Notes on Human, all too human

(Originally written July 6, 2007 in Book 25)

Basic Writings of Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
translated: Walter Kaufmann
The Modern Library Classics, New York, 2000

Seventy-Five Aphorisms
From Five Volumes

Human, All too Human (1878)

45.

The concept of good and evil as a dual prehistory
1. In the soul of ruling tribes and castes
2. In the soul of the oppressed, the powerless

Those who are powerful enough to repay good for good and evil for evil are good. The weak are bad.

The enemy is not evil because he can repay good for good or evil for evil.

"Trojan and Greek are both good in Homer. Not he that does us harm but he that is contemptible is considered bad" (147).

Goodness is inherited; a bad man cannot grow out of good soil.

Those who are powerless are bad and all the seemingly "good" things they do are refined malice.

"Our current morality has grown on the soil of the ruling tribes and castes" (148).

92.

Origin of justice

Justice originates among those who are approximately equal in power.

The foundational character of justice is trade.

Revenge and gratitude also grow out of the foundation of trade.

Justice derives from concerns of self-persecution, from egoism.

Justice is so esteemed because it has been forgotten that its roots are egoistic. "A poet might say that God made forgetfulness the guard he placed at the threshold of human dignity" (149).

96.

Mores and Moral

"Being moral or ethical means obeying ancient established law or custom. Whether one submits to it with difficulty or gladly, that is immaterial, it is enough that one does it" (149).

Evil is immoral. To be evil is to be immoral. Being evil is resisting tradition, no matter how reasonable or stupid that tradition is.

This tradition however arose with no regard to good and evil.

Tradition arose to preserve a community, a people. "Every superstitious custom that originated on the basis of some misinterpreted accident involves a tradition that it is moral to follow; for detaching oneself from it is dangerous, even more dangerous for the community than for the individual (because the deity punishes the community - and the individual only indirectly - for the sacrilege and the violation of divine privileges)" (150).

All traditions become more venerable the more time has passed.

136

On Christian Asceticism and Holiness

The nature of asceticism and holiness is complicated.

The marvelors of ascetics and holy men do not wish for science to attempt to explain this phenomena. Much to their fancy when science has attempted it has failed. They revel in the maxim "the unexplained should by all means be unexplainable" (150).

137

Asceticism arises out of man's lust to rule. When they cannot rule others they oppress their own nature, becoming ascetic.

Asceticism is actually a high degree of vanity. For the ascetic is proud of being scorned.

"In every ascetic morality man adores part of Himself as God and to that and needs to diabolicize the rest" (152).

142

Asceticism is merely the religious form that certain "bad" characteristics of man manifests itself.

143

The holy man is what he makes himself appear to be to unholy men. It is this false distinction that leads normal men to view the holy men as superhuman.

"He was not an especially good person, even less an especially wise person; but, he signified something that exceeded all human measure of goodness and wisdom" (153).

The signification of symbol that the holy man has come to represent has become so powerful that even in the age where no one believes in God anymore some (i.e. Schopenhauer) still believe in the Holy man.

144

Jesus Christ, the father of Christianity felt himself the inborn son of God and thus felt himself without sin. This illusion should not be judged too harshly because the complete freedom from sin is a virtuous goal which "is now available to everybody by means of science!" (154).