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Wednesday 25 January 2006

The link between Order of Rank, politics, psychology/physiology, and morality is shown in Nietzsche's analysis of the philosopher;"Above all, it is the philosopher's morality which proves decidedly and decisively WHO HE IS - that is to say, to the Order of Rank [Rangordnung] which the innermost drives of his nature stand to each other".
[Nietzsche BGE 6]

The fluid comparison of the person and the 'body politic' reminds one of Plato's republic, where the various forms of governance - Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Timocracy, Democracy, Tyranny etc., are compared to the character types of individuals who supposedly embody them.
Similarly, Nietzsche sees the person as containing a political state within himself, populated by his 'drives' - this he calls the 'soul'. Correspondingly, the sort of morality that a person professes indicates the nature of that soul-polity concealed within him. This is so , because " moral codes are only a SIGN LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS ".
[BGE 187]

Focusing on the rare type of the 'actual' philosopher, Nietzsche notes that, "ultimately there is an Order of Rank in psychical states, to which the Order of Rank in philosophical problems corresponds; - and the highest problems mercilessly rebuff anyone who attempts to approach them without being pre-ordained to solve them by the loftiness and power of his spirituality".[ib. 213]

Constantly connecting the realm of thought with that of the body, Nietzsche explains that "people have always to be born to a higher station; put more clearly, they have to be BRED for it. A person has only a right to philosophy - taking the word in its higher significance - in virtue of his descent: here too, ancestors, 'bloodlines' [Geblut], are decisive".[ib.]

Philosophy is to Nietzsche, "the most spiritual will to power" (BGE 9), and "that lofty spirituality is precisely the spiritualisation of justice and of a benevolent severity that knows it is charged with maintaining the Order of Rank in the world, even among things - and not only among men".[ib. 219]

Man's racial and etnical Rankordering, reflect and inform his moral and ethical Order of Rank.

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