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Nietzsche’s Guide to Nihilism- And How We Should Fight It
In 1882, a sickly German man penned these words:
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?”
Not only did Nietzsche criticize religion and attack previous philosophies. No, his critique launched an attack on the very central aspects of morality; down to the seemingly universal values of good and bad.
In Nietzsche’s time, morality was no longer attached to religion but instead was considered to arise from rational thinking and reasoning. However, Nietzsche criticized this view, arguing that such rational morals were still deeply entangled with religion and historical contingencies. In fact, in “The Genealogy of Morals”, Nietzsche provides three treatises devoted to examining the evolution of central moral ideas.
Nietzsche argues that our modern form of good vs bad actually happened due to an ancient slave revolt in morality. The masters, or elites believed that they were good due to their nobility or exclusive virtues, that could only be obtained by those in certain elite classes (such as courage in an elite military class). The slaves were powerless and unable to be good and so came to resent their oppressor. In order to reclaim power, the slaves devalued everything their masters had- and that they could not have — and therefore vilified their oppressor, claiming them to be evil, making the humble lives of the slaves good.
The slaves would argue that the causes behind the masters power are evil and that humility is voluntary rather than something the slaves were forced into.
Nietzsche writes:
“Our morality amounts to a vindictive effort to poison the happiness of the fortunate (GM III, 14), instead of a high-minded, dispassionate, and strictly rational concern for others”.
