Nietzsche's Slave Morality As Will To Power

Friedrich Nietzsche clearly disdained Christianity because he believed that they tricked the Strong, or Noble, class into submission. Superior strength, domination, greed, and insatiable hunger and thirst characterize Nietzsche's Noble Class. The Priestly class, or the Christians, are defined in the opposite way: weak, humble, meager, so on and so forth. The Christian's morality, a slave morality, he believed was killing everyone. Nietzsche contended that the Priestly class tricked the Nobles by telling them, for example, that "to be the least is greatest," "to turn the other cheek is good," or "to love your enemies." The Priests created this lie to bring the Nobles to an equal playing field, and in doing so, completely tricked them into submission. As such, the Priest displayed their own "will to power." Nietzsche correctly stated that slave morality is killing everyone in light of his Proto-Existentialist thought. Furthermore, I will later show that although some act like violent and aggressive creatures while others do not does not sufficiently refute Nietzsche's arguments.

Nietzsche believed that we all have entered a world marked by slave morality. Christians preach against many wrongdoings, such as "don't cuss," "don't dance," "don't drink," which creates quite a conservative morality in which man constantly questions his actions, and becomes enslaved to a long list of Priestly commandments.

One growing up under Christian morality begins to see that the Law is impossible to uphold. The constant failure requires an incessant need for God's grace. This sustaining tension is, according to Nietzsche, where the battle lies. A person loses confidence when he constantly bounces back and forth between good and bad, or right and wrong. The Priestly class wins every time in this fight because the Nobles allow their guilt to overcome their strength. However, the Noble longs to break free. Hermann Hesse's Demian explains this tension well. Sinclair, the main character, constantly struggles with right and wrong, while his friend Demian bears the "mark of cain." In the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, of course, Cain kills Abel for sacrificing a greater and more pleasing offering to God. As a result, God bans Cain from the land and marks him with a sybmol that the Nations would forever recognize as evil. As a person begins to realize this "evil" within, he does not wish to smother it but rather harness this newfound strength.

Existentialism really provides helpful insight to Nietzsche's argument. Existence and radical free will (or indeterminism) primarily characterize the philosophical movement. As for existence, Jean Paul Sartre explains that existentialism merely states that existence precedes essence. This suggests that man has no essence within which to fit but rather creates his own essence and being. This doesn't negate a scientific view of heredity but rather shows that man defines himself sociologically. On the other hand, Nancy Holstrom describes will on a continuum of desire. One often has battle volitions of varying orders. For example, one may want to smoke. The first order volition is "I want to smoke." However, a second order volition may exist too that questions or strengthens the first, such as "Smoking is bad for your health." If a concern for health causes one not to smoke, it then becomes the first order volition and "I want to smoke," becomes the second. If this occurs, one has broken the median between determinism and indeterminism. The Nobles lose at this point. They cannot overcome the first order, Christian desires with their more natural "evil" volitions. Hence, the Noble loses his freedom and cannot define his own existence or cannot live.

The question then becomes, "All this rests on our nature being aggressive and violent, groping for power. Some are, in fact, this way, but many others are not. How can this be?" Hesse might explain that some descend from Cain and others from Abel. Nietzsche clearly would admit that those who lack a violent and aggressive nature still possess a will to power. However, since all are groping for power, it is just a matter of the means to that end. The Noble uses strength, and the Priest uses deception. One desires that existential freedom above to make himself his own god. We are thirsty to be gods in our own minds, the center of the universe. All will to power, some are just more violent and aggressive than others depending on their mark, whether they are Cain or Abel. The Priest, Nietzsche maintains, only tricks the Nobleman into thinking he should be weak. This way, the Priest brings his opponent on his level so that he may effectively will to power against the Nobleman. Otherwise, if the Nobleman recognized his strength, he would crush the Priest.

The slave morality, then, kills everyone because no one may effectively determine his own life, or existence. We are left to follow the status quo of conservative moralism, and when we battle with that morality, we fall prey to "sin" and reinforce the normative pietism. If one simply embraced his freedom, he would realize his own god-like power, and also understand fully his past lack of power. All will to power but those successful ones currently do so only through trickery and a rejection of their own humanity.

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