File spoon-archives/nietzsche.archive/nietzsche_1998/nietzsche.9802, message 79


Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 12:09:38 -0800 (PST)
From: callihan-AT-callihan.seanet.com (Steven E. Callihan)
Subject: Re: Nietzsche and Jesus


>Mr. Callihan wrote the following:
>
>"God is dead" means that there is no absolute morality. It means that
>morality is recognized as politic. Nietzsche said that moralities are social
>utilities of which we have forgotten that they are utilities. "God is dead"
>means that we have remembered that morality is a social utility. This means,
>however, that morality is subject to power, but power is not subject to
>morality. The ruling power can never be moral (although it may be politic
>for the ruling power to _appear_ to be moral). Only the ruled are compelled
>to be moral. The great and impolitic secret is that the utility of morality
>serves not the ruled, but the rulers. Thus, the ruling power is, in fact,
>unconstrained by morality, in that it is only constrained by other powers
>that, for their part, would be no more moral than the ruling power, if they
>only had the power.
>
>I respond:
>
>Therefore, might makes right, and Thrasymachus, much to Socrates' chagrin,
>wins.  Fine.  Now, please tell me again how this philosophy did NOT lead to
>fascism and nazism?
>
>Toodles,
>
>Paul S. Rhodes

No. Nietzsche uncouples power and morality. Thus, that a power is stronger
than another power doesn't make it any more right, or wrong. Nietzsche is
saying that we cannot apply morality as a measuring stick to the question of
power, simply because it, itself, is a production of power. This means that
every power, in so far as it is power, is as morally justified or
unjustified as any other power, period. In that sense, the power-structure
of the liberal bourgeois state is no more morally justified than, say, Mao's
Cultural Revolution. Or, in terms of mere power, democracy is no more
justified in moral terms than the rule of the aristocratic commonwealths. If
we wish a measuring stick for power, we have to look elsewhere than
morality--for Nietzsche, the higher questions are questions of style
(authenticity as unity of style, as grand style).

Best,

Steve
----------------------------------------------------------------------
=A6 Steven E. Callihan            =A6        "The more mistrust,         =A6
=A6                               =A6        the more philosophy."       =A6
=A6 URL: http://www.callihan.com/ =A6                                    =A6
=A6 E-Mail: callihan-AT-callihan.com =A6-F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 346.=A6
----------------------------------------------------------------------



	--- from list nietzsche-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005