Prof: Okay,
now today we move--basically we
move into the twentieth century.
 
And there is a lot of
similarity between the three
authors we will be discussing:
Nietzsche, Freud and Max Weber.
You know, Durkheim will be a
somewhat different kind of
story.
 
But all--I mean,
Nietzsche, of course,
died in 1900,
but he was out of action for
ten years because of mental
illness, rather severe mental
illness.
 
He published all of his work in
the nineteenth century.
Freud and Weber started to
publish in the nineteenth
century.
 
But these three characters,
in many ways,
are very important bridges
towards twentieth century social
theory.
 
In a way they did foreshadow a
great deal of theorizing,
particularly during the second
half of the twentieth century,
especially in the last thirty
or forty years.
I think it's also very easy to
see the point of departure from
Marx--
some continuity,
but the basic point of
department from Marx in the work
of Nietzsche,
Freud, and Weber.
If I can put it very simply,
the major departure is that
they all depart from Marx's
economic reductionism--
right?--the emphasis on
economic interest,
which is actually not only
Marx.
Right?
 
It was common in Adam Smith,
and Marx as well.
They depart from this and they
emphasize that the problem in
modernity is not so much in the
economic system;
it is much more in terms of
power and consciousness.
The problem of modernity is
repression, in one way or
another.
 
The problem of modern life is
that we internalize the reasons
for our own subjugation,
as such, and somehow we have to
figure out how to liberate
ourselves from this internalized
subjugation.
 
Why do we obey orders?
 
Why do we actually accept that
we are subjugated?
This is the central question,
I think, Nietzsche,
Freud, and Weber are posing.
 
It's again a question which has
not been really asked by the
other theorists we discussed so
far.
They just had civil society as
a point of reference for the
good society.
 
Now the problem for Nietzsche,
Freud, and Weber is in us,
internally--in us,
how we solve the problem within
ourselves.
 
So this is a kind of
introducing the three authors.
In some ways one can say
Nietzsche,
Freud, and Weber not only
foreshadows twentieth century
social theory,
but in some ways they are the
first of post-modern theorists--
right?--the theorists which are
beginning to come to terms with
the oppressive nature of
modernity,
and try to figure out how to
transcend that.
 
Now I think what I asked you to
read for today is probably the
most difficult text for the
semester,
The Genealogy of Morals,
and you may have been greatly
frustrated by it,
and probably also irritated by
it, because he's a very
provocative mind.
I hope you did what I suggested;
namely, you had a cursory
reading of the text before
today,
and now you can go back to the
text,
after my lecture notes,
and I think that should help
you to find your way out and to
see what he is really up to.
Now what is he up to?
 
Let me just foreshadow,
before I get into his life and
work, and particularly in
Genealogy of Morals.
There is another point in which
Nietzsche, Freud,
and Weber can be understood in
relationship to Marx.
In my very introductory
comments, I emphasized the
difference--right?--the shift
away from the economy to the
question of power and
domination.
But there is a point at which
there is a continuity between
them and Marx--Nietzsche,
Freud and too mainly Weber;
I mean, Weber is a somewhat
more complicated story.
But certainly Nietzsche and
Freud are critical theorists;
critical theorists in the sense
as we defined this earlier.
Right?
 
Critical theorists,
that they are offering a
criticism of human
consciousness.
What is in our mind and how did
it get into our mind,
and how-- and the problem of
our consciousness in
relationship to our existence.
 
And this is very much critical
theory as it was defined by
Hegel and then the young Marx,
the Hegelian Marx,
the Marx of Paris
Manuscripts.
Right?
 
The Marx of alienation. Right?
 
This is very much coming from
this tradition,
and the central issue is how
can we subject this to critical
scrutiny?
 
And in Nietzsche's case,
there is an incredible attempt
being made here to try to offer
a critical theory which does not
really have a critical vantage
point.
Right?
 
All critical theories of Hegel
and Marx and twentieth century
critical theory do have an idea
of a good society,
of an emancipated human
existence, and they criticize
the reality,
the society what they are
analyzing,
from the point of view of this
critical vantage point.
 
Nietzsche is different.
 
He is really the most radical
of critical theorists.
And in the twentieth century
the theorist which builds the
most consistently on it is
Michel Foucault--
right?--who tried to create a
theory which is critical of
existence and our consciousness,
but critical without telling
you what is good,
what you should be aspiring for.
And that's exactly what
Nietzsche is trying to do.
It is sort of the squaring of
the circle.
Can you be critical of a
situation if you cannot tell
what is the good outcome?
 
Right?
 
Can you actually subject the
very notion of the good society,
the good, to critical scrutiny?
 
This is what he's trying to do.
 
Right?
 
To offer such a theory.
 
Well Freud is different. Right?
 
Freud is a critical theorist
beyond Hegel and beyond Marx.
He does agree with Marx that we
have to find some critical
analysis which is rooted in our
sensuous experiences,
and somehow we have to relate
the problems of our
consciousness to our sensuous
experiences.
Right?
 
In this respect,
Freud is very much in the line
of Marx's critique of Hegel.
 
This is not simply radicalizing
your consciousness;
you have to confront your
consciousness with your sensuous
experiences.
 
But he is different from Marx
because--
I pointed this out earlier very
briefly--
because in Marx,
this sensuous activity is
production,
it is economic activity.
For Freud it is our sexual
experiences--
right?-and he offers a
criticism of our consciousness
by confronting us with our
repressed sexual experiences in
our earlier life.
 
Right?
 
So this is a critical theory.
 
Right?
 
He said, "What you think
is in your mind is right.
No, no, no, it isn't."
 
Right?
 
You have to think about all of
your experiences of your earlier
sexual life,
and then when you figure out
what you repressed as bad
memories,
that's when you will actually
will be able to have a healthier
psychic life.
 
Right?
 
Well Weber is more complicated,
and we will come back to this,
Weber's critical theory,
when we get to Weber,
and to the question whether
he's a critical theorist at all,
that has been highly debated.
 
Okay, I think now we are ready
for Friedrich Nietzsche.
And I hope this makes more
sense now for you--right?--what
you were reading.
 
Right?
 
And let me just emphasize one
more time--
right?--the big project in
Nietzsche is to offer a critical
scrutiny of human mind,
but not to have any critical
vantage point.
 
Right?
 
To criticize the very
principles of good society and
good, to critical scrutiny.
 
Where does it come from when we
have the conception of good and
good society?
 
That is his project.
 
It's an incredible intellectual
venture.
Right?
 
As I said, it is this kind of
squaring of the circle,
what he does;
what he does with a great deal
of power.
 
And he does it extremely
provocatively.
I will put up a couple of
quotations for it,
which are outrageous.
 
Don't walk out on it. Right?
 
Wait a little.
 
Hold your breath, listen.
 
This is outrageous what he's
saying.
He's a provocateur.
 
He is like Rousseau;
he is only worse than Rousseau.
Right?
 
He provokes us even more than
Rousseau.
But, you know,
deep down he's a very
sensitive--you know?--very
humanistic human being.
Right?
 
He provokes you.
 
But if you listen carefully,
you figure out there is
something what you actually can
relate to it,
when you think what he's
actually trying to get at.
All right, here is Nietzsche.
 
And let me just very briefly
rush through his life.
He was born in 1844,
in the small city of
Röcken in Germany,
near Leipzig.
And this is very important:
his father was a Lutheran
minister, and the family was all
clergy, Lutheran clergy.
And he's bringing up,
in a very religious sentiments,
very religious family.
 
And in many ways his work is a
reaction against the father,
and it is a reaction against
the kind of Lutheran
Christianity he was deeply
internalized into.
I think this is very important
to understand.
I mean, I know that most of the
people in this room have strong
feelings in Judeo-Christian
tradition, and he attacks also
Judeo-Christian tradition.
 
This is a revolt against the
father.
This is a revolt against what
he was brought up to.
It is an attempt to find
himself.
Right?
 
That's what he's trying to get
at.
And you have to be a little
tolerant about him,
you know, and his attempt.
 
You did that as well.
 
You were revolting against your
parents, and you were revolting
against some of the fundamental
principles you were born into.
He actually enrolls to the
University of Bonn to become a
Lutheran minister himself.
 
He studied theology.
 
As it happens to many people
actually who enroll into a
seminary, doesn't take him too
long to become an atheist.
Very often the seminaries are
the best training grounds for
atheists.
 
Right?
 
You're beginning to see somehow
the complexity of theological
thought.
 
This is what he experienced.
 
So he quits after a year.
 
He realizes he is on his way to
become an atheist--right?--and
he will not become a minister.
 
Actually this happened to my
brother as well.
He actually did not quit,
he did finish;
he was also trained as a
Lutheran minister.
But by the end of his
theological training he was--I
don't think he ever
confessed--but he was actually
an atheist.
 
So I have personal
experiences--right?--what
theology can do to you.
 
Right?
 
Okay, then '68,
there is a very important event
in his life.
 
He meets the greatest composer
of his time, Richard Wagner,
and they become great friends
for a time, and they become
bitter enemies later on;
and it is very important why
this happened.
 
He is appointed as Professor of
Classical Philosophy at the
University of Basel,
before he got actually his
degree.
 
But he doesn't do it for too
long.
Right?
 
He's only teaching for eight
years in his life,
and then he retreats and he
sacrifices his life to scholarly
activity--
spends a lot of time in Italy
and, if he's in Switzerland,
in a small, beautiful spot,
Sils Maria.
 
He also meets in '73 Paul
Rée,
a German philosopher,
who has a great deal of impact
on him,
who introduces him in '82 to
Lou Salomé,
his only real but very
passionate lover.
 
And I will say a few words
about this later on.
In '88 he becomes mentally ill.
 
The story of his beginning of
his mental illness tells you a
lot about him.
 
He is in Genoa,
in Italy, and then he walks on
the streets, and then he sees a
carriage driver beating a horse
vengefully.
 
And then he suddenly cuddles
the horse, beginning to cry,
and his mind is gone.
 
All right?
 
He falls deeply into mental
illness.
He never recovers anymore.
 
It I think tells a lot about
who Nietzsche as a human being
was--right?--and how
actually--how much compassion he
could have with suffering.
 
Right?
 
This work, what you were
reading, has a lot to do with
suffering, and gives you a
devastating view what human
suffering means.
 
Anyway, he's in care of his
mother until she dies,
and then his care,
unfortunately for him,
to his sister Elisabeth.
 
And he dies in her home in 1900.
 
Now a bit about Elisabeth
Nietzsche.
Here she is.
 
She was born two years after
Nietzsche.
And she married a guy whose
name was Bernhard Förster,
in 1885.
 
And Förster was one of
these proto-Nazis.
He was a fanatic anti-Semite.
 
He was very attracted to this
idea of the superior Aryan race,
and he actually created an
Aryan colony in Paraguay,
and moved with Elisabeth to
Paraguay in a pure German
community.
 
Some remains still exist,
and if you are a devoted
neo-Nazi,
you may want to visit Paraguay,
because there are some of these
guys here still hanging out
there.
 
They look like Indians,
because of course not very pure
Aryan nation;
they are not blonde and blue
eyes any longer.
 
They intermarried with the
locals.
Right?
 
But anyway, this is what he
wanted to do.
It didn't work very well.
 
So at one point he committed
suicide and Elisabeth returned
to Germany.
 
Well I think it's very
important that Nietzsche,
after she got married,
broke the relationship with his
sister.
 
He just could not stand his
brother-in-law and his
anti-Semitism.
 
Though you will see some of the
citations which sound very
anti-Semitic,
he was very intolerant about
anti-Semites.
 
This was one of the reasons why
he broke his relationship with
Richard Wager.
 
But in '94, Elisabeth created
the Nietzsche Archive.
Nietzsche was insane,
and he had a lot of unpublished
work, manuscripts.
 
She put it together into an
archives, and she abused it as
much as she could.
 
She turned into a right-winger
and with the rise of Nazism a
Nazi, an admirer of Hitler.
 
And she put together a lot of
Nietzsche texts,
in order to fabricate a Nazi
ideology out of Nietzsche.
And some, therefore,
had been reading for a very
long time Nietzsche as an
ideologue of Nazism.
So did Adolph Hitler,
who actually even attended the
funeral of Elisabeth in 1935,
when she died.
Well I think people who read
Nietzsche carefully,
and who have seen now
Nietzsche's original work
published,
rather than selections by
Elisabeth,
have a great deal of doubt
whether Nietzsche has anything
to do with Nazism.
Though the story is complicated.
 
Now here we come,
a nice triangle:
Lou Salomé,
Paul Rée and Friedrich
Nietzsche.
 
Well I should show this picture
after Freud.
Remember that.
 
Watch on it;
it is a very Freudian kind of
presentation,
Louis Salomé,
Paul Rée in the middle,
and Friedrich Nietzsche on the
other side of the picture.
 
Now Lou, Paul and Friedrich.
 
Paul Rée actually comes
from a very wealthy Jewish
family, German Jewish family.
 
For reasons which is beyond me,
occasionally Nietzsche refers
to him,
when they already broke up,
as "the English
psychologist";
he was a German philosopher.
 
Anyway, he became very good
friends, at one point.
I mean, Nietzsche was an
impossible person.
He'd fall in love with people
and then he broke.
Just strong love or strong
hatred;
there was nothing in between.
 
But anyway, the idea of
genealogy, which is probably the
main piece in Nietzsche's work,
is coming from Paul Rée.
Then he introduced this
wonderful young,
and very smart young lady,
Lou Salomé,
to Nietzsche,
and he falls desperately in
love with her.
 
This happened in '82.
 
She was
twenty-one-years-old--as I said,
very beautiful,
and wonderfully smart.
And well Nietzsche was hoping
to marry her;
I mean, he was opposed to the
idea of marriage,
but he's writing letters to
Paul Rée--
kind of not aware that there is
a relationship going on between
Paul Rée and Lou--
that he wants to marry her,
probably for two years or
something.
Anyway, I think by all
likelihood there is an
interesting love triangle going
on here for awhile.
But Nietzsche is impossible,
and Lou is a sane woman,
and at one point she just
cannot take his insanity
anymore.
 
And he moves to Berlin--lives
for awhile with Paul Rée.
And then, though she is also
opposed to marriage--we are
talking late nineteenth century,
right?;
very radical ideas about
sexuality and marriage--but then
she still married this guy,
a linguist called Andreas.
Anyway, she was also a very
smart woman.
She at one point said they
wrote a book
together--Rée,
Nietzsche, and herself--and she
never published that.
 
She said this one was an
experiment, a joint book by the
three.
 
We never--as far as I know,
it never had.
Another important person in his
life: Richard Wagner.
Well Nietzsche was a music
fanatic already in his boyhood,
and when he read Wagner's piano
transcript of Tristan and
Isolde,
he just fell in love with that.
That was the music he was
looking for.
Why?
 
He was a hero worshipper.
 
That's why people,
some people,
read still in him a kind of
proto-Nazis.
He liked strong,
beautiful people who are heroic
and do heroic acts;
like the Greek. Right?
A beautiful young man,
powerful, and heroic,
like the gods,
the Greek gods;
that's what he really admired.
 
And this is what he found in
Wagner's music,
a rejection of the roots of
Rossini kind of sentimentalism
of Italian music,
and in fact the classicism and
coldness and pretentiousness in
the music of Beethoven.
And what he found is something
new in Wagner.
So he was attracted to Wager.
 
And as he was becoming actually
increasingly anti-Semitic,
under the influence of his last
wife,
Cosima, who was the daughter of
Franz Liszt,
the composer,
and was really a pretty evil
person.
 
And also Wagner was changing.
 
He was becoming in some ways
kind of more Christian or
something, and he was writing
this--I actually have to
confess--lovely opera,
Parsifal.
Well, Nietzsche could not take
it.
You know?
 
It was impossible for him.
 
So then they break.
 
He could not stand Wagner's
anti-Semitism,
and he could not stand
Parsifal,
and a kind of expression of--I
don't know,
anybody ever heard
Parsifal?
No.
 
Well not easy stuff.
 
It sounds like an oratorium.
 
It has some Bachian kind of
elements in it,
and it's about the sacrifice of
the lamb of God;
Jesus' sacrifice,
and a performance of the mass
and the cult of Jesus' blood,
as such.
I mean, anyway this was
certainly--Nietzsche was not a
buyer for it.
 
Well just a word about his
first book, The Birth of the
Tragedy--which,
as I said, he was a great
admirer of the Greek
civilization.
And here he--his idea is that
the whole human history is
driven by the struggle between a
Dionysian and Apollonian
principle.
 
Dionysian means--right?--your
sentiments, right?
You act out of your instincts.
 
And Apollonian means the
reason, as such.
And the book contrasts
Enlightenment.
Enlightenment is reason.
 
It's a victory of Apollonian
principle over the Dionysian
principle.
 
And he kind of rejected--this
is also why he's also kind of
post-Modern, right?--he rejects
Enlightenment and Enlightenment
excessive rationalism.
 
And this is why actually he
liked Wager, because he thought
in Wagner the Dionysian and the
Apollonian components are being
combined.
 
Right?
 
Passion and reason are put
together.
And Wagner loved the book.
 
Then he writes a book,
1879, Human,
All Too Human,
which starts from Voltaire and
the sort of reification of the
free thinkers.
Now he is a free thinker.
 
And he also breaks with
Romanticism, and follows
Rée.
 
And he said,
"Well what we have to do
is to subject the Christian idea
of good and evil to critical
scrutiny,
not to accept that there is
some general principle of
good."
And therefore he tries to
develop The Genealogy of
Morals.
 
Now, as you can see,
Wagner and Nietzsche are on a
collision course.
 
Right?
 
Nietzsche is now subjecting the
very core of Judeo-Christian
tradition to critical scrutiny,
while Wagner is writing
Parsifal and being the
Holy Grail and asceticism.
Wagner assumedly even has not
read the book.
He heard about it and rejected
it.
He did not buy anything about
this.
Now this is Nietzsche's house
in Sils Maria.
He went there for the first
time in '81, fell in love with
this, and spent time there until
he became ill.
He also wrote The Genealogy
of Morals.
He wrote to his mother,
"Finally I've found the
loveliest spot on earth."
 
And he was greatly inspired.
 
This is where he wrote the book
Also sprach
Zarathustra, Thus
Spoke Zarathustra.
This is a kind of a book which
is a central attack on
Judeo-Christian morality,
what he found repressive and
wants to get out of it.
 
His hero is Zarathustra,
which is modeled after the
Persian prophet Zoroaster,
and he calls him,
"The first of immoralists;
to dare to be immoral is what
you have to do."
 
And he tries to find a middle
way--right?--between the
repressive Judeo-Christian
morality and nihilism.
He wants to get--doesn't want
to reject everything.
And that's where he's beginning
to develop the idea of the
Übermensch.
 
I wish we would have more time
to talk about this.
The Übermensch is
basically the person who brings
his life under his own control.
 
It's not quite what you think
the Übermensch is.
Right?
 
The stereotypes about the
Übermensch,
that this was a kind of Nazi
idea of the blond
Germans--right?--which are
superhuman.
Well Nietzsche has a philosophy
called Notion of the
Übermensch.
 
The Übermensch is
the person who achieves
self-mastery,
who--basically the alienated
person--
right?--who is in control of
his own life--
right?--and can express himself
authentically,
without oppressive
civilization.
 
Right?
 
That's the
Übermensch.
In a way this is a Buddha.
 
It is an idea of a Buddha,
but not a passive Buddha.
He disliked Buddhism as much as
he disliked the Judeo-Christian
tradition.
 
The problem with Buddhism was
that it is too passive.
He wanted to have an active
Buddhism.
Right?
 
Somebody who becomes a master
of its life, through action,
acting out his feelings and his
even sensual essence in life.
And therefore he can overcome
what he calls "the eternal
return."
 
Right?
 
He can overcome the iron law of
these--you know,
this is again comes from almost
Marx.
Right?
 
Reified consciousness.
 
The reified word can be broken.
 
There are no rules. Right?
 
You can realize yourself in the
world, and you are not ruled by
the external world.
 
Now he's ready for The
Genealogy of Morals.
I have some twelve minutes for
this.
What are the major
contributions?
Well he reconstructs the
methodology of genealogy,
what he takes from Rée,
and he discovers what he calls
"the origins of
morality."
And then he introduces a
difference.
Okay, what is the difference
between good and bad,
where this is coming from,
and good and evil,
where this is coming from?
 
And he compares the two ways,
how this dichotomy,
that some behavior is good,
other is bad;
some behavior is good,
other is evil,
where this is coming from.
 
And this is the essence of the
genealogical method.
Right?
 
He does not need a critical
vantage point.
The good and the evil
distinction can be criticized
from the good/bad distinction
point of view,
and the good--and vice-versa.
 
You see what--this is the
essence of genealogical method.
As Foucault will interpret it:
"Give me a notion,
tell me what is right."
 
Right?
 
"And what I do,
I take the same conception back
in history,
and that will show what you
think is right,
just, or noble,
has been at one point of time
regarded as evil,
what you should fight for.
 
And tell me what you think is
evil,
and I'll go back in history and
I will show you instances where
what you think is evil was
actually admired and was seen as
ethical."
 
Right?
 
This is the essence--right?--of
the genealogical method.
Right?
 
That you compare two ways how
morality has been constructed,
and you are criticizing one
from the point of view of the
other,
without taking sides where do
actually you stand,
as such.
And then he develops the kind
of origins of the notion of
evil, out of slave morality and
ressentiment.
And then comes one of the most
controversial issues,
the idea of the blond beast,
the bird of prey and the
origins of ideals;
what can be easily--again,
I will have to ask for your
patience.
And then the idea of
Übermensch.
And finally the origins of
punishment and bad consciousness
and guilt.
 
Okay, so as I said,
he reconstructed the
genealogical method.
 
I think this is a wonderful
sentence, how the whole book
begins: "We are unknown to
ourselves, we knowers,
and with good reason.
 
We have never looked at
ourselves."
Right?
 
This is critical theory,
what he suggests.
Right?
 
You think you know a lot of
stuff about Hobbes and Locke and
Rousseau, and now Nietzsche.
 
But you don't look at yourself.
 
Look at yourself,
be critical of your own
consciousness.
 
And especially the major step
here: try to subject the very
conceptions what you think is
ethical to critical scrutiny.
Where does this idea come from?
 
And he said--his real argument
is that the origins of the terms
good and evil would do--
we have to discover how it
actually was constructed,
and not with a more superior
principle.
 
So therefore what we need is a
critique of moral values.
This is wonderful now.
 
"The value of these values
should be subjected to critical
scrutiny itself."
 
Right?
 
And not only the values,
but the values behind the
values;
you know, there is an unending
criticism in the process.
 
So this way what Nietzsche can
do, or he believes he can do,
is to offer a critical
analysis, without some ultimate
value.
 
He does not give you ultimate
values,
what is the right is,
but he does that without
becoming nihilistic and to say
"anything goes."
Not, "We can discover the
miseries of the world."
We can be upset.
 
He could be so upset to cuddle
this horse which is beaten.
Right?
 
You can have compassion;
and that he showed.
This was an inspiration for
Foucault.
All right, the differences in
the origins of good and bad,
and good and evil.
 
Well I think this is a
pretty--probably the most
straightforward part in the
text, what you have read.
Yes, he said,
"Well, when we use the
word 'good', you often see that
good has something to do with
being not egoistic."
 
He said, "Well,
that's not so.
It has nothing to with
non-egoistic,
in terms of its origin.
 
It was constructed as a
non-egoistic later on."
And he said,
"Where does the good
coming from?
 
It is coming from a master race;
a master race which saw itself
as good and defined those who
were subjected to its rule,
usually dark-skinned,
natives, as bad.
That is where the notion of
good and bad is coming
from."
 
But that's different with
priests.
You know, he was studying to
become a minister,
and he really disliked priests;
priests, you know,
wearing these dark clothes.
 
You know, they are not the
chivalry aristocratic kind,
like the Greek semi-gods and
gods--right?--who are confident
in themselves.
 
And therefore the chivalry and
aristocratic distinction--which
was what?;
the physically good.
You know?
 
The beautiful body.
 
The men and women of Greek
antiquity could see themselves
as good, and others who were not
as good--was crippled,
they were bad.
 
Now the priests are powerless,
and this powerlessness leads to
hatred;
hatred of those who have power.
Right?
 
And now those who have power
are seen by the powerless as
evil--not simply as bad,
but as evil.
So now the contrast is not
between good and bad,
but between good and evil.
 
But what turned around is the
power relationship.
And now comes the slave
morality.
And well he said it was the
Jews that was the priestly
nation,
the nation of priests,
and the origins of Christianity
brought about this reversal,
saying, "Only those who
suffer are good;
only poor, the powerless are
good.
Right?
 
The rich and those in power are
evil." Right?
And the slave revolt of
moralities, he said,
begins with the Jewish revolt.
 
And this has a thousand years
of history.
And you know what?
 
That was victorious.
 
This is the dominant morality
of our times.
And he said this leads to
the--and here you can see,
this is not an anti-Semitic
statement,
this is a criticism of the
Judeo-Christian morality,
and in fact the real target is
Christian morality.
That's why he said,
"This is the horrible
paradox of God on cross."
 
Right?
 
That is, you know,
when you sort of
turn--right?--those without sin
to carry the sin of humankind;
a self-crucifixion of God for
the salvation of mankind.
Right?
 
And this is this
ressentiment;
ressentiment,
there is no proper English or
German word for it.
 
Right?
 
Now beginning to see the enemy
not simply as bad--as I don't
care if it is bad,
I'll defeat it--but it is evil;
it may even defeat me.
 
And now comes the blond beast;
another provocative statement.
"The center of all noble
races, one cannot fail to see
the beast of prey;
the magnificent blond
beast"--rig
ht?--"avidly prowling
around to spoil and
victory."
Right?
 
As I said, hero worship.
 
But let's--you know,
is this the German blond?
He said, "Well Europe
viewed with horror the raging of
the blond Germanic beast for
centuries."
But then he adds--and watch
carefully,
right?--"Although between
the old Germanic people and us
Germans,
there is scarcely an idea in
common,
let alone blood
relationship."
 
Right?
 
This is not Nazi ideology.
 
Right?
 
This is a kind of an argument
that being powerful,
realizing yourself,
is actually what is desirable,
what you should be striving
for.
Well I think this is very
important--right?--this last
sentence I'm quoting here.
 
Right?
 
"What's happening in the
European situation is kind of a
leveling."
 
Right?
 
"Today we see nothing what
wants to expand.
We are getting thinner."
 
Right?
 
We are not as strong as this
statue in- Greek statue.
Right?
 
"And better natured"--
right?--"cleverer,
and more comfortable"--
right?--"and more
mediocre."
 
And he said,
"Bad air,
bad air, it smells.
 
What a horrible
modernity--right?--where we
become all mediocre and all the
same, and we cannot fulfill
ourselves."
 
Right?
 
And then, well this is very
nice poetry--provocative,
but think about it.
 
"There is nothing strange
about the fact that the lambs
bear a grudge towards the large
birds of prey.
But there is no reason to blame
the large birds of prey for
carrying the little lamb.
 
Well the lambs say to each
other, these birds,
prey are evil.
 
And whoever is least like the
bird of prey and most like the
opposite, like us,
the lamb, is good,
isn't it?"
 
Right?
 
"Those who dominate is bad
and those we are the suffering
are the good ones."
 
Well the bad--yeah,
the bird of prey responds.
"We don't bear any grudge
at all towards those good lambs.
In fact, we love them."
 
Right?
 
"Nothing can taste better
than a tender lamb."
Right?
 
Well, as I said,
this is disturbing.
But I think the point is,
what he's calling for.
Right?
 
The self-fulfillment of
individual.
And the--and his desperation
that in the modern world we
cannot fulfill ourselves.
 
And here it comes:
"The workshop ideals-
where the ideals are
fabricated."
He said in this workshop lies
are turning weakness into
accomplishment.
 
Impotence;
not to retaliate is being
turned into goodness,
though you are only impotent,
and you're beginning to
construct your impotence as
good.
 
You are not good.
 
You can't do anything about it.
 
And submission to people what
you hate, that's what you call
obedience;
not because they- you really
accept their superiority,
because you are afraid of them.
And then you construct a good
notion out of this.
Obedience, this is a good word.
 
Well he said there are- they
are also talking,
"love your enemy,
and they are sweat while they
are saying so."
 
Right?
 
It's a big lie.
 
You don't love your enemy.
 
You hate the guts out of them.
 
You say you love them,
and meanwhile you sweat.
Right?
 
That's what he said.
 
You know, this is the
workshop--right?--in which the
ideals are created.
 
This is where they call it the
triumph of justice.
You don't hate your enemy.
 
Oh no, no, no.
 
You hate injustice. Right?
 
You create your enemy as
unjust--right?--and unfair;
rather think,
well this is my enemy and he's
stronger than me.
 
Well therefore,
he said, "the workshops
where ideals are fabricated,
they stink of lies."
And again "bad air,
bad air,"
get out of here;
clean air, let's talk truth,
not lies.
 
That's the point.
 
And Übermensch is
the one which will.
Right?
 
Because the
Übermensch is--he
said, well good and bad,
good and evil,
fought together.
 
Now the good and evil is
dominating us.
Well the Renaissance was
brilliant.
It was
reconstructing--right?--our
classical idea.
 
But then came again,
he said, "the Judeo
triumphed again."
 
Again, be careful;
not anti-Semitic, no.
It's again more against
Lutherans than against Jews.
He said, "Thanks to the
basically proletarian German and
English ressentiment
movement called the
Reformation."
 
Right?
 
That's his real enemy here.
 
And he said,
"Well the
Über"--we don't have
time to labor on this.
So very briefly origins of
punishment.
Well we have to forget;
forget is we have to suppress
memories which were bad,
and in order to suppress,
well there is mnemo-techniques.
 
That means that we are
actually--pain is the most
useful way how we forget what we
have to forget--we have to
remember.
 
Right?
 
He said, "These Germans,
the nation of thinker,
made a memory for themselves
with dreadful methods,
stoning, breaking on wheels,
raping apart and trampling to
death wild horses."
 
All right, I have to finish it
now here.
But I hope you get sort of the
bottom line.
Right?
 
The bottom line is have a
radical critical theory,
which does not need ultimate
value to be critical of false
ideas and lies.
 
Get truth;
and the ideal is the person who
can fulfill itself in the world,
and conquer the world as such.
 
 
