In the first
essay of the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche
talks about the difference between what is called the “noble mode of evaluation”
and the “slave mode of evaluation”. As we have discussed in class, people today
are all “slaves” in that we seem to follow the kind of value system which is
called the “slave revolt in morality”, where the aristocratic values have been reversed
in a sense so that it is the poor, meek, and unhealthy who are good. Nietzsche
states that it is with this inversion that humans first became interesting
creatures.
I find myself
inclined to agree with Nietzsche on that statement. When we first discussed in
class it was hard for me to conceptualize humans that are governed, or adhere,
by the noble mode of evaluation. As Dr. J put it, the slave mode of evaluation
puts a subject behind the actions that occur. By adding agency we can then
assign moral values to people themselves, and as Nietzsche states it is the
weak that claimed the strong to be evil. I certainly feel that I have not
captured Dr. J’s explanation 100% but you get the idea. When thinking about the
noble mode of evaluation, it seemed that humans possessed very little
individual characteristics. From what I understand from Tuesday’s class, it is
inappropriate to say that person A is strong or person B is weak. Within the
noble mode of evaluation there are only actions which have such characteristics.
When I discussed with my friend about this, all we could say is something like “In
this particular area there is strength”. Talking in such a way is troublesome
for me, probably because I have been raised as a “slave” with individual
agency.
In class on Thursday
we went a bit further into the” slave revolt in morality”. An issue that came
to mind was that even before the “slave revolt in morality” strength (or having
a life-affirming will), was relative. If we consider Nietzsche’s example of the
birds of prey and the lambs, even though it is true that we can consider the
birds of prey to be stronger than the lambs, it is true that there is something
(e.g. humans) stronger than those birds. To put this into more appropriate
words, even though the birds have active wills over the lambs, the birds would
also have reactive wills under humans. It is problematic to have the birds
representing strength in one scenario and then representing weakness in
another. Thinking of this is what helped me understand the noble mode of
evaluation a bit more. Both scenarios are simply strength expressing itself
over the weak, and so it doesn't matter that birds of prey may represent
strength at one point and then weakness at another. I get the impression that
the strong will always be strong and the weak always weak when I consider the
noble mode of evaluation. I think the slave mode of evaluation is probably more
representative of human potential since history has shown that the weak can
overcome the strong.
Justin,
ReplyDeleteThis is most definitely an interesting point, but I am a little hesitant to run with it. My original interpretation of the passage regarding the birds of prey and the lambs took the birds of prey and lambs to be generic representations of the strong and the weak. That is, there cannot be something stronger than a bird of prey, at least in the presented scenario, since by definition the bird of prey is the stronger being between the two. I am not sure if Nietzsche’s proposed analogy allows for a hierarchy thus proposed.
On the other hand, if we are to follow this hierarchy of strength and weakness that you have presented, then the following questions also arise: why have the birds of prey themselves not come up with their own slave revolt in morality with respect to those who are stronger than them? What would this even stronger class consist of? Does this mean that only the weakest of the weak are capable of coming up with such a clever idea? I think Nietzsche would allow for relative strength among individuals in the proposed classes (master, priest, slave), but that he would not consent to the conception of a significantly stronger class. That, or those who would exist in such a class would be so few as to be overwhelmed by the numbers the master class (the birds of prey), and would not be able to project their strength across the whole master class in a complete fashion. Regardless, the answers to these questions are not clear, but I think this uncertainty indicates that Nietzsche intended the more generic interpretation I mentioned earlier.
Beyond this, I am still having trouble with what Nietzsche intends by “strength,” and I think that we can point out a similar issue with Nietzsche’s system. Strength, as is generally perceived today, comes in different forms. Brute, physical strength is the most stereotypical, but strength of mind also exists… as well as strength of heart. Should we not say that slaves are actually the strong by introducing a new power that overcomes the birds of prey: cunning?
But I think that this would be a misunderstanding of Nietzsche’s conception of strength. Though at the very least, he is using the term in a narrow and primitive sense. This seems to be the right idea. The whole point of Nietzsche’s genealogy is to present a history of morality. It’s a little absurd, then, to try to apply modern notions of moral understanding to a time when they did not even exist. Things were just simpler then. In this sense, I think Nietzsche might admit that there are hierarchies of strength today, but that back then, when only this primitive notion of strength existed—primitive in the sense that it does not account for rational power over others—the situation was clear cut, and black and white. There were birds of prey and there were lambs. Nothing else.
But now I am getting ahead of myself and just throwing out possibilities.