Kavanot: Man and Superman

[ואם עד אלה לא תשמעו לי ויספתי ליסרה אתכם] שבע על חטאתיכם: כלומר: הרבה מכות על חטאתיכם. כמו (משלי כד:טז): כִּי שֶׁבַע  יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם; (ישעיהו ל:כו) וְאוֹר הַחַמָּה יִהְיֶה שִׁבְעָתַיִם; (ישעיהו ד:א) וְהֶחֱזִיקוּ שֶׁבַע נָשִׁים.

על שלשה פשעי דמשק: הנה דמינו כי הא־ל יתברך לא יעניש האדם על עון ראשון שני ושלישי כי זה ממדותיו שהוא נושא עון ועובר על פשע, ואמר אליהוא (איוב לג:כט) הֶן כָּל אֵלֶּה יִפְעַל אֵ־ל; פַּעֲמַיִם שָׁלוֹשׁ עִם גָּבֶר וברביעית יענישו.

שש הנה: הששה דברים הראשונים שחשב” שנא ה׳“, והשבע שהוא ”מדנים ישלח“ שהיא השביעית, היא תועבת נפשו, שהיא גרוע מכולם כי משחית את הקיבוץ בכלל.

בני בליעל: בלי על, שפרקו עלו של מקום.

אדם בליעל: בליעל הוא הפורק ממנו על מלכות שמים ועול בשר ודם ואין עליו שום עול והולך בשרירות לבו הרע.

Athenians:

…you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

יב ובני עלי בני בליעל; לא ידעו את ה׳׃ יג ומשפט הכהנים את העם כל איש זבח זבח ובא נער הכהן כבשל הבשר והמזלג שלש השנים בידו׃ יד והכה בכיור או בדוד או בקלחת או בפרור כל אשר יעלה המזלג יקח הכהן בו; ככה יעשו לכל ישראל הבאים שם בשלה׃ טו גם בטרם יקטרון את החלב ובא נער הכהן ואמר לאיש הזבח תנה בשר לצלות לכהן; ולא יקח ממך בשר מבשל כי אם חי׃ טז ויאמר אליו האיש קטר יקטירון כיום החלב וקח לך כאשר תאוה נפשך; ואמר לא כי עתה תתן ואם לא לקחתי בחזקה׃

There’s a lot of discussion among many people, especially fans of Nietzsche and those on the right, of master and slave morality. Master morality is supposed to be the type of morality that reveres strength and dominance, toughness and power, while slave morality is that which champions the weak and appeals to the masses. It argues against forms of oppression and domination.

…When people object to slave morality, they are just objecting to morality. They are objecting to the notion that you should care about others and doing the right thing, even when doing so doesn’t materially benefit you.

I’m an expert on Nietzsche (I’ve read some of his books), but not a world-leading expert (I didn’t understand them). So take all of this as a riff on the concept, rather than a guide to Nietzsche’s original intent.

In the beginning (says Nietzsche), the word “good” was synonymous with “noble” - ie the virtues that made the nobility better than the serfs they ruled. This was way back in the Bronze Age, so your model for a noble should be Achilles, Agamemnon, etc.

The excellent noble delights in being strong, healthy, and virile. He lives in a beautiful palace and wears shining golden armor. He may be cultured, sophisticated, or even brilliant. He’s great at everything he does, and harbors ambitions to become even greater, maybe conquer a kingdom or two. He’s powerful, skillful, and awe-inspiring. Life is good!

Value systems naturally flow from elite to commoners. But a commoner can’t do much with this kind of master morality besides conclude “yeah, I suck”. Commoners are poor, sickly, and live in mud huts. They’re unlikely to achieve many goals beyond “not die”, and they’ve probably had their spirits crushed. But “I suck” isn’t a psychologically stable proposition. So sometime around the Iron Age, the slaves started working on a morality of their own, one where they’re the good guys and the masters are the losers.

Slave morality says that the strong are tyrants, the rich are greedy, and the ambitious are puffed-up braggarts. The wisest man is he who admits he knows nothing; the strongest man is he who conquers his own desires; it is easier for a camel to pass through a needle and so on. God loves the humble, the salt of the earth. The worst thing you can do is try to pridefully rise above your fellows (cf. Tall Poppy Syndrome); the best thing you can do is to lessen yourself, through methods sacred (fasting, celibacy, self-flagellation) or mundane (giving to charity, serving your fellow man).

Nietzsche speculates that slave morality originated with the Jews (an especially downtrodden and persecuted race) but caught on after the rise of Christianity. Sometime around the fall of Rome it took the lead over master morality, and it’s been gaining ever since. As time goes on, slave morality will become more and more dominant, master morality will fade into a dimmer and dimmer memory, and at some point we’ll come to what he calls the Last Man—someone so completely poisoned by slave morality that he worships mediocrity, feels no emotion but envy, and refuses to ever do anything because doing things seems insufficiently humble.

We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for, I don’t know.

[הלל] היה אומר: אם אין אני לי, מי לי?

וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני?

It was said of Reb Simcha Bunem, a 18th century Hasidic rebbe, that he carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. One was inscribed with the saying from the Talmud: Bishvili nivra ha-olam, “for my sake the world was created.” On the other he wrote a phrase from our father Avraham in the Torah: V’anokhi afar v’efer, “I am but dust and ashes.” He would take out and read each slip of paper as necessary for the moment.

Slave morality hates power/excellence and refuses to justify it. Master morality says power/excellence is its own justification, and the rest of us have to justify ourselves to it. Liberalism says that sure, we can probably justify power/excellence, as long as it stays within reasonable bounds and doesn’t cause trouble.

Slave morality ignores benefits and sets the importance of harms at infinity. Master morality ignores harms, and sets the value of “benefits” (not that it would think of it in these terms—greatness doesn’t exist to benefit others) at infinity. Liberalism accepts the normal, finite utilitarian calculus and tries to balance benefits against harms.