SECTION TWO : ON THE HISTORY OF MORAL FEELINGS
Psychological observation is one of the means by which man can ease life's burdens; that by exercizing this art, one can secure presence of mind in difficult situations and entertainment amind boring surroundings; indeed, that from the thorniest and unhappiest phases of one's own life one can pluck maxims and feel a little better thereby
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One hears a lot of talk about men, but none at all about man.
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Present-day readers of maxims take a relatively insignificant delight in them, scarcely a mouthful of pleasure... praising them bcoz they cannot love them, and quick to admire but even quicker to run away.
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Indeed, a certain blind faith in the goodness of human nature, an inculcated aversion to dissecting human behaviour, a kind of shame with respect to the naked soul, may really be more desirable for a man's overall happiness than the trait of psychological sharp-sightedness, which is helpful in isolated instances.
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All overly earnest individuals and peoples have a need for frivolity; others, who are overly excitable and unstable, occasionally need heavy, oppressive burdens
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...we make man responsible for the effect of his actions, then for his actions, then for his motives and finally his nature. Ultimately we discover that his nature cannot be responsible either, in that it is itself an inevitable consequence, an outgrowth of the elements and influences of past and present things... And thus we come to understand that the history of moral feelings is the history of an error, an error called 'responsibility', which in turn rests on an error called 'freedom of the will'
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The beast in us wants to be lied to; morality is a white lie, to keep it from tearing us apart. Without the errors inherent in the postulates of morality, man wld have remained an animal. But as it is he has taken himself to be something higher and has imposed stricter laws upon himself
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It is not true that one's character is unchangeable; rather, this popular tenet means only that during a man's short lifetime the motives affecting him cannot normally cut deeply enough to destroy the imprinted writing of many millennia.
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Kindness and love, the most curative herbs and agents in human intercourse, are such precious finds that one wld hope these balsamlike remedies wld be used as economically as possible; but this is impossible. Only the boldest utopians wld dream of the economy of kindness.
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(About 'Goodwill') I mean those expressions of a friendly disposition in interactions, that smile of the eye, those handclasps, that ease which usually envelops nearly all human actions... It is the continual manifestation of our humanity, its rays of light, so to speak, in which everything grows... Good nature, friendliness, and courtesy of the heart are ever-flowing tributaries of the selfless drive and have much greater contributions to culture than these much more famous expressions of this drive, called pity, charity, and self-sacrifice. But... there really is not much abt them that is selfless. The sum of these small doses is nonetheless mighty; its cumulative force is among the strongest of forces.
Similarly, there is much more happiness to be found in the world than dim eyes can see, if... [one] does not forget all those moments of ease which are so plentiful in every day of every human life, even the most oppressed
(Yet, Nietzche goes insane at the age of 45, and remained in a condition of mental and physical paralysis until his death at the age of 56 =S)
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Of course one ought to express pity, but one ought to guard against it; for unfortunate ppl are so stupid that they count the expression of pity as the greatest good on earth... Observe how children weep and cry, so that they will be pitied, how they wait for the moment when their condition will be noticed... When expressions of pity make the unfortunate man aware of this feeling of superiority (i.e. knowing that others will pay attention to his appeals), he gets a kind of pleasure from it; his self-image revives; he is still important enough to inflict pain on the world ... It reveals man in the complete inconsideration of his most intimate dear self ('dear' meaning valuable, I think? So one shld be aware and make good of whatever value one has? And not keep pitying oneself for past failures... If one continues to indulge in self-pity, it shows that one also does not believe in one's self worth and capability!) Most ppl are too dishonest, and a few men are too good, to know anything abt this source of shame (and so, charity shld not be taken advantage of; on the flip side, one must be careful not to show charity too easily)
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If someone wants to seem to be something, stubbornly and for a long time, he eventually finds it hard to be anything else.
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The man who always wears a mask of a friendly countenance eventually has to gain power over benevolent moods without which the expression of friendliness cannot be forced - and eventually then these moods gain power over him, and he is benevolent.
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(About 'Deception') Great deceivers... do not come out of this condition of self-deception: or, very infrequently, they do have clearer moments, when doubt overwhelms them; but they usually comfort themselves by foisting those clearer moments off on the evil adversary.
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No power can maintain itself if only hypocrites represent it. However many 'worldly' elements the Catholic Church may have... [priests] who make life deep and difficult for themselves... speak of [e.g.] nightly vigils, fasting, fervent prayers, perhaps even flagellation. These men shock others and worry them: what if it were necessary to live like that? - this is the horrible qtn that the sight of them brings to the tongue. By spreading this doubt they keep reestablishing a pillar of their power. Not even the most free-minded dare to resist so selfless a man with the hand sense for truth, and say: "You who are deceived, do not deceive others."
Only a diff insight seperates them from this man, by no mean a diff of goodness or badness; but if one does not like a thing, one generally tends to treat it unjustly, too.
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There are no sins in the metaphysical sense; but, in the same sense, neither are there any virtues; we recognize that this entire realm of moral ideas is in a continual state of fluctuation, that there are higher and deeper concepts of good and evil, moral and immoral. A man who desires no more from things than to understand them easily makes peace with his soul and will err (or 'sin', as the world calls it) at the most out of ignorance, but hardly out of desire... His single goal... to understand as well as he can at all times, will cool him down
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A good author, who really cares about his subject, wishes that someone wld come and destroy him by representing the same subject more clearly and by answering every last qtn contained in it. The girl in love wishes that she might prove the devoted faithfulness of her love through her lover's faithlessness. The soldier wishes that he might fall on the battlefield for his victorious fatherland, for in the victory of his fatherland his greatest desire is also victorious... Are all these really selfless states, however?... The inclination towards something (a wish, a drive, a longing) is present in all the above mentioned cases; to yield to it, with all its consequences, is in any case not 'selfless'
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So closely is morality bound to the quality of the intellect
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To have thoughts of revenge and execute them means to be stuck with a violent - but temporary - fever. But to have thoughts of revenge w/o the strength or courage to execute them means to endure a chronic suffering, a poisoning of body and soul.
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Passion will not wait. The tragedy in the lives of great men often lies not in their conflict with the times and the baseness of their fellowmen, but rather in their inability to postpone their work for a year or two.
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(With reference to the Greek tale of “Pandora’s Box”) Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him…To that end, he gives men hope. In truth, it is the most evil of all evils because it prolongs man’s torment.
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One will seldom go wrong to attribute extreme actions to vanity, moderate ones to habit, and petty ones to fear.
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Any character lacking in ambition must not be without a moral sense.
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Most men are much too concerned with themselves to be malicious.
(Yeah.. People plan to hurt others for fulfillment of their own interests, and not so much coz they particularly want to hurt those other ppl ? the hurt they inflict out of 'malice' is not in their consideration, their interests are)
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We praise or find fault, depending on which of the two provides more opportunity for our powers of judgement to shine.
(Hmm, right also.. Some ppl want their critical views to be heard by all the world.. And they will be as critical as possible.. Then the more they will appear to be ‘opinionated’, or so they think.. But I dun think that will mean that these ppl have good judgement.. Not at all.. Such a grp of ppl have a tendency to be ?overly- critical, which wld also mean they will have a biased pt of view.. A lot of things make me consider myself to be a moderate person.. Not wanting to be biased or shallow, I’ve come to think it’s best to accept various points of view, and then think thru all of them before deciding on which kind of thinking to adopt. But being a moderate person has its disadvantages; a moderate person is likely to argue less strongly, is more indecisive, or at least slower in the decision-making and in taking action too. But I’m not always moderate.. Like when it comes to things I love to do, the feelings of interest I don’t need to control..=D)
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He who humbleth himself wants to be exalted.
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We care abt the good opinion of others first bcoz it is profitable, and then bcoz we want to give others joy(children want to give joy to their parents, pupils to their teachers...) Only when someone holds the good opinion of others to be important without regard to his interests(e.g. to improve himself) or his wish to give joy, do we speak of vainity.
In the vain man, interest in himself, his wish to please himself (this pleasure is derived when others praise him), reaches such a peak that he misleads others to assess him wrongly, to overvalue him greatly, and then he adheres to their authority; that is, he brings abt the error and then [he himself] believes in it
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The first sign that an animal has become human is that his behaviour is no longer directed to his momentary comfort, but rather to his enduring comfort, that is, when man becomes useful… A still higher state is reached when man acts according to the principle of honour, by means of which he finds his place in society, submitting to commonly held feelings… Now he shows ? and wants to be shown ? respect; that is, he understands his advantage as dependent on his opinion of others and their opinion of him. Finally, at the highest stage of morality, he acts according to his standards of things and men; he determines for himself and others what is honourable, what is profitable… He lives and acts as a collective individual.
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(About ‘Morality of the Mature Individual’) We wish to work for our fellow men, but only insofar as we find our own highest advantage in this work; no more, no less. It depends only on what one understands by his advantage. The immature, undeveloped, crude individual will also understand it most crudely.
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This idea of habit as a condition of existence is carried right into the smallest details of custom: since lower people and cultures have only very slight insight into the real casuality, they make sure, with a superstitious fear, that everything takes the same course; even where a custom is difficult, harsh, burdensome, it is preserved bcoz it seems to be highly useful. They do not know that the same degree of comfort can also exist with other customs and that even higher degrees of comfort can be attained. But they do perceive that all customs, even the harshest, become more pleasant and mild with time, and that even the severest way of life can become a habit and thus a pleasure.
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(About ‘Innocence of So-Called Evil Actions’) All ‘evil’ actions are motivated by the drive for preservation, or, more exactly, by the individual’s intention to gain pleasure and avoid unpleasure; thus, they are motivated, but they are not evil… There is no right that can prevent it. The ground for all morality can only be prepared when a greater individual or collective-individual, e.g. society or the state, subjects the individuals in it, that is, when it draws them out of their isolatedness and integrates them into a union. Force precedes morality; indeed, for a time morality itself is force, to which others acquiesce to avoid unpleasure. Later it becomes custom, and still later free obedience, and finally almost instinct: Then it is coupled to pleasure, like all habitual and natural things, and is now called virtue.
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Egoism is not evil; for the idea of one’s ‘neighbour’ (the word has a Christian origin…) is very weak in us; and we feel toward him almost as free and irresponsible as toward plants and stones. That the other suffers must be learned; and it can never be learned completely.
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We don’t always accuse nature of immorality when it sends us a thunderstorm, and makes us wet: why do we call the injurious man immoral? Because in the first case, we assume necessity, and in the second a voluntarily governing free will. But this [is erroneous]. Furthermore, even intentional injury is not called immoral in all circumstances: without hesitating, we intentionally kill a gnat, for example, simply bcoz we do not like its buzz… [we do harm intentionally] for self-preservation or simply to avoid discomfort… All morality allows the intentional infliction of harm for self-defense (or self-preservation)… Socrates and Plato are right: whatever man does, he does always acts for the “good”, that is, in a way that seems to him good (useful) according to the degree of his intellect, the prevailing measure of his rationality.
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Can there be an injury out of pure malice, in cruelty, for example? If one does not know how painful an action is, it cannot be malicious; thus the child is not malicious or evil to an animal [when he hurts it] like a toy. But do we ever completely know how painful an action is to the other person?… Whether the individual fights this battle in ways such that men call him good or such that they call him evil is determined by the measure and makeup of his intellect.
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[A man’s] powers of judgment determine where he will let the demand for self-enjoyment take him. In each society, in each individual, a hierarchy of the good is always present, by which man determines his own actions and judges other people’s actions. But this standard is continually in flux; many actions are called evil, and are only stupid, bcoz the degree of intelligence which chose them was very low. Indeed, in a certain sense all actions are stupid even now, for the highest degree of human intelligence which can now be attained will surely be surpassed. And then, in hindsight, all our behaviour and judgments will appear as inadequate and rash as the behaviour and judgments of backward savage tribes now seem to us inadequate and rash.
To understand all this can cause great pain, but afterwards there is consolation. These pains are birth pangs. The butterfly wants to break through his cocoon; he tears at it, he rends it: then he is blinded and confused by the unknown light, the realm of freedom. Men who are capable of that sorrow (how few they will be!) will make the first attempt to see if mankind can transform itself from a moral into a wise mankind. In those individuals, the sun of a new gospel is casting its first ray onto the highest mountaintop of the soul; the fog is condensing more thickly than ever, and the brightest light and cloudiest dusk lie next to each other.
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In thousand of years… [perhaps mankind will be given] the strength to produce wise, innocent (conscious of their innocence) men as regularly as it now produces unwise, unfair men, conscious of their guilt?these men are the necessary first stage, but not the opposite of those to come
We know life's hard, truth is hard, lies are hard, they are all hard to accept when they have been
found out, and i'm rushing history homework on the Abyissian Crisis about Italy and Abyssia going into war and that the League Of Nations cannot stop this from happening, and beacuse they are formed by means to stop war and
peace-keep the countries together, they have thus failed to achieve that. I think i tend to hold a class for history instead of telling you about me, i'm basically a what subject-realted lover (humanities) and thus
I am more analytical and critical about things, and likes to study about dead people, haha. lol. it's history what can you expect and also geography, it amazes me. I really like it alot, so what have you? Again to find this answer
you need to enter into your own reality and reflect
it's amazing. amzing how people change the way of things, like how I used to hate outdoors in Band
felt it was a complete waste of time, i've acquired to like it more, i guess people change, their thereotical means and applications in life just goes on into a new direction, and see things in another perspective, i guess- it's
all in the mind. It really amazes me how these comes into action, from someone so pessimistic has changed his own view of things, and thus my friend is scoring much better, being more optimisitc and not think of his old way of suicidal
thoughts, which are pretty daunting. and thus we need to see things, in another light, another perspective and another new way, to enable us to open up our minds, and make more new things, the new way it is. 