immediately apparent…
Sources: gutenberg:52319
1887 · Develops
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §7
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Priestly inversion and the Jewish / Christian revaluation of noble values.
The reader will have already surmised with what ease the priestly mode of valuation can branch off from the knightly aristocratic mode, and then develop into the very antithesis of the latter: special impetus is given to this opposition, by every occasion when the castes of the priests and warriors confront each other with mutual jealousy and cannot agree over the prize. The knightly-aristocratic "values" are based on a careful cult of the physical, on a flowering, rich, and …
Sources: gutenberg:52319
1887 · Develops
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §10
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Slave revolt in morals completed through ressentiment — the historical drama of the two moralities.
The revolt of the slaves in morals begins in the very principle of _resentment_ becoming creative and giving birth to values--a resentment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of action, are forced to find their compensation in an imaginary revenge. While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant affirmation of its own demands, the slave morality says "no" from the very outset to what is "outside itself," "different from itself,"…
Sources: gutenberg:52319
1887 · Revises
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §16
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Rome against Judea: the struggle continues inside modern Europe rather than resolving into one morality.
Let us come to a conclusion. The two _opposing values_, "good and bad," "good and evil," have fought a dreadful, thousand-year fight in the world, and though indubitably the second value has been for a long time in the preponderance, there are not wanting places where the fortune of the fight is still undecisive. It can almost be said that in the meanwhile the fight reaches a higher and higher level, and that in the meanwhile it has become more and more intense, and always mo…
Sources: gutenberg:52319
1887 · Develops
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §4
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Philology of “good”: aristocratic coinage behind moral vocabulary.
The guide-post which first put me on the right track was this question--what is the true etymological significance of the various symbols for the idea "good" which have been coined in the various languages? I then found that they all led back to _the same evolution of the same idea_--that everywhere "aristocrat," "noble" (in the social sense), is the root idea, out of which have necessarily developed "good" in the sense of "with aristocratic soul," "noble," in the sense of "w…
Sources: gutenberg:52319
1887 · Develops
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §5
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Nobles name themselves as higher beings — valuation from above.
With regard to our problem, which can justly be called an intimate problem, and which elects to appeal to only a limited number of ears: it is of no small interest to ascertain that in those words and roots which denote "good" we catch glimpses of that arch-trait, on the strength of which the aristocrats feel themselves to be beings of a higher order than their fellows. Indeed, they call themselves in perhaps the most frequent instances simply after their superiority in power…
Sources: gutenberg:52319
1887 · Develops
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §6
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Priestly turn inside the noble scheme — the hinge toward inversion.
Above all, there is no exception (though there are opportunities for exceptions) to this rule, that the idea of political superiority always resolves itself into the idea of psychological superiority, in those cases where the highest caste is at the same time the _priestly_ caste, and in accordance with its general characteristics confers on itself the privilege of a title which alludes specifically to its priestly function. It is in these cases, for instance, that "clean" an…
Sources: gutenberg:52319
1887 · Develops
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §8
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Sublime love grown from the trunk of hate — Christian ideal’s genealogy.
But you understand this not? You have no eyes for a force which has taken two thousand years to achieve victory?--There is nothing wonderful in this: all _lengthy_ processes are hard to see and to realise. But _this_ is what took place: from the trunk of that tree of revenge and hate, Jewish hate,--that most profound and sublime hate, which creates ideals and changes old values to new creations, the like of which has never been on earth,--there grew a phenomenon which was equ…
Sources: gutenberg:52319
1887 · Develops
On the Genealogy of Morality · I §17
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
The antithesis of ideals is postponed, not closed — Rome and Judea still to return.
Was it therewith over? Was that greatest of all antitheses of ideals thereby relegated _ad acta_ for all time? Or only postponed, postponed for a long time? May there not take place at some time or other a much more awful, much more carefully prepared flaring up of the old conflagration? Further! Should not one wish _that_ consummation with all one's strength?--will it one's self? demand it one's self? He who at this juncture begins, like my readers, to reflect, to think furt…
Sources: gutenberg:52319