On the Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche - Coursework Example

NE Order#: 437412 Topic: Nietzsche-On the Genealogy of Morals The divine will: Add dynamism to the free-will. You are the master. Remove dynamism from the free-will. You are the slave. Actions of free will contribute to dynamism without destruction. The weak surrender and free will cannot exist together. Can light and darkness remain together? When the light is switched on, the darkness has to go. No option is given to it whether to go or not. Similarly an individual, who knows the proper connotation of free will and acts accordingly, can do no wrong. His utterances are faultless aphorisms. He is the individual who lives every moment of his secular life experiencing spirituality and divinity. He knows for certain -- that which is not practical cannot be spiritual either. He is a man of perfection and whatever he thinks and does is perfect. Although the three essays in the book “On the Genealogy of Morals” by Nietzsche are interrelated (the basic contents overlap each other), he extensively and emphatically deals with the concept of free will in the third essay, “the meaning of ascetic ideals."(Nietzsche et al, 2007, p.xiv) His confrontation is with asceticism, the powerful and paradoxical force that dominates contemporary life. He terms it as the expression of a weak, sick will. According to him, this sick will remains sick as it is unable to challenge the animal instincts, its earthly nature-- as vile, sinful, and horrible. These instincts dominate, notwithstanding one’s efforts to subdue and tame them as much as possible. Nietzsche concludes that "man still prefers to will nothingness than not will."(Nietzsche et al, 2007, p.120) Nietzsche’s understanding and reach about the merits of asceticism itself is wrong. Just because counterfeit $500 are available in the market (their legal value is zero), one cannot term the original $500 currency as fake. His contention that the sick will of the ascetics is unable to challenge the animal instincts is unfounded. Those sick and weak wills are not ascetics. Asceticism is also a process. Ascetics are not dropped from the heaven. Just a doctor or an engineer attains the professional degree after studying hard for a number of years, similar is the spiritual practice. It is a ladder of progress to be climbed step by step, carefully. Highest reach of perfection is an attainable reality. Human beings live every minute of the existence amidst various temptations of life. With force and suppression, one can build an artificial barrier against passion and negative tendencies. Their outward flow can be checked for some time. The permanent solution for this malady can be found through various spiritual practices. Company of good internal thoughts is one of them; company of the good people is another option. What are spiritual congregations? In that assembly, a unique power is created, it lays the foundation for a powerful internal fortress, to thwart the power of the evil attractions. The progress towards asceticism commences with the understanding of detachment. To develop detachment is not the defeatist attitude. The eternal job of the mind is to value the objects, but the genuine ascetic knows the value of the mind! The same mind, when properly tuned will show the glimpses of that internal scenic beauty with which human beings are irrevocably connected. So, the observation of Nietzsche that an ascetic possesses weak will power and his mind is sick is incorrect. The real ascetics have transcended such negative tendencies, not subdued them. Anything subdued with force is bound to revert to its original form sooner or later. That which is transcended, remains in that position for ever. The nothingness of such an ascetic is not emptiness, but it is the ultimate achievement of his life, where he revels in the state of ultimate bliss. The will of the divine and the will of the secular, mundane life: Whereas in understanding the will power of the divine Nietzsche is absolutely wrong, as for his explanation of the will power of the secular, he is absolutely right. His contention that all of secular existence is a struggle between different wills for the feeling of power is perfect. One can see it in the day to day competition of individuals to assert superiority, and confront the opposition. A thing or a situation assumes meaning because there is some will to dominate it. A thing may have different meanings at different times. An individual may will in a particular style about a particular thing at a particular time. On another occasion, his will may be entirely different, even contradictory to the earlier will! It depends upon the type and nature of contact, the mental association one establishes with the object one wills! But this will power should not be confused with the divine will power, which is spiritually inclined. The secular will power mostly works in tandem with ego. Let us leave ascetic ideal for a while and look at the differences between the noble, sovereign use of free will and the slavish use of the same concept. He opines, “In the mouths of the slaves, ‘good’ comes to refer not to a life of robust vitality; but to one that is ‘not-evil’,(Nietzsche et al,2007, xxi) i.e. not in any way like the life that the masters live. Though a variety of further conceptual inventions (notably, ‘free will’) the slaves stylize their own natural weakness into the result of a choice for which they can claim moral credit.”(Nietzsche et al, 2007, p.xxi) By citing this example, it is difficult to assume what exactly Nietzsche is trying to aim at. He must be having the picture of the conditions in which the slaves of his era lived. How can a slave exercise his free will? Viewed from any angle, he is not in a position to do so. How can slaves think of robust vitality? They live under the conditions of total subjugation; have no economic power, social respect and are entirely at the mercy of their masters. This is not the place to go in to detail the life of the slaves, but they do not have the remotest connection to exercise their free will. The weaknesses of the slaves are not natural. It is imposed and conditioned by the laws of the era and the personal whims and moods of their masters. Most of the masters were never kind to the slaves and exploited them in the worst possible manner. They were denied education, and illiteracy was so deep amongst the slaves that most of them did not know their dates of birth. Weakness of the slaves was not natural. It was forcibly imposed on them. In the grim circumstances in which they lived, anybody would become cynical. When they lived in immoral circumstances created for them by their masters, where is the question of morality? To imitate the lifestyles of the masters was in no way possible for the slaves. They just adhered to two words, yours faithfully or yours obediently. Exercise of freewill in any guise was not even their dream in the circumstances in which they were placed. Nietzsche engages in further discussion about the ascetic life. To be frank, only a Realized Soul is the competent individual to discuss about the ascetic life and throw light on the various facets related to it. Nietzsche is certainly not one of them. He is just describing a fruit, without having tasted it. Asceticism and spirituality are not about mastering the spiritual texts; they are the kindergarten stuff for a true ascetic. Asceticism is all about directly experiencing. It is the process of merger with divinity. When an argument begins with wrong premises, its further steps are bound to be wrong and the final conclusion absolutely wrong! That is the position of Nietzsche when he articulates about asceticism. According to him ascetic priest is the most serious representative of the ascetic ideal! Absolutely wrong! Normally priests possess some half-cooked knowledge about certain religious texts. He further sees “life as a wrong road on which one must finally walk back to the point where it begins, or as a mistake that is put right by deeds-that we ought to put right.”(Nehamas, p.114) This again is a contradictory statement. A true ascetic makes enquires about the origin of life with questions like, who am I? From where have I come, etc…No one tells an ascetic to walk back. There is nothing like walking back or walking forward in spirituality. The issue relates to self-enquiry. Sensory pleasures and distractions are not to be condemned; only their true nature and limitations needs to be properly understood. Through ascetic life only one can make an attempt to reach the goal. It is not total renunciation from active secular activities as propounded by Nietzsche. It is living appropriately through the hustle and bustle of life. The wise saying goes, do not run away to an ashram (hermitage) on the hills; create an ashram where you are! Nietzsche opines, “Every smallest step in the field of free thought, of a life shaped personally, has always had to be fought for with spiritual and bodily tortures.” (Nietzsche et al, 2007,p.138) This again is a contradictory statement. Firstly spirituality is not a torture and the spiritual aspirants know this. Following the prescribed procedures willingly and with joy is not torture. If I eat fruits and not butter chicken willingly and joyfully it is not bodily torture. Ascetic life is not for the weak. It is for the bravest of the brave and the strongest of the strong. Nietzsche opines, “In an accounting that is physiological and no longer psychological, a contradiction such as the ascetic seems to represent, life against life.”(Nietzsche et al, 1998 p.85); it is the will to stop willing, life turned against it. It is an expression of the will to power trying to master not some part of life, but trying to master life itself….the first sentence is absolutely wrong; the second one is absolutely right. An ascetic does view life in its totality and not in parts. The world is one family for him. He knows that reason cannot penetrate the truth all by itself. It is only used as a tool to a limited extent. Nietzsche objects to ascetic ideals only insofar as they try to eliminate thought altogether—this again is the wrong understanding by Nietzsche about ascetic ideals. A true ascetic does not willfully try to eliminate thoughts. He transcends the thought process. Transcending is not elimination but perfect understanding of the mind. Mind in itself does not have existence. Mind is just the bundle of thoughts. His assertion that “the ascetic ideal springs from the protective instinct of a degenerating life” (Nietzsche et al 2007, p.79), is poor understanding of the profound subject. Rather, degeneration of the human spirit stops with the pursuit of ascetic ideals. In all periods of history, in every level of society and in most of the departments of activity, sick minds and shams are available in plenty. In the area of asceticism also a few wander in to it as escapists from life. Such people bluff those who come under their influence playing upon their credulity, whose knowledge about spirituality is imperfect. Self-deceiving is not the practice in ascetic life alone. In every department of human activity one finds such individuals. Some, who are not conscious of the goal, wander into the life of asceticism and such people are not striving in the right direction. Soon, they may even forget the very purpose for which they took to ascetic life, by sacrificing the secular life and the comforts of the domestic life. Nietzsche seems to confuse himself while comparing the religious life with that of spiritual life. He relies heavily by tendering the example of priest. The priest is a religious professional, not the spiritual symbol. One can become a priest, without being spiritual. The spiritual individual will never make attempts to dull the sensations. His sensations are full of bliss and he is engulfed in vibrancy from within. The extinction of the ego is not the extinction of the will. Nietzsche fails to appreciate this differentiation. Ego is a negative trait, and as such it needs to be eliminated by the one who truly pursues asceticism. The paradigmatic example of a water drop coming to see itself as a part of the ocean, should not be understood in the negative concept of its weak surrender. It is the dynamic surrender, once the drop understands its true nature and realizes that it is no different from the ocean. What does Nietzsche mean by asserting “will nothingness rather than not will?”(Nietzsche et al, 2007, p.120) Is he referring to the compromise of the weak? Perhaps so! But the weak will power has no place in the domain of spirituality. When intellectuals discuss and comment upon the subject of spirituality, all such confusions are bound to happen. Nietzsche is an intellectual-a philosopher. The problems of understanding by such individuals are to be sympathized, rather than condemned. They see the issues from the level of their mental progression. An individual standing at the height of 1000 ft. of a mountain, cannot see what an individual sees and experiences at the height of 15,000 ft. The views are entirely different! To cite another example: Once a surgeon enquired of a Realized Soul, that he has performed thousands of surgeries on the human body, dissected each and every part of it, but has not seen God anywhere. Where does he reside-was his question. The Perfect Master replied—if not God, you must have seen emotions like anger, greed, and happiness etc while performing the operation? “How’s it possible? These are emotions of the mind. How can I seem them?” replied the surgeon. “Well, you are unable to see the mind-level emotions. God is the subject that transcends the mind. How can you see Him while dissecting the body parts?” was the explanation given by the Realized Soul. So, by knocking at the portals of the mind, Nietzsche will not be able to understand the true meaning of will power or asceticism. He has to transcend the mind, to experience the realms of spirituality. ************** Bibliography: Nehamas, Alexander. Nietzsche: Life as Literature: Harvard University Press; October 15, 1987. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (Author) Pearson, Keith Ansell (Editor) Diethe, Carol (Translator) On the genealogy of morality - Google Books -2007 books.google.co.in/books?isbn=052169163X... Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm(Author), Clark, Maudemarie(Translator), Swenson, Alan J(Translator).On the Genealogy of Morality: a polemic: Hackett Publishing Company,1998 Read More