Examples Of Nietzsche And Slave Morality

Greed is the undertone upon which Douglass states that slavery “corrupted souls” and “turned good people into bad people.” The institution of slavery was based on the ultimate control and power over a human to whom he is stripped of all of his identity and becomes sub-human. Consequently, the institution forces slave holders had to buy into this concept in order to justify any and all cruelty toward slaves. Douglas states “Slave holders resort to all kinds of cruelty” and later describes various ways of torture and punishment “all are in requisition to keep the slave in his condition as a slave in the United States” (Douglass 272). Slave holders showed no mercy when reprimanding slaves. The brutality and cruelty of these punishments were more of a statement of power and control and often times the punishment was worse than the offense.

It does not find its root and origin in objective circumstances; it originates from a place of suppression, of seeking freedom, and most significantly, of ressentiment. Herein the idea Nietzsche proposes is that the slaves are responsive against their noble masters because they are weak and impotent, leading to the festering of hatred and resentment. This means that values culminating from the revolt would be inaccurate in representing the true meaning of “good” or “evil”, because they were formed through the tainted lens of the slaves of ressentiment. They would portray the slaves, the weak, and the powerless as “good” and favourable, while casting the nobles, the masters, and the upperclassmen in an “evil” and malicious light. This inverts the original notion that the nobles are the definition of “good”. Nietzsche expounds this situation by clarifying that the nobles become “blond beast[s]” (Nietzsche, page 128) when out of their familiar circumstances, insinuating that they turn into a barbaric state where they seek victory over those who are inferior to them. In turn, displays of brutality will be expressed, as a by-product of this barbarism and therefore, fulfilling the morality of the nobles as “evil”. Nietzsche also expresses that this form of morality may not always be beneficial; it cages the

Masters and slaves are constantly discussed throughout Nietzsche’s work, but the connection between them is discussed best in his book On the Genealogy of Morality. The first of the three essays outlines two alternate structures for the creation of values, which is credited to masters and the other to slaves.

If the enemies of the slave were to have a face then it would be the face of their master. The master of slaves are the owner of slaves. there is a misconception that during the time of slavery. That all whites have slaves at their disposal. However, this is not the case. Only a few whites own slave categorized by the number of slave owned--farmer and plantation owner. Only a very small percent are plantation owner and within those small percent are whites that own more than hundreds of slave. These one percent of one percent would be thought to be the "bad guys" of the slave life in our point of view but in reality, "no matter how humane a master might be, he or she could sell a slave with little or no discomfort." In other words all owner are all the same. But how does this relate in resistance from the slave.

Furthermore, Kolchin delves deeply into the oddly fascinating dynamics of the slave-master relationship, which allows incidents such as a master whipping his slave for working sluggishly and then the evening of the same day, gathering all of the slaves for a bible reading session. A person who provides basic needs for others but forces them to provide him free labor in return is evaluated repeatedly in the book with interesting outcomes. However, the author likewise presents a slave owner who had minimal impact on slaves’ lives outside of the workday, one who allowed the slaves to have social and religious celebrations of their own choosing, and viewed the slaves as not just property, but humans.

Through his diction, specifically the use of “wicked desires,” “own lusts,” and “cunning arrangement,” Douglass clearly identifies the evil within the master’s acts. Douglass logically explains why “my master was my father,” by presenting the details of what happens to the children of slave women. Within this logos-driven passage, however, is a strong emotional appeal. The factual representation of what happened in these cases is corrupt within itself, and through his wording, Douglass attacks slavery and the acts of his master. Laws themselves made slaveholders the slave’s fathers, and Douglass exposes the inhumane concept of being born into slavery.

To begin, slavery manipulated even the most kind-hearted slaveholders into evil beings. Douglass witnessed slavery snatch the kind souls of numerous new slave owners. When referring to one of his mistresses, Douglass says of her, “Her face was made of heavenly smiles, and her voice of tranquil music. But alas! this kind heart had but a short time to remain as such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work” (Douglass 19). Douglass’s mistress was initially a warm-hearted, inviting

Some slavery apologists claimed that blacks were beasts or a degenerated form of the human species. Douglass argued the hypocrisy of special laws prohibiting the free actions of blacks, such as rebelling against masters or any white person if blacks were bestial and incapable of independent and rational behavior. Also, there was the Christianization of slaves and punishment for practicing other religions. Then there was the matter of masters breeding with slave women producing mulatto children like Douglass. If blacks were beasts, then why were the offspring offensive to the mistress of the property. Slavery subverted the natural goodness of blacks by brutalizing them, as well as white slave holders and other whites affected by this institution. An example of this is Douglass’s mistress in Baltimore who at first was goodness personified, but soon after a scolding from her husband of her kind treatment she became harsh and cruel (p.62). To Douglass this was as injurious to the mistress as it was to the

“As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples.” Nietzsche was one of the first modern philosophers to rebel against rationalism and when World War I came about, the revolution against religion truly became a legitimate statement. Friedrich Nietzsche strongly believed that many of those that practiced religion were led to the acceptance of slave morality. Religion had always played a fundamental role in society as it sets strict boundaries and standards of what is morally correct and incorrect. However, Nietzsche claims that, “Human nature is always driven by “ ‘the will to power’ ”, but religion will tell one otherwise, saying that one should forbid their bad desires. In Nietzsche’s

There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones - there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one. (127)

While Nietzsche’s standpoint of the master morality can be viewed in the lifestyle of people today, it is not a morality that need be accepted or strived for as a sense of power or accomplishment in life. The Bible teaches that as we lose our live for Jesus we will find it (Matthew 10:39). Submitting to God is not an act of weakness, rather an honor and gain as we lose ourselves in Him and find our true selves. The Bible says that we were made in God’s image and likeness, and we were given dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26). Nietzsche’s master morality appears to be just that, an attempt to gain dominion. Since Nietzsche did not believe in God, which is the way to salvation and eternal life (Romans 10:9), it is safe to assume that he was serving the god of this world and his ways, which have always been to try to copy or be like God (Isaiah 14:13-14). Nietzsche had knowledge about God but decided to turn away from him. Because of this, Romans 1:28 -29 shows that he, among other things would be arrogant, boastful heartless, and invent ways of doing evil, which to me is exactly what his whole master-slave morality portrays. Had Nietzsche just turned from his wicked ways and submitted to the One and only true God, he would have found the peace, love, and true authority with out death.

In Nietzsche’s aphorisms 90-95 and 146-162 he attacks what he believes to be the fundamental basis of the “slave” morality prevalent in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as other religions and societies. From the beginning, he distinguishes the two different types of moralities he believes to exist: the “master morality”, created by rulers of societies, and the “slave” morality, created by the lowest people in societies. The former stresses virtues of the strong and noble while looking down upon the weak and cowardly. This type of morality, however, is not as widespread as the “slave morality” that has been adopted by so many religions. Nietzsche looks through the psychology and logic of

Man’s development of “bad conscience” is a complicated process that sees its beginnings in slave morality’s doubling of the doer and the deed. According to Nietzsche, the slave (the weaker man) had developed ressentiment towards the noble (the stronger man), labeling the noble as evil and blaming him for slave’s suffering (20-22). The slave separated the noble (the doer) from his instinctive actions (the deeds) and claimed the noble possessed “free will;” the slave believed “the strong are free to be weak” (26). The slave set up the ideal of his own weak and passive instincts being “good” and the strong and active instincts of the nobles being “evil” (26-27). As stated by JHarden, when defining his weakness as good, “the slave turned [his] natural condition of suffering at the hands of others into a condition which should be desired” (JHarden). As religions developed, and the slave morality became dominant, this ideal of good and evil prevailed and forced man to become conscious of his instincts as separate from himself, something he could control.

We begin to define the line between good and evil and the way in which it can corrupt human beings. The message portrayed that evil and the misuse of power is an ongoing matter, one in which could affect anyone and is partially an involuntary act – the evil animalistic behaviour becomes engraved into minds; like Goeth.

For Nietzsche, “the slave revolt in morality begins when ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of natures that are denied the true reaction, that of deeds, and compensate themselves with an imaginary revenge.” (Nietzsche 913). This imaginary revenge causes the complete reversal in defining words of class. The resentful slaves and priests looked up at the nobility with anger, characterizing them as selfish, corrupted, abusive and tyrannical, among other things. Ultimately, they came to the conclusion that the nobility were the pinnacle of evil. In doing so, “he has conceived ‘the evil enemy,’ ‘the Evil One,’ and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a ‘good one’—himself!” (Nietzsche 915). Through the venomous eye of ressentiment, the slave class has characterized the good men, those with strong moral character as evil, and in doing so, has