On Being Nietzschean, X

The importance of criticism: Western philosophy has tended to develop that way; Socrates criticises the Presocratics for example, and shows how his view differs to theirs; Christian philosophers criticised pagan philosophers and so on. Famously, Schopenhauer vented much spleen on Hegel, calling him a charlatan. And more recently 'Anglo-Saxon' philosophers have denounced much 'Continental' philosophy.
So Nietzsche is no exception here, and is actually in that way, part of the tradition.
Nietzsche argues [and he backs up his argument when he looks at well-known philosophers] that philosophers have been wont to put forward their own prejudices [hence the title of this first chapter of BGE] as if they were Universal Truths, when they were only particular truths of the philosopher concerned. He widens that argument by showing that particular cultures, linguistic systems and racial types tend to have their own peculiar truths also, and philosophers are but products of those. In fact he goes further to suggest that philosophy is a matter of physiology, rather than objective, platonic truth.
This view can be found amongst the ancient Sophists, albeit less developed, who were vilified by the Platonists for their relativism.
He does not say that 'no new ground has been made'; in fact the working out of certain philosophical conceptions over the centuries [such as Truth, the thing-in-itself, the soul, atomism etc.-atomism is a case in point; that ancient hypothesis later became a corner-stone of Western Science.] has done much to draw the bow string of European culture taut, ready to launch a philosophy of the future [I refer here to the BGE's Preface, of course].
The great philosophers he refers to genuinely thought they were discoverers of THE Truth. They were fooled because they assumed that the Platonic Idea was to be taken as read, and gone on from there. They had not come to think about Perspectivism and the VALUE of falsehood.
Nietzsche's philosophy begins from that latter position; it is not surprising then, that apart from Presocratics, he finds little in Western Philosophy to FULLY agree with.

It is a travesty to suggest that he is having a 'dig' at philosophers. You may have this impression because you do not get the allusive nature of Nietzsche's approach. Nietzsche is demanding because he expects of his readers; 1) A thorough knowledge of Western Philosophy and Religion [at least], and 2) A thorough knowledge of Nietzsche's own writing from his first book to the last.
So when he says that Socrates was not a Greek, because he was ugly [in Twilight] this is not merely personal abuse of the pug-faced philosopher, but alludes to the question of the Greeks as an ethnos, Nobility in philosophy, and Greek conceptions of beauty.
Obviously, if his point is that there is no objective trans-human other-worldly Truth out there, then his own philosophy is going to be a perspectival one. His argument is that it can be nothing else; Nietzsche’s innovation is to philosophise in full awareness of that fact.


Nietzsche would argue that there is nothing un-flawed [i.e., Perfection is a Platonic Idea (l)], and that your philosophy CHOOSES YOU. Your philosophic viewpoint is down to the quantum of Will that you exert.
To philosophise without God [and Nietzsche begins from the premise that 'God is dead'] is to philosophise with as much of one's own Will to Power as possible.
The God-believer gives himself up to his Lord Jesus [or the 'submission’, literally 'Islam’, of Mohammedans to their Allah and so on], and so abrogates some of his power. As Nietzsche says, the Godly are never alone [all-one], as their God is always THERE. Nietzsche is one of the few to philosophise in actual Solitude. Again, to Nietzsche one is CHOSEN oneself by Solitude, and not the other way 'round. A favourite phrase is 'How One Becomes What One Is'. Arguments on the existence of God become academic; the question is; how much will do you assert?

But after going beyond those things, he had to take the next step.
He actually had to AFFIRM values of his own. That is why he said that because he went 'beyond good and evil’, does not mean he went 'beyond good and bad' (i.e., noble values).
It is this crucial step, this positive step (otherwise Nietzsche is only viewed as a critical philosopher), that few make today.

Yes, the first chapter of BGE is largely critical, but the next chapter,’ The Free Spirit’, begins to sketch in those positives.

This next section, on the 'Free Spirit' is of vital importance to all of us here; we do desperately want to know how we are to 'be'.
There are many Nihilists here who want to avoid this knowledge; such dogs will as usual cold shoulder this study. Let them rummage around in their filthy yards of ignorance and prejudice--they are stuck at the first hurdle of Nietzsche's Preface to BGE. They are not ready (and never will be) for this book of books.

Those of us who are both READY AND WILLING will be thinking about this second chapter...

So let us read much CLOSER here and carefully weigh every word, phrase and paragraph.
Let's get embarrassingly INTIMATE with this text.
I have covered the generalities of 'truth' and 'will’, and the soul etc., in the first chapter; Here I want us to pick this text apart!-subject it to the most intense interrogation!

Is anyone here, apart from myself, UP TO THIS TASK!

What is suggested here at the beginning of the second chapter is an exposition of NEW philosophical attitudes. He has moved from the mostly critical nature of the first chapter to what is here a positive mode of CREATING VALUES Also, the intention of this phase is to get to a CLOSE READING of each aphorism in turn. What is Nietzsche's SPECIFIC point here? Why is he using philosophical language in this way? Think 'Free Spirit'-- he is saying things very differently in this chapter compared to the first. He is shifting perspectives, taking on a different persona. So whereas the thrust of chapter one is a critique of Western philosophy so far; the thrust of chapter two is a demonstration of the 'style(s)' and attitudes of the Nietzschean philosopher.

A praise of untruth, and a condemnation of the FOLLY of dying for the TRUTH.

The Golden Ball was always rolling.

'O sancta simplicitas!';This was said to be uttered by John Huss (1369-1415) when being burnt at the stake, on seeing an old woman hurrying with a bundle of firewood to throw on the pile-'Oh,holy simplicity!'
Huss was an early Reformer who, after preaching in defiance of a papal bull, was excommunicated in 1411.
In 1413 Huss published his main work 'De ecclesia’; and due to the heresy of this work he was summoned before a General Council at Constance, and burned at the stake after REFUSING TO RECANT.

That last is the important point; Huss was one of those who willingly died for 'the truth'. The folly of such martyrdom is explored in the next section [25].
Nietzsche argues in this section [24], that "the best knowledge [Wissenschaft]...loves error".

Strangely the standard commentaries on BGE in English have not picked up on this important reference as far as I know.

This is a long term project where I can imagine people going back to older threads on single sections in months to come, adding original thoughts. I have shown that chapter 2 begins [section 24] with a reference to the persecuted reformer John Huss, a man burnt at the stake because he refused to recant. Today's liberals would no doubt regard this as unmitigated heroism; however, Nietzsche in the next section [25] has a different perspective. The 'spirit of gravity' has long dogged philosophers; this is nothing other than their protracted, impotent suffering for 'the truth’, which invariably debases their character. In some cases they will even desire their catastrophic self-slaughter for 'Lady Truth' as part of their personal Tragedy; how theatrical! But nothing looks so ridiculous as such overwrought earnestness. Nietzsche alludes to the 'Quixotic' when he refers to such philosophers as; " Ye knights of the sorrowful countenance ['Ritter von der traurigsten Gestalt'] ",a translation of Cervantes' 'El Caballero de la Triste Figure' [Don Quixote,I:19]. Quixote was one of Nietzsche's favourite books; in a letter he says; "All seriousness and all passion and everything which goes to the human heart are Quixotic" [Nietzsche, letter Dec. 8th 1875] But philosophy has deceived itself; it has been no more than a farce, a satire on philosophy itself. As we shall see, Nietzsche regarded himself as the 'first' philosopher of 'tragic wisdom'--did he not introduce his Zarathustra with the words,’ the tragedy begins' ? One does not go about this tragic philosophy with a gloomy mien; one is rather cheerful--a questioner even of one's own questions--a master of disguise. And this means disguises of all kinds, including the most fearsome. One is also destined for the most joyous solitude. This type of philosopher reminds us of Epicurus;indeed,this is underlined by Nietzsche himself when he mentions 'the garden'. It seems that Nietzsche holds the image of the Epicurean in his fancy, as a reference point for his 'philosopher of the future’, who will understand that joy, as well as cruelty, is at the root of tragedy.

'I believe....'
In what, my dear, in what.

How VERY Christian!

I await your com-petition.

'Eternal Soul' is very UNNietzschean. He said that the soul is just another name for the body, and therefore is as perishable as this body.

And what nonsense do you believe in?-Oh, you believe in nothing!
-Why, WE call that Nihilism.

The Will Of Power

Amor Fati Artist-Tyrant Blond Beast Dead God Dionysian Discipline and Breeding Eternal Recurrence of the Same Higher Man Master Morality Order of Rank Over-Man Pathos of Distance Polytheism Transvaluation of All Values Will of Power Zarathustra

Nietzschean Paganism has its gods and goddesses.
It has its rules, its laws and its principles.
It has its goals.
It has its prophecies.
It has its histories.

It is not a mere philosophy.

It is also intent on producing a New type of Being, The Over-Man, out
of the Will Of Power.

This is your first task:

At every turn 'transvalue every value' you come across.

For every 'yes' find your 'no', for every black your white, and so on.

The trope - forever twist and turn.

Why?

Because there is no stasis, all is in flux.

No meaning is stable.

Not even this one.

I came to Nietzsche via the route of Existentialism.

I have little sympathy for Existentialism now - a few concepts,
perhaps, but I find in Existentialism too much of the *ascetic
priesthood*.

Existentialism is like some kind of secularised Christianity in many
ways.

Kierkegaard is an example of a Christian Existentialist, of course [and he is seen by many as the founder of Existentialism].

The thing is that even in atheistic Existentialism it is almost as if Christian concepts are rebranded as Existentialist ones.

For example, that sense of being 'deserted' they talk about is like 'sin' [and the idea that man is somehow depleted if he doesn't have (Christian) morality to "guide him" as they say].

The concept of 'inauthenticity' is even referred to as 'limbo' [a theological concept] by some Existentialists.

Also the tendency to emphasise free-will and responsibility is very much like the Christian 'blame culture'.

And Tillich and others were able to absorb Existentialist concepts into a [Protestant] 'Godless theology'.

Indeed, Existentialism may be seen as the logical development of Protestantism [see Nietzsche's critique of Christianity's "will to truth" - this ultimately means that Christianity will have to declare itself as 'untrue'].

I have nothing against the spiritual, of course.

However, Nietzsche teaches us to recognise the difference between the
slave moral of Christianity and the master moral of Paganism.
Existentialism chooses the former; Nietzscheanism chooses the latter.

Become hard!

To understand Nietzsche's morality, and his philosophy generally, one
needs to appreciate his ad hominem position.

I mean here that his view of morality is a matter of character,
rather than one of 'deeds'.

For Nietzsche morality is about 'who one is', rather than 'what one
does'.

Similarly, Nietzsche believes that the most important aspect of a
philosophical outlook is the reflection that it makes of the *person*
[i.e., the philosopher] who puts it forward.

Clearly then, we can see that Nietzsche thinks that morality evolved
from out of the character of certain men - whether masterful men or
slavish men [or all degrees in between].

Also, Nietzsche is able to attack philosophers ad hominem on
account
of their ideas [a sin according to most philosophers, who like to
abstract ideas and even wash their hands of them, at times].

Here we can see a direct link between Nietzsche's morality
and
his perspectivism, and ultimately his doctrine of the 'will of power'.

Some say that the Radical Aristocrat, or the Uebermensch, was a symbol of 'inner' excellence that all could attain.

This is a blatant distortion, not only of Nietzsche's writing, but of the concept of aristocracy itself.

Nietzsche did not believe in equality, whether in an "inner" or 'outer' sense.

Indeed, Nietzsche was also suspicious of any supposed divisions between 'inner and outer', saying that the "soul was just another name for the body".

Only a Few could attain to the Uebermensch; it was the lot of others could not so attain, to prepare for the Uebermensch, to serve him, and even perish for him.

To Nietzsche, only a very few people deserved freedom [see his Thus Spake Zarathustra].

And just like the aristocrats of old, the Ubermensch would have the right [the right of the will of power] to Impose his values on others.

There can be no Master morality without the existence of Slavery.

The Uebermensch, according to its prophet Zarathustra, will needs be cruel, evil and Hard.

Such a being can only be Hard towards himself by being Hard towards others - this is Nietzsche's Pathos of Distance.

Slave morality has a different origin to Master Morality - we know
that.

It derives from the slavish resentment - of course.

But it also derives from the hypocritical morality of the ascetic
priest.

It is a deadly combination of these two strains: the priestly and the
slavish.

Before we try to understand how the priest entered the equation, we
must understand what a master and a slave *is* in the
Nietzschean multiverse.

A Master is an aristocrat.

Nietzsche's ultimate model for aristocratic rule is ancient Rome.

In Rome, a master was waited on hand and foot.
He had slaves and servants to wash him, feed him, clothe him and
obey his every whim.
A master could inflict cruelty on a slave without reproach.

The master had power of life and death over the many slaves who
attended to him at every moment.

The master had limitless resources and felt it his perfect right to
take whatever he wanted.

The master regarded himself to being a breed apart from those who
worked for a living. Indeed, workers - like slaves- only existed that
the master might enjoy his own godlike lifestyle.

The master was a god among men.

The Slave's existence was a 'living death'. He was continually
humiliated and beaten; his life could be ended at any moment.
He had no rights, of course, and could not marry etc.,

Nor could he join the Roman Army.
He could have no possessions.

However, many jobs - from doctors, musicians to cooks and grave-
diggers - were done by slaves.
In Rome the slave population counted
for up to 40% of the total population.
There were few jobs not done
by slaves.
To Cicero, to work for a wage was just as servile as
slavery.

Slaves were thought to be naturally untrustworthy and to have
criminal inclinations. They were less than human, most certainly.
Romans thought that certain races, like Jews, were born to be slaves.

So in Rome, the 'Pathos of Distance' between the Over-Human Masters
and the Sub-Human Slaves was *vast*.

It is on this foundation of *historical fact* [no matter how
uncomfortable] that we must approach Nietzsche's division between
Master and Slave moralities.

I prefer the term 'will *of* power' [used extensively by Chatterton-
Hill], rather than the more usual 'will *to* power', as the latter has
a teleological implication which is inappropriate to Nietzsche.

Nietzsche suggests that power manifests itself in abundance, in
overflowing, and that willing itself is rather the dominant
characteristic *of* power.

Therefore, as ultimately 'power' is the underlying truth of life [to
Nietzsche], then his particular perspective is best described as 'will
*of* power', rather than just 'power' *per se*, or the teleological-
sounding 'will *to* power.

Can you accept yourself in total?

Can you follow *amor fati*? - that is, 'the love of one's fate'?

Can you look back, side-ways and forwards without the *pang of
conscience*?

Can you will yourself and be who you are?


Your world view has no more validity than mine, it rather reflects the degree and extent of your Will To Power, and your natural Caste.
Which is why you side with Judah, and I side with Rome.

Welcome to the Nietzschean world-view;” There is no truth, only interpretations".

Horses for courses.

Then 'Overman' suits your peculiar interpretation of TSZ.
However, you miss the fact that Zarathustra is the teacher of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same; which says, in Zarathustra's own words, that all that IS has already been. That means that the Superman has already been in numerous cycles of recurrence. Therefore some are aware of what the Superman IS, and he is far more than an overcoming of a cold.

And who were taken into slavery in Egypt between 1292-1225 B.C.?
And who, with their Moses made their Exodus, 1225-1215 B.C.?
Those same slaves, and their religion reflected their slavery, just as the religion of Aryans reflected their Mastery.
There is no Aryan slave state-religion because the Aryan caste either rules or is destroyed [as rulers].

With the Jews their slavery came before their religion.
In the Semitic language the word worship comes from its root 'abad' which means to be a slave.
David (2 Sam.vii.18) calls himself a slave of God, and so does Solomon (2 Kings iii, 6). (Source, Gunther,'Religious Attitudes')
In Christianity the conduct of the faithful before God is freely interpreted by the term 'humilis’ and hence humility, meaning literally the 'slave mind’, or 'serving the tribe’, is demanded ass the essence of religiosity. (ib.)

The oldest religious scripture is the Rig Veda, and that is Aryan. It’s language Sanskrit is still used and understood today.

Christianity succeeded when Rome was in sharp decline-read Gibbon.

Who were the slaves that built the Egyptian pyramids?

"It's still more difficult to say which form of government is the WORST--all are so bad, as for democracy, it is the worst of the whole; for what is (in fact) democracy?--an Aristocracy of Blackguards ". (Lord Byron, 1821)

"Modern democracy is the historical form of the decay of the State". (Nietzsche 'Human' 468)

Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign
O'er congress, whether royalist or liberal?
Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain,
That make old Europe's journals squeak and gibber all?
Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain
Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?
The shade of Bonaparte's noble daring?
-Jew Rothschild and his fellow Christian Baring.
[Lord Byron,'Don Juan' XII.5]

As Nietzsche said, Byron’s [noble] instinct is nearly always right.

I am glad that you have come to understand who you are and on what side you stand. However, you are too far beneath me to be a worthy enemy.

The snake biting its tail is a symbol of the Eternal Return [as it was for both the ancient Greeks and Nietzsche];
The Eternal Recurrence of the Same IS Nietzsche's philosophy, not a 'symbol' of it.

A Theocracy, which must be distinguished from a Monarchy; just as a Tyranny must be distinguished from an Aristocracy. Democracy differs from them all as it tends towards Ochlocracy, or mob-rule in one sense or other.
Theocracies, Monarchies, Tyrannies and Aristocracies-because of their belief in Order of Rank-all achieve a high level of art; whether in the arts of high culture or in the art of commanding and obeying.

Film is a corporate technic which is perfect for mob entertainment; therefore it would find favour as a propaganda tool in various polities including tyrannies and democracies. A man of the elite would have nothing to do with such a herd-like medium as film. Also 'recorded' music is a travesty and an insult to Dionysos.
All music should be heard LIVE. Listening to recordings is akin to necrophilia-better to listen to SILENCE.

That piece came from meditating on the Eternal Recurrence, thinking it through.
This is what we must do with all these ideas; not stop at what is said about them by others, but INCORPORATE them into ourselves.
Then, something may come out that is stamped with our own self-hood, as in the piece you refer to.
This is what Nietzsche's philosophy is all about.

The point of those notes is to throw out sparks. They are not meant to explain things and make knowledge of Nietzsche easy for those too lazy to do the work themselves; they are meant to be suggestive, momentary...personal.

As a self-professed Christian you WOULD say that wouldn't you. But that is only a 'truth' that you have got from your man-invented God (and a God invented by a Hebrew tribe who considered themselves 'chosen' at that; and a 'truth' propagated by a common criminal who is supposed to have 'risen from the dead' (?)...), that’s all.

Who's 'law' are you talking about?
Have a look around the world and you will see a multiplicity of differing perspectives on law. Even within a culture (particularly a Western 'multiculture') you will see all sorts of different 'laws' at work.
Nietzscheans believe that the Noble work to a different law to the ignoble, to the mass, to the democratic God-humpers.

YOUR LAW IS NOT MY LAW; MY LAW IS NOT YOUR LAW.

Therefore, what is crime to the Judaeo-Christian need not be considered a crime by the Aryan Nietzschean.

MAGISTER DIXIT

'Actuality' used to depend on, what was it? ‘higher contexts’, you used to say?
Now you say it 'depends on nothing’, it just 'is'...
That really is saying nothing; you have nothing to argue WITH.
You have even relinquished any consistency you once pretended to.

My argument is that your 'truth' is your own, and your tribe's 'truth'. It is not anything to do with any 'higher being called God’, or any 'risen Christ'.
Your truth comes down to biology.

Free Will:
Generally I'd say that the 'difficulty' begins with not being aware of Nietzsche's nuanced approach to philosophy.
He rejects the sort of free will posited by Christianity [I usually spell this as one word--freewill--to suggest the distinction]. This freewill is a piece of sophistry to get around the difficulty of theodicy [i.e., if the world is created by an all-powerful all-good God, why then is there such evil and suffering in his creation? Answer; he gave man 'freewill'.
We are then led to believe that a man's actions are wholly autonomous, and wholly his own responsibility. This denies everything we know about the concatenation of cause and effect, the hereditary,enviromental,psychological forces etc.

This freewill doctrine amounts to an excuse for the incoherence of the God hypothesis, a piece of human vanity, and an excuse to punish 'those responsible'.

Nietzsche recognises that life if underpinned by forces that are truly trans-human [just look at the way an earthquake can reduce the best laid plans of mice and men to dust];this is the will to power. A man can only exert the will to power of which he is a product, and which therefore flows through him to a greater or lesser extent.
What we call generally 'free will' now is just this feeling of will to power within us; if we feel it as an overflowing abundance, we are of strong will, like a great artist or a commander. If,however,we feel helpless and depressed, then our quantum of will is weak and small.
So Nietzsche rejects freewill, in favour of strong/weak will, although he accepts that often free will is a synonym for strong will.

Nietzsche illustrates his view of fate/destiny in the following;
"UPON THE WATERFALL.
When we look at a waterfall, we may think that we can see freewill and choice in the innumerable turnings,meanderings,and breaking of all the waves; but, on the contrary, everything is NECESSARY, and it is possible to calculate every movement mathematically. And it is just the same with human actions.
If one were omniscient, one would find it simple to calculate every single action in advance, every advancing step on the pathways of knowledge, every error, and every act of malice. The acting man is entrapped in his illusion of volition.
If the wheel of the world were to stop turning for a second and an all-knowing, calculating mind existed to take advantage of this hiatus, he would be able to plunge deep into the most distant future of all beings, and be able to describe every rut burrowed across the path of the wheel.
This self-delusion of the acting man, this assumption that there is such a thing as freewill, is also a part of the calculable mechanism".
[Nietzsche,’ Human All Too Human']

Modern Physicists have opined that if the original conditions of the 'big bang' were known, then all that happened subsequently could be predicted. This is a similar notion, except that for Nietzsche there is no beginning, or 'big bang'.

Music should not be cooped-up in a zoo,frozen in ice,or mummified.
Music is a phenomenon of THE MOMENT.
It is Architecture that is frozen music.

A generation brought up on pickled music are desensitised,robotised and zombified.

The mass-production ethic. Music as a 'product',a commodity.

Nietzsche talks much about the effects of 'mixed-breeding’, in the widest sense. How such types would experience such self-contradictions, called in the medical parlance,’ manic depression'.
Such creatures are ultimately botched, they are swallowed by their abysses, and only rarely live on their mountains.
Rather, they fantasise about their mountains; in reality their live for the most part in the slough of despond, entertaining occasional Christianised 'revelations' fueled by ressentiment,which they mistake for 'ascending will'.

2218

The Impact of Manu on Nietzsche's Late Philosophy

"Sir, please tell us, properly and in order, the duties of all four classes and also of the people who are born between."
[The Laws of Manu, Book 1 verse 2] (1)

Brahma

I

I use the word 'impact' rather than 'influence' as Nietzsche liked to portray his philosophical development as a series of sudden events - "I am not man, I am dynamite" he wrote in his autobiography (2).

And just as Nietzsche's career as a thinker began with the 'fateful event' of his discovering Schopenhauer's magnum opus, 'The World as Will and Idea' in 1865 at the age of 21 while browsing a book-stall, (3) so it concluded with a similar 'discovery' - his "stumbling across" (4) a copy of The Laws of Manu in his last months of lucidity before suffering a mental breakdown in his mid forties (5).

Such events confirmed Nietzsche's sense of intellectual destiny, and he recognised in them an emphatic affirmation of the direction his own thought had taken since the beginning.

And that beginning as a disciple of Schopenhauer (6) should give an indication of Nietzsche's indebtedness to Indian thought, for he read into the Vedanta, Buddhism and the Vedas, just as his master had done (7). Not only that, Nietzsche was a "friend" (8) and colleague of the German academic Paul Deussen (9) who had quite an impact himself on the Western understanding of Indian philosophy (10).

Of course, the early Nietzsche of The Birth of Tragedy (1872), and The Unfashionable Observations (1873-5) was thoroughly Schopenhauerian and understood Indian philosophy from that essentially moralistic perspective (11). However, his break with his mentor the equally Schopenhauerian composer Richard Wagner - occasioned by Nietzsche's, heretical in Wagner's eyes, Human-All-Too Human (1878-80) - was also therefore a break with Schopenhauer and ushered in his 'middle period'.

It is my contention that from this middle period - which peaks with Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-5) - to the late period, which I begin with On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)(12), and right up until his mental collapse on the 2nd of January 1889 - Nietzsche was revising his views on Indian thought.

Notes:

1) Manu p. 3

2) Nietzsche 2005 EH 'Destiny 1' p. 144.

3) Halevy p. 48

4) Farrel-Krell p. 144.

5) Halevy ib. "the last study of his life" and "one of the most important", p. 348. Manu is the "first known systematic treatment of Hindu law variously named as Manu Smrti, Manu Samhita or Manavadharmasatra, dated between 600 BC and AD 300" [Werner, p. 106]

6) Nietzsche 1995 Third Piece: Schopenhauer as Educator, pp. 169-255.

7) Nietzsche's own library contained the following works on Indian philosophy;

Deussen, Paul Die Sûtras des Vedânta (Leipzig: 1887),Das System des Vedânta (Leipzig: 1883); Jacolliot, Louis

Les Législateurs Religieux: Manou, Moïse, Mahomet (Paris: 1876);Müller, Max Essays: Beiträge zur vergleichenden Religionswissenschaft; Beiträge zur vergleichenden Mythologie und Ethologie 2 vols. (Leipzig: 1869);Oldenberg, Hermann Buddha. Sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde (Berlin: 1881);Wackernagel, J.Über den Ursprung des Brahmanismus (Basel: 1877)

See this on-line resource for 'Nietzsche's Library';

http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/library.htm

The following resource also gives details of books Nietzsche studied;

Nietzsche Chronicle: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/

8) Nietzsche 1994 GM III 17 p. 104

9) They went to Schulpforta and Bonn University together - cf. Diethe p. 81

10) See letters of 1870 (#20) and 1888 (#177) in Nietzsche 1996

11) Schopenhauer p. 243

12) A work which announced the always impending but never finished 'The Will to Power'; see Nietzsche 1994 GM III sec 27 p. 125.

Lou von Salome

II

Nietzsche's relationship with the brilliant Lou Salome (1861-1937) was an intellectual as well as an emotional one - although that too had a sudden end (13). Salome published, in 1894 - so when Nietzsche was still alive, if in a vegetative state - the first major monograph on the philosopher's writings, called Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken - a perceptive study, not least because of the period (1882-3) of rare closeness she shared with him. Salome - rightly in my view - regards Daybreak (1881) as a pivotal work; a work Nietzsche himself saw as the beginning of his 'campaign against morality' (14), and dates his 'middle period' from it. She writes;

"This 'daybreak' is no longer a pale, cold, retrospectively illuminating work of instruction, behind it already rises a life-giving sun ... 'There are so many crimson dawns which have not as yet shed light', Nietzsche said in the words of the Rig Veda that form the motto for the title page of Daybreak." (15)

It is this sun of the Vedas that will eventually lead him to 'discover' the Law Book of Manu some seven years later.

Salome goes on to utilise her private correspondence with Nietzsche;

"A year after the publication of Daybreak, Nietzsche wrote to me about his new hopes for philosophy and his future plans ... 'Even I have crimson dawns about me now, and none of them depressing!' .. When Nietzsche completed his book The Gay Science in 1882, he was already sure about his India: he believed he had landed on the shore of a strange and as yet unnamed monstrous world of which nothing was known except that it had to lie beyond all that which could be disputed and destroyed by thoughts." (16)

It is in Daybreak that Nietzsche makes an important utterance about Indian philosophy in a passage pregnant with the philosophical future. He conjectures that amongst the "ancient Brahmins", or priests, "more thinking" and "more pleasure in thinking was customarily inherited, four thousand years ago in India than is the case with us today."

And so - despite the great achievements of the Greeks - Europe was philosophically immature in comparison with Vedic India, that "nation of thinkers," which had long ago "thrown the gods aside", something that Europe had yet to do;

 "Another step further" and one would no longer need "the priests and mediators" either, just as in India when "the teacher of the religion of self-redemption, the Buddha, appeared;- how distant Europe still is from this level of culture!"

Once the priesthood is gone then so too will "morality in the old sense" have disappeared - something that Nietzsche wishes to "see". (17)

Notes:

13) Halevy, p. 252

14) Nietzsche 1995, EH: 'Daybreak', p. 120

15) Salome p. 81

16) Ibid. p. 84 - the letter quoted is from June 7 1882

17) Nietzsche 1982 sec. 96 pp. 54-5

III

It is noticeable though that further on in his middle period, Nietzsche lapses back into a Schopenhauerian interpretation of Buddhism, particularly in Beyond Good and Evil (1886), where he tends to refer glibly to Buddhism as a moralistic religion, describing "the Buddha and Schopenhauer" as both being "hopelessly deluded by morality." (18) But his next book, On the Genealogy of Morality (1887), he seems to have revised his opinion again;

"'Good and evil' says the Buddhist, '-both are fetters: the perfect One has mastered both'; a man of the Vedanta faith says 'he cannot be hurt by anything done or not done; as a wise man, he shakes off good and evil; no action can damage his domain; he has gone beyond good and evil, beyond both’; - so, a conception found throughout India, as much Brahminic as Buddhist." (19)

He clarifies his position further in the books written just after he had read Manu in 1888. Those books include three important works all of 1888: The Twilight of the Idols, (June-September), The Antichrist, (September 3rd-30th), and Ecce Homo (October 15th-November 4th).

He explains that, while Buddhism and Christianity are both "nihilistic religions of decadence", he does not want his "condemnation of Christianity" to lead him to be "unfair to Buddhism." This is because - long ago - Buddhism had "stopped saying 'war against sin and instead, giving reality its dues, says 'war against suffering'."

Therefore Buddhism stands "beyond good and evil," (20) and should be described as a form of "hygiene" rather than as a religion, "so as not to confuse it with anything as pathetic as Christianity." (21)

It seems that reading Manu had reawakened Nietzsche to the importance of Indian thought in relation to his own philosophical critique of morality.

Notes:

18) Nietzsche 1998 p. 50

19) Nietzsche1994 GM III 17 p. 104

20) Nietzsche 2005 A 20 p. 16

21) Nietzsche ibid. EH 'Wise 6' p. 80

IV

We can pinpoint the moment of Nietzsche's discovery of Manu thanks to a letter he wrote to Peter Gast from Turin on May 31st 1888 [a singular fact missed in Doniger and Smith's Introduction to their translation of Manu which nevertheless includes a section on Nietzsche]. Peter Gast - real name Heinrich Koselitz (1854-1918), he was renamed by Nietzsche - had been a disciple since reading The Birth of Tragedy (1872), becoming an "indispensable friend to Nietzsche, who relied on him for the publication of Daybreak." Gast became the philosopher's amanuensis, proof-reading manuscripts, and so on. "After Nietzsche's mental collapse" he worked at the 'Nietzsche Archive' from 1891 to 1909 as he was "often the only person able to read Nietzsche's handwriting." (22)

This particular letter to Gast is central for an understanding of the impact of Manu on Nietzsche's late philosophy;

"I owe to these last weeks a very important lesson: I found Manu's book of laws in a French translation done in India under very strict supervision from the most eminent priests and scholars there. This absolutely Aryan work, a priestly codex of morality based on the Vedas, on the idea of caste and very ancient tradition - not pessimistic, albeit very sacerdotal - supplements my views on religion in the most remarkable way. I confess to having the impression that everything else that we have by way of moral law-giving seems to me an imitation and even a caricature of it - preeminently, Egypticism does; but even Plato seems to me in all the main points simply to have been well instructed by a Brahmin. It makes the Jews look like a Chandala race which learns from its masters the principles of making a priestly caste the master which organises a people ... The Chinese also seem to have produced their Confucius and Lao-tzu under the influence of this ancient classic of laws. The medieval organisation looks like a wondrous groping for a restoration of all the ideas which formed the basis of primordial Indian-Aryan society - but with pessimistic values which have their origin in the soil of racial decadence. Here too, the Jews tend to be merely transmitters - they invent nothing ..." (23)

The rather remarkable claims made in the second half of the above passage show how deeply impressed Nietzsche was then by the ideas of Louis Jacolliot (1837-1890), the French author of the translation of Manu that Nietzsche had read [Les Legislateurs Religieux: Manou, Moise - Mahomet (1876)].

Notes:

22) Diethe, entry 'Gast'.

23) Nietzsche 1996 letter #170, pp. 296-8

Nietzsche

V

A prolific writer, in "Krishna and Christ (1874), and The Bible in India (1872), Jacolliot tries to debunk Christianity as nothing but an ape of the anicent oriental religions". (24)

His Manu translation includes "a rambling twenty-two page footnote in which Jacolliot defends his inconceivable theory that the Manu Code was written in its final formula 13,300 years before the birth of Christ and that all Semitic cultures are traceable back to an emigration of Chandala occuring between 8,000 and 4,000 years before Christ. At the same time, Jacolliot opines that western civilisations, including the peoples of Europe and Egypt, are the result of emigration by the Hindus, and the higher castes, under the influence of the Manu Code." (25)

It should be mentioned at this point that Jacolliot's source material for Manu differs from the 'authoritative' texts, as he "claimed to have completed his translation - with the help of a learned Brahmin - from an authentic edition of the Manu Code he discovered in the Tamil region of southern India. Unfortunately the original text from which Jacolliot worked has never been found." (26)

My concern here though, is not so much with the validity of Jacolliot's theories, but rather with the impact Manu had had on Nietzsche's own ideas which had long been increasingly emphasising an hierarchical ordering of human types, classes, and even races [cf., TSZ, BGE and GM passim], as well as making the claim that slavery is necessary and natural to every aristocratic society [a claim which left his reader in no doubt that such a form of society was preferable to any other];

"Every elevation of the type 'human being' was achieved by an aristocratic society - and this will always be the case: by a society that believes in a great ladder of hierarchy and value differentiation between people that requires slavery in one sense or another." (27)

Manu just confirmed Nietzsche in these beliefs, with the added dimension of Jacolliot's 'Aryanist' philosophy, leading Nietzsche to romanticise the 'Aryans' as in the above letter to Gast [understanding 'Aryan' as "arya; ‘noble’: the designation which the Indo-European tribes who ... created the Vedic civilisation used for themselves and which was once used also by other Indo-European nations (cf. Iran and Eire)]". (28)

Notes:

24) Godwin p. 81

25) Berkowitz pp 1133-4

26) Ibid.

27) Nietzsche 1998 sec. 257 p. 151 [see the whole of this 9th chapter entitled 'What Is Noble?', pp. 151-178, for an indication of Nietzsche's approval for aristocratism]

28) Werner p. 34

VI

Is all this so far removed from the 'authentic' Manu?

As Radakrishnan noted, "Manu glorifies custom and convention at a time when they were being undermined" and "regards caste as an ordinance of God". (29) Many of the laws given by Manu are intended to either keep these four classes or castes [Sanskrit varna] apart, or else are attempts at 'damage limitation' in the cases where they have mixed and produced sub castes [Skt. jati]. Manu says that "the priest, the ruler, and the commoner are the three twice-born classes, but the fourth, the servant, has only one birth, and there is no fifth". (30) [As Aryans are described as 'twice born', only the top three classes are regarded as Aryan (31)]

Manu presents a total philosophy which "by the early centuries of the Common Era had become, and remained, the standard source of authority for varnasrama-dharma [social and religious duties tied to class and stage of life]. (32)

Metaphysically, Manu dwells on the laws of karma [the cosmic law of balance (33)] and samsara: "this terrible cycle of transmigration of living beings, which moves relentlessly on and on" (34), from rebirth to rebirth "within the various cosmic planes of existence". (35)

Existentially, Manu draws on the Vedic outlook of "rulers and ruled, consumers and consumed, exploiters and exploited, the strong and the weak" (36) which manifests itself in exclusion and inclusion according to caste and duty [dharma].

Manu states that "the teachings which differ from the Veda spring up and die out, bear no fruit and are false because they are of modern date. The four classes, the three worlds (37), the four stages of life (38), the past, the present, and the future, are all individually explained by the Veda." (39)

Notes:

29) Radakrishnan p. 517

30) Manu 10.4, p.234

31) Ibid. 2.22, p. 19

32) Ibid.trans. intro. p. xviii

33) Werner, p. 86

34) Manu 1.50 p. 8

35) Werner p. 136

36) Manu, trans. intro. p. xxv

37) The three worlds are the infernal, the terrestrial and the heavenly.

38) Student, householder, forest-dweller, and ascetic.

39) Manu 12.96-7

VII

But Manu had also absorbed the later non-Vedic moral teachings of renunciation, non-violence (ahimsa) and vegetarianism which had constituted 'a revaluation of (Vedic) values' to borrow Nietzsche's phrase. (40) The violent, exploitative, carnivorous world of animal-sacrifice was reversed by those renouncers "or sramanas who were so influential beginning in around the sixth century BCE", some of them coalescing into the "religions later known as Buddhism and Jainism." (41)

This is remarkably similar to Nietzsche's account of the supposed Christian reversal of the values of pagan Rome, which he called the 'slave revolt in morals'. (42) But the aftermath was very different in Nietzschean terms; rather than the social order being turned upside down, it remained intact as the Vedic tradition managed to incorporate its own antithesis. The priests remained on top by assimilating ahimsa to ritual purity.

Not surprisingly then, despite its emphatic promotion of the aforementioned Vedic essentials - particularly that of priestly dominance -, Manu is riven with contradictions and paradoxes as it tries to square the Vedic with the anti-Vedic; "the priests did their best to reconcile the two contradictory rationales for their own social superiority ... 'Killing in a sacrifice is not killing'(Manu 5.39) ..." (43)

Once again we are brought back to Nietzsche whose own work contains many contradictory elements, such as his doctrine of Perspectivism, which points out that 'there are no facts, only perspectives' (44). "Does Perspectivism entail that Perspectivism itself is but a perspective, so that the truth of this doctrine entails that it is false?" (45)

Is any attempt to grasp the totality of life bound to produce contradictions, or are they an indication of a flawed total philosophy? To Nietzsche they were necessary: "I have a hand for switching perspectives: the first reason why a 'revaluation of all values' is even possible perhaps for me alone". (46)

In any case, Nietzsche was not interested in creating a coherent moral system, but rather in exploring the semiotics of morality;

"Moral judgments should never be taken literally: on their own, they are just absurdities. But semiotically, they are invaluable: if you know what to look for, moral judgments reveal the most valuable realities of the cultures and interiorities that did not know enough to 'understand' themselves. Morality is just a sign language, just a symptomatology: you have to know what it means in order to take advantage of it". (47)

Notes:

40) Nietzsche 2005, EH Contents, p. 74

41) Manu trans. intro. p. xxxiv

42) Nietzsche 1994 GM I 16 p. 34

43) Manu trans. intro. p. xliii

44) Diethe p. 176

45) Danto p. 80

46) Nietzsche 2005 EH Wise 1 p. 76

47) Ibid., TI Improving 1 p. 183

VIII

Nietzsche had begun to read Manu too as a sign-language. The Vedic religion itself could be the result of an attempt to counteract a "certain weariness and heaviness which has become epidemic" due to the "unsound emigration" of a "race ending up in a climate for which its powers of adaptation are inadequate", in this case "the Indians of India." (48)

These Indians then adopted a religion which emphasised "a morality of breeding", which Nietzsche contrasts with a morality of "taming" [Christianity being of this latter kind]. (49)

In a morality of breeding [of which Manu is the "most magnificent example" (ib.)], the object is to breed "particular types" up to a level of excellence [or 'superhumanity' (50)], while conversely degrading non-breeds, such as the Chandala, down to subhumanity.

In Manu Nietzsche found "noble values everywhere, a feeling of perfection, saying yes to life, a triumphant sense of well-being both for its own sake and for the sake of life, the sun shines over the entire book." (51)

In contrast, Christianity - which had sprung from Jewish roots (52), is a Chandala religion; as we have seen, Jacolliot himself had even opined that the Jews were originally Chandala who had fled Aryan oppression.

Nietzsche wrote that "the Jews created an important new posture: the priest at the head of the chandala - against the noble orders." (53)

Notes:

48) Nietzsche 1994 GM III 17 p. 102

49) Nietzsche 2005 TI Improving 3 pp. 184-5

50) Cf., Nietzsche 1997 passim

51) Nietzsche 2005 A 56 pp. 56-7

52) Ibid. TI Improving 4 p. 185

53) Nietzsche 1968 184 p. 111

IX

Before going further I want to note some themes which were pronounced in Nietzsche's philosophy prior to his reading Manu, and which are echoed by Manu.

In BGE he had noted that "the slave looks at the virtues of the powerful with resentment." (54). In GM he developed this theme of resentment further, adopting the French word ressentiment for emphasis, no doubt because it brings out the central idea of 'sentiment';

"The beginning of the slaves' revolt in morality occurs when ressentiment itself turns creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of those beings who, being denied the response of action, compensate for it only with imaginary revenge." (55)

The term recurs again and again in the book; at one point he notes that "the Jews were a priestly nation of ressentiment par excellence," (56) going on to add that ressentiment "thrives best amongst anarchists and anti-Semites today." (57)

Imagine Nietzsche's feeling of vindication at seeing Manu's statement; "The Lord assigned only one activity to a servant: serving the other classes without resentment." (58)

Elsewhere, Manu describes resentment as a vice born of anger (59), and advises that a servant - by ridding himself of resentment - may become "blameless" (60).

After reading Manu Nietzsche will celebrate his own "freedom from ressentiment, lucidity [Aufklarung] about ressentiment," asserting that his own philosophy has "seriously taken up the fight against lingering and vengeful feelings." (61)

Notes:

54) Nietzsche 1994 BGE 260 p. 167

55) Ibid., GM I 10 p. 21

56) Ibid., 16 p. 35

57) Ibid., II 11 p. 52

58) Manu 1.91, p. 13

59) Ibid., 7.48, p. 134

60) Ibid., 10.128, p. 250

61) Nietzsche 2005 EH Wise 6 pp.80-1

Schopenhauer & Nietzsche

X

Another example of affinity can be found in the attitude towards women. It seems that Nietzsche's position on women echoed Schopenhauer's, and didn't alter even after his repudiation of Schopenhauer's philosophy, which "was wrong about everything" (62).

Nietzsche's works are laced with anti-feminist remarks, so perhaps the following quote will suffice to typify his stance on this issue: "A deep man ... can think about women only like an Oriental : he has to conceive of woman as a possession, as securable property, as something predetermined for service and completed in it. He has to rely on the tremendous reason of Asia, on Asia's superior instincts." (63)

Nietzsche would not have been surprised to find Manu saying that "a girl, a young woman, or even an old woman should not do anything independently, even in her own house." (64) Indeed, Manu's attitude to woman brought out the ironist in Nietzsche, as he commented; "I do not know any book that says as many kind and delicate things to females as the law book of Manu." (65)

To Manu, though, woman's 'danger' is due to her role in the "confusion of castes" (66): woman must be guarded in case she breeds outside her caste. Here woman is seen in the traditionally 'oriental' way as a temptress who leads men astray and so initiates the breakdown of the caste order.

So while woman is essential for the act of breeding, Manu fears her waywardness in this department. Likewise, Nietzsche's own objection to female sentiment-ality, masks a deeper fear; "females are vengeful ... this is a constituent part of their weakness, just like their sensitivity to the needs of others." (67)

Both Nietzsche and Manu fear - somewhat ambivalently - that the orderliness and 'strength' of the male will be corrupted by the chaotic 'weakness' of the female. This kind of ambivalence will be revisited when we look further at the relation of the priest to the warrior.

Notes:

62) Nietzsche 2005 EH Birth 1 p. 108

63) Nietzsche 1998 BGE 238 p. 127

64) Manu 5.147 p. 115

65) Nietzsche 2005 A 56 p. 57

66) Manu 8.172 p. 171

67) Nietzsche 2005 EH Wise 7 p. 82

XI

Manu threw light on another on-going problem for Nietzsche - that of the 'holy lie', or the pia fraus which "goes against the grain" of the 'free spirit' (68), as he had written in 1886. In its classical version as the 'noble lie' in Plato's Republic (69) it had cast a long shadow over Nietzsche's thought.

He recognised too that Manu was "founded upon the holy lie", and that while "the cause of the holy lie is the 'will to power'," [Nietzsche's term for the underlying character of all reality] it is problematic because "power acquired by lying was the result of the recognition of the fact that it was not already possessed physically." (70)

Manu's aristocratism is now in question [the above quotes come from a section entitled "a criticism of the Law Book of Manu"], because "neither Manu nor Plato nor Confucius nor the teachers of Judaism and Christianity, have ever doubted their right to lie." (71)

But at least Manu lies towards a noble purpose, opines Nietzsche in The Antichrist, and that makes it permissible, he suggests - although not too convincingly. He avers there that we should not forget the "central point, the fundamental difference between Manu and every type of Bible: Manu lets the noble classes, the philosophers and warriors, stand above the crowd." (72)

And yet there is a glaring flaw in Nietzsche's terminology here; it is not the "philosopher" but the priest who stands above all else in Manu. Nietzsche is engaged in wishful thinking when he transforms the priest of Manu into a philosopher - it is no such thing.

Notes:

68) Nietzsche 1998 BGE 105 p. 63

69) Plato Rep Bk III 414c p. 658

70) Nietzsche 142 pp. 123-5

71) Nietzsche 2005 TI 5 pp. 185-6

72) Ibid., A 56 p. 56

XII

The underlying problem for appropriating Manu to Nietzsche's philosophy remains, for even in Manu it is the priest who has used the holy lie to achieve power over the warrior by ignoble means. This makes the priest a decadent: "decadents need lies; it is one of the conditions for their preservation." (73)

Not only that but "all aristocrats hold the fundamental conviction that the common people are liars." (74) Indeed, this priestly sleight of hand is embedded in the Vedas where the priests claimed supremacy on the basis of their control of the all-important sacrifice; "the priests held out to their patrons the promise of a place in heaven, but also of a long and contented life, material success of sorts and worldly status." (75)

And the priest continued to maintain his supremacy in Manu while invoking ahimsa to suggest that the warrior or ruler, concerned as they were with having to use deadly force, was "relegated to a place of 'incompletion' vis-à-vis the non-violent prototype, the priest." (76)

Given Nietzsche's predilection for war - "I am by nature war-like," (77) and his rejection of vegetarianism from "experience" (78), then it becomes very difficult to see him as having sympathy with the priests of Manu.

Rulers are warned by Manu to not make priests angry - "even during the utmost extremity", for "when angry they could destroy him." (79)

Compare this with Nietzsche in 1887, when he wrote; "priests make the most evil enemies", and that "the greatest haters in world history, and the most intelligent, have always been priests; - nobody else's intelligence stands a chance against the intelligence of priestly revenge." (80)

Ultimately, Nietzsche has to face up to the fact that Manu is a thoroughly priestly work, and that "as long as priests are considered the highest type, every valuable type of person is devalued." (81)

And Manu is "the purest example of priestcraft"; the so-called 'Semitic spirit' of priestliness is nothing other than Aryan, (82) and "Aryan influence has corrupted all the world!" (83)

Notes:

73) Nietzsche 2005 EH Birth 2 p. 109

74) Nietzsche 1998, BGE 260 p. 154

75) Manu, trans. intro. p. xxvi

76) Ibid., p. xxxix

77) Nietzsche 2005 EH Wise 7 p.82

78) Ibid. Clever 1 p. 87

79) Manu 9.313 p. 230

80) Nietzsche 1994 GM I 7 p. 18

81) Nietzsche 2005 TI Skirmishes 45 p. 219

82) Nietzsche 1910 143 p. 125

83) Nietzsche 1968 142 p. 92

XIII

That the notion of an antithesis between the Semitic and the Aryan was common at the time can be shown from this excerpt from Benjamin Disraeli's novel Lothair of 1870. The character Mr. Phoebus is based on the Hellenophile artist Lord Leighton;

"'Aryan principles', crisply replies Mr. Phoebus, 'not merely the study of nature, but of beautiful nature; the art of design in a country inhabited by a first-rate race, and where the laws, the manners, the customs are calculated to maintain the health and beauty of a first-rate race. In a greater or less degree, these conditions obtained from the age of Pericles to the age of Hadrian in pure Aryan communities, but Semitism then began to prevail and ultimately triumphed. Semitism has destroyed art: it has taught man to despise his own body and the essence of art is to honour the human frame." (84)

So Nietzsche's initial enthusiasm for Manu - typically - turns into a 'revaluation' of Manu, as 'perspectives are switched' [and as we might say in 'post-modern' terms], Nietzsche deconstructs Aryanism itself.

The Aryan priest has spoiled everything from the beginning; but then, following Nietzsche's own logic, "once completed, everything great - a work, an act - immediately turns against the one who did it." (85)

Christianity, derived from the Jewish priestly culture - itself derived from the Aryan - "drew the ultimate conclusion of this movement: even in the Jewish priesthood it still sensed caste, the privileged, the noble - it abolished the priest - The Christian is the chandala who repudiates the priest - the chandala who redeems himself." (86)

And so at the very heart of Aryan priestliness is a self-negating rejection of the caste-order.

And yet, no one repudiates the priest as vehemently as does Nietzsche;

"The priest is our chandala - he should be ostracised, starved, driven into every type of desert." (87)

Notes:

84) Quoted in Gaunt p. 84

85) Nietzsche 2005 EH TSZ 5 p. 128

86) Nietzsche 1968 184 p. 111

87) Nietzsche 2005 A 62, p. 67

XIV

Nietzsche's revaluation of all values then includes a revaluation of Aryan values. The priest must be repudiated in favour of what? - The Nietzschean "artist-philosopher"; (88)

"Our religion, morality and philosophy are decadent forms of man. The countermovement: art." (89)

"Art as the actual task of life, art as a metaphysical pursuit." (90)

The 'artist-philosopher' [i.e., the new Nietzschean philosopher who is related to the artist, and not to the priest, as the old philosopher was] is to replace the priest at the apex of the caste order as the priest has been cast out.

A very revealing passage, entitled "the inversion of the order of rank", says;

"The pious counterfeiters, the priests, among us become chandalas - they replace the charlatans, quacks, counterfeiters, and wizards; we consider them corrupters of the will, great slanderers of life on which they wish to revenge themselves, rebels among the underprivileged. We have turned the caste of servants, the sudras, into our middle class, our 'Volk', those who make political decisions; business and land-owners - the military - the scholarly classes. On the other hand, the chandala of former times is at top: foremost, those who blaspheme God and the immoralists, the nomads of every type, the artists, Jews, musicians - at bottom, all disreputable classes of men."

It seems at this point that Nietzsche is now identifying himself with this latter group;

"We immoralists are today the strongest power." (91)

Here Nietzsche describes a new triple caste order, which in descending rank is;

Artist [new philosopher-artists, immoralists etc.]

Servants [politicians, military, scholars etc.]

Chandalas [priests, old philosopher-priests etc.]

Notes:

88) Nietzsche 1968 795 p. 419

89) Ibid., 794

90) Nietzsche 2002 p. 106

91) Nietzsche 1968 116 p. 71

XV

Had Nietzsche succumbed to the folie de grandeur, as Heinrich von Treitschke is reported to have said of him (92), or had he indeed prophesied - unsung - a 'new order', beyond all those known hitherto?

"All prophets have been liars so far - the truth speaks out of me - but my truth is horrible: so far the lie has been called the truth ... transvaluation of all values is my formula for an act of supreme stocktaking of mankind: my fate wants that I look down deeper, more bravely, more honestly into the questions of all times than man has ever had to discover before ... I am not challenging what is living now, I am challenging several thousands of years." (93)

Is Nietzsche's claim to speak the 'truth' here out-of-step with his aforementioned 'perspectivism'? Possibly, but the 'lie' he refers to above is a specific one and akin to that of the 'holy lie'. It is the 'lie' which maintains that there is such a thing as a 'moral world order,' (94) a lie as prevalent in Manu as it is in Christianity [and Kant.] (95)

Nietzsche's 'truth' is then the opposite of this 'lie'; "the self-overcoming of morality out of truthfulness." (96)

Morality is defined here as "the idiosyncrasy of decadents with the ulterior motive of taking revenge on life - and successfully." (97) The point is that "humanity" has only - before Nietzsche - affirmed "decadence values as the highest values." (98)

Nietzsche had recognised this five years before reading Manu with his own Zarathustra, but was at first uncertain, confiding to Gast that "I am curious to know if it [i.e., TSZ] has any merit." (99)

It was only after encountering - and then attempting to overcome - the seeming non plus ultra of Manu that Nietzsche was able to give his revaluation world-historical ambition. Only now could he say that "the poets of the Veda are priests and do not deserve even to tie the shoelaces of a Zarathustra." (100)

Notes:

92) Butler p. 156

93) Nietzsche 2002 p. 150

94) Nietzsche 2005 EH Destiny 3 p. 145

95) Ibid., Wagner 2 p. 140

96) Ibid., Destiny 3 p. 145

97) Ibid., 7 p. 149

98) Ibid.

99) Nietzsche 1996, Letter #113 [to Overbeck March 1883]

100) Nietzsche 2005 EH TSZ 6 p. 129

Abbreviations used for Nietzsche's works:
Thus Spake Zarathustra TSZ
Beyond Good and Evil BGE
On the Genealogy of Morality GM
The Antichrist A
The Will to Power WP
Ecce Homo EH
Twilight of the Idols TI

All his works are also referred to by section number after the title. The last two works mentioned also have a chapter title before the section number e.g., EH 'Destiny' 3, while GM refers to a book number before section number e.g., GM II 3.

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Diethe, Historical Dictionary of Nietzscheanism, Scarecrow, 1999

Farrell-Krell, D. & Bates, DL. The Good European, Chicago 1997

Gaunt, W. Victorian Olympus, Cardinal 1975

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Halevy, D. The Life of Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. JM Hone, T Fisher & Unwin 1911

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Schopenhauer, A. The World as Will and Idea trans. J. Bermann, Everyman 1995

Werner, K. A Popular Dictionary of Hinduism, Curzon 1994