Nietzsche's Master and Slave Morality Summarized

[Anonymous No.18223878]

Because there are so many confusions surrounding these moralities, which also lead to confusions surrounding his views on religion and politics, here are Beyond Good and Evil §260 and §261 where he first mentions and describes the two (italics is capitalized by me):

>While perusing the many subtler and cruder moral codes that have prevailed or still prevail on earth thus far, I found that certain traits regularly recurred in combination, linked to one another—until finally two basic types were revealed and a fundamental difference leapt out at me. There are MASTER MORALITIES and SLAVE MORALITIES. I would add at once that in all higher and more complex cultures, there are also apparent attempts to mediate between the two moralities, and even more often a confusion of the two and a mutual misunderstanding, indeed sometimes even their violent juxtaposition—even in the same person, within one single breast. Moral value distinctions have emerged either from among a masterful kind, pleasantly aware of how it differed from those whom it mastered, or else from among the mastered, those who were to varying degrees slaves or dependents. In the first case, when it is the masters who define the concept 'good', it is the proud, exalted states of soul that are thought to distinguish and define the hierarchy. The noble person keeps away from those beings who express the opposite of these elevated, proud inner states: he despises them. Let us note immediately that in this first kind of morality the opposition 'good' and 'bad' means about the same thing as 'noble' and 'despicable'—the opposition 'good' and 'EVIL' has a different origin. The person who is cowardly or anxious or petty or concerned with narrow utility is despised; likewise the distrustful person with his constrained gaze, the self-disparager, the craven kind of person who endures maltreatment, the importunate flatterer, and above all the liar: all aristocrats hold the fundamental conviction that the common people are liars. 'We truthful ones'—that is what the ancient Greek nobility called themselves. It is obvious that moral value distinctions everywhere are first attributed to PEOPLE and only later and in a derivative fashion applied to ACTIONS: for that reason moral historians commit a crass error by starting with questions such as: 'Why do we praise an empathetic action?' The noble type of person feels HIMSELF as determining value—he does not need approval, he judges that 'what is harmful to me is harmful per se', he knows that he is the one who causes things to be revered in the first place, he CREATES VALUES.

1/5

[Anonymous No.18223883]

>>18223878
>Everything that he knows of himself he reveres: this kind of moral code is self-glorifying. In the foreground is a feeling of fullness, of overflowing power, of happiness in great tension, an awareness of a wealth that would like to bestow and share—the noble person will also help the unfortunate, but not, or not entirely, out of pity, but rather from the urgency created by an excess of power. The noble person reveres the power in himself, and also his power over himself, his ability to speak and to be silent, to enjoy the practice of severity and harshness towards himself and to respect everything that is severe and harsh. 'Wotan placed a harsh heart within my breast,' goes a line in an old Scandinavian saga: that is how it is written from the heart of a proud Viking—and rightly so. For this kind of a person is proud NOT to be made for pity; and so the hero of the saga adds a warning: 'If your heart is not harsh when you are young, it will never become harsh.' The noble and brave people who think like this are the most removed from that other moral code which sees the sign of morality in pity or altruistic behavior or DESINTERESSEMENT; belief in ourselves, pride in ourselves, a fundamental hostility and irony towards 'selflessness'—these are as surely a part of a noble morality as caution and a slight disdain towards empathetic feelings and 'warm hearts'. It is the powerful who UNDERSTAND how to revere, it is their art form, their realm of invention. Great reverence for old age and for origins (all law is based upon this twofold reverence), belief in ancestors and prejudice in their favour and to the disadvantage of the next generation—these are typical in the morality of the powerful; and if, conversely, people of 'modern ideas' believe in progress and 'the future' almost by instinct and show an increasing lack of respect for old age, that alone suffices to reveal the ignoble origin of these 'ideas'. Most of all, however, the master morality is foreign and embarrassing to current taste because of the severity of its fundamental principle: that we have duties only towards our peers, and that we may treat those of lower rank, anything foreign, as we think best or 'as our heart dictates' or in any event 'beyond good and evil'—pity and the like should be thought of in this context. The ability and duty to feel enduring gratitude or vengefulness (both only within a circle of equals), subtlety in the forms of retribution, a refined concept of friendship, a certain need for enemies (as drainage channels for the emotions of envy, combativeness, arrogance—in essence, in order to be a good FRIEND): these are the typical signs of a noble morality, which, as we have suggested, is not the morality of 'modern ideas' and is therefore difficult to sympathize with these days, also difficult to dig out and uncover.

2/5

[Anonymous No.18223888]

>>18223883
>It is different with the second type of morality, SLAVE MORALITY. Assuming that the raped, the oppressed, the suffering, the shackled, the weary, the insecure engage in moralizing, what will their moral value judgements have in common? They will probably express a pessimistic suspicion about the whole human condition, and they might condemn the human being along with his condition. The slave's eye does not readily apprehend the virtues of the powerful: he is sceptical and distrustful, he is KEENLY distrustful of everything that the power revere as 'good'—he would like to convince himself that even their happiness is not genuine. Conversely, those qualities that serve to relieve the sufferers' existence are brought into relief and bathed in light: this is where pity, a kind, helpful hand, a warm heart, patience, diligence, humility, friendliness are revered—for in this context, these qualities are most useful and practically the only means of enduring an oppressive existence. Slave morality is essentially a morality of utility. It is upon this hearth that the famous opposition 'good' and 'EVIL' originates—power and dangerousness, a certain fear-inducing, subtle strength that keeps contempt from surfacing, are translated by experience into evil. According to slave morality, then, the 'evil' person evokes fear; according to master morality, it is exactly the 'good' person who evokes fear and wants to evoke it, while the 'bad' person is felt to be despicable. The opposition comes to a head when, in terms of slave morality, a hint of condescension (it may be slight and well intentioned) clings even to those whom this morality designates as 'good', since within a slave mentality a good person must in any event be HARMLESS: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a bit stupid, a BONHOMME. Wherever slave morality gains the upper hand, language shows a tendency to make a closer association of the words 'good' and 'stupid'.

>A last fundamental difference: the longing for FREEDOM, an instinct for the happiness and nuances of feeling free, is as necessarily a part of slave morals and morality as artistic, rapturous reverence and devotion invariably signal an aristocratic mentality and judgement. From this we can immediately understand why PASSIONATE love (our European speciality) absolutely must have a noble origin: the Provencal poet-knights are acknowledged to have invented it, those splendid, inventive people of the 'GAI SABER' to whom Europe owes so much—virtually its very self.

3/5

[Anonymous No.18223894]

>>18223888
>Among the things that a noble person finds most difficult to understand is vanity: he will be tempted to deny its existence, even when a different kind of person thinks that he grasps it with both hands. He has trouble imagining beings who would try to elicit a good opinion about themselves that they themselves do not hold (and thus do not 'deserve', either) and who then themselves nevertheless BELIEVE this good opinion. To him, that seems in part so tasteless and irreverent towards one's self, and in part so grotesquely irrational that he would prefer to consider vanity an anomaly and in most of the cases when it is mentioned, doubt that it exists. He will say, for example: 'I may be wrong about my worth, but on the other hand require that others recognize the worth that I assign—but that is not vanity (rather it is arrogance, or more often what is called "humility", and also "modesty").' Or he will say: 'There are many reasons to be glad about other people's good opinion of me, perhaps because I revere and love them and am happy about every one of their joys, or else perhaps because their good opinion underscores and strengthens my belief in my own private good opinion, or perhaps because the good opinion of others, even in the cases where I do not share it, is nevertheless useful or promises to be useful to me—but none of that is vanity.' It takes compulsion, particularly with the help of history, for the noble person to realize that in every sort of dependent social class, from time immemorial, a common person WAS only what he was THOUGHT TO BE—completely unused to determining values himself, he also attributed to himself no other value than what his masters attributed to him (creating values is truly the MASTER'S PRIVILEGE). We may understand it as the result of a tremendous atavism that even now, the ordinary person first WAITS for someone else to have an opinion about him, and then instinctively submits to it—and by no means merely to 'good' opinions, but also to bad or improper ones (just think, for example, how most pious women esteem or under-esteem themselves in accordance with what they have learned from their father confessors, or what pious Christians in general learn from their Church).

4/5

[Anonymous No.18223898]

>>18223894
>Now, in fact, in conformity with the slow emergence of a democratic order of things (this in turn caused by mixing the blood of masters and slaves), the originally noble and rare impulse to ascribe one's own value to oneself and to 'think well' of oneself, is more and more encouraged and widespread: but always working against it is an older, broader, and more thoroughly entrenched tendency—and when it comes to 'vanity', this older tendency becomes master of the newer. The vain person takes pleasure in EVERY good opinion that he hears about himself (quite irrespective of any prospect of its utility, and likewise irrespective of truth or falsehood), just as he suffers at any bad opinion: for he submits himself to both, he FEELS submissive to both, from that old submissive instinct that breaks out in him. It is the 'slave' in the blood of the vain person, a remnant of the slave's craftiness (and how much of the 'slave' is still left, for example, in women today!) that tries to SEDUCE him to good opinions of himself; and it is likewise the slave who straightway kneels down before these opinions, as if he himself were not the one who had called them forth. So I repeat: vanity is an atavism.

Hopefully this will give anons a reminder / better idea of what he thinks about the two, and how many of his readers (especially liberals and socialists) and critics (especially Christians and democrats) get him wrong.

5/5

[Anonymous No.18224163]

>>18223898
Which socialists do you think get him wrong? Most socialists I've seen that have evoked master/slave morality stuff (e.g. Mark Fisher) seem to get it.

[Anonymous No.18224753]

>>18223898
Good posts

[Anonymous No.18224963]

>>18224163
The ones that lean towards nationalism and anarchism.

[Anonymous No.18226077]

Bumping for effort

[Anonymous No.18226546]

>>18224163
"socialists" or marxists get master-slave from hegel and reinterpret the dialectic for the context of the power structures in society not morality

[Anonymous No.18227494]

>>18226546
Sure, but that doesn't seem to be the same thing as "getting [Nietzsche] wrong."

[Anonymous No.18227537]

>>18223878
>The noble type of person feels HIMSELF as determining value—he does not need approval, he judges that 'what is harmful to me is harmful per se', he knows that he is the one who causes things to be revered in the first place, he CREATES VALUES.


all the woke shit is base don this understanding and behavior.

[Anonymous No.18227553]

>>18223878
I'm not reading all that text, this is /lit/. Do an actual summary

[Anonymous No.18227728]

>>18227537
So is Christianity, but they both reinforce slave morality at the same time.

[Anonymous No.18227871]

>>18227553
tl;dr:

In the past, master and slave moralities were more clearly visible in the world, because our history wasn't yet full of social revolutions that caused an intermixing of the two.

Master morality i.e. the morality of the ancient nobility favored truth and artistic passion above all. A reverential attitude towards all things in life signaled a noble disposition. The noble viewed the coward, the self-disparager, the liar — all who felt oppressed and consequently distrustful of life — to be despicable and lower than themselves. Pride, self-love, and self-recognition as a creator of values were key traits of the nobility.

Slave morality i.e. the morality of the ancient slave emerged from a feeling of oppression and an intense desire for freedom above all. The slave makes utility of everything — he lies and does not care about truth. He regularly upholds pity, kindness, patience, diligence, humility, and friendliness because these things make his oppressive existence bearable. Slave morality deems he who causes fear to be evil, while master morality deems he who causes fear to be good.

In the past, the master and slave felt very differently about the subject of vanity. The common person was once considered to be no more than what he was thought to be by the nobles, and the common person did no thinking of his own, and this instructed the noble on how he differed from the common person. The master moralist, because of his deeply reverential passion and lack of cowardice, cared little about what he was thought to be, and made it a point of his pride to consider first and foremost what he thought of himself. As a result, a self-disparaging attitude became despicable to the master moralist, and the master moralist did not even see vanity in this, while the slave moralist, in contrast, who is cowardly in comparison, sees intense vanity in the master moralist, and is ready to embrace every good opinion about himself, regardless of the truthfulness behind them, to the extent that he feeds off these good opinions as a source of his own vanity.

[Anonymous No.18227921]

>>18227871
>favored truth and artistic passion above all.
bourgeois Code word for hedonism

[Anonymous No.18227923]

While I find master and slave morality analysis very insightful, to my knowledge Nietzsche makes the fall of master and rise of slave morality almost a question of moral if not biological decadence and does not take into account the historical and material conditions that have brought about it. In this respect (and only in this respect) Marxist analysis is far deeper. The old European nobility still felt superior over the bourgeoisie but became increasingly powerless and irrelevant. The only way master morality can express itself in concrete reality in a capitalist society is by way of some form of Ayn Randian objectivism, that is becoming a capitalist oneself, and thus becoming part of the bourgeois system. But the market place is democratic per excellence. As capitalism seeks to expand indefinitely its profits, more and more of the slave classes get integrated as consumers, and demand recognition of their slave values, resulting in woke capitalism.

[Anonymous No.18227943]

>>18227921
Hedonism often strays away from reverence and becomes entangled with the slave's intense desire for freedom. This is why Nietzsche considers Christianity's "faith makes blessed" to be an Epicurean sentiment at bottom.

[Anonymous No.18228197]

>>18227923
When Nietzsche analyzed master and slave morality, he was referring to the ancient past where these moralities were much more synonymous with different physiological types. He was aware that history was full of attempts at creating intermediaries between the two (Christianity being the largest and most successful project with this goal, and Platonism, Stoicism, and modern democracy being others) and he considered there to be almost entirely just these types in Europe today, with the instincts of both the ancient master and ancient slave co-existing in single individuals often to the detriment of that individual due to the internal conflicts it produces. I wouldn't say that the Marxist analysis is "deeper," just focused on a different side of the situation (and in itself, also an intermingling of master and slave morality, since Marx was more democratic than Nietzsche).

[Anonymous No.18228215]

>>18227537
wrong. wokeism is weaponized victimhood, which is to say "you [whites] are bad and i'm not you therefore i am good", which is slave morality par excellence

[Anonymous No.18228226]

>>18227923
>>18228197
master/slave morality is incidentally also the perfect explanation of how "cool" works, e.g. the only way to be cool is to do things because you like them, not because they're cool

[Anonymous No.18228352]

>>18228226
Cool take

[Anonymous No.18228470]

For those who are interested, if you want to see an accurate and in-depth artistic representation of master morality and how a mixture of master and slave morality can destroy an individual, watch the 1964 movie Becket. The character King Henry II (played by Peter O'Toole) perfectly displays how a master moralist feels about himself and the world around him, expressing a passionate noble pride and virility that reveres without disparaging himself and seeks to maintain distinctions and boundaries out of this reverence even when it leads to tragedy, while the character Thomas Becket (played by Richard Burton) shows what the internal struggle between a noble reverence for the king and for one's own station in life and the slave's powerful desire for freedom looks like and what happens when the slave in one triumphs. The movie can be seen on Tubi for free with ads (even without an account) in case you don't feel like torrenting it.