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willow
mentioned this example the other day
genealogy of morals section 1.2
genealogy of morals section 3.14
willowApr 20, 2024
Genealogy of Morals § 1.2 but note the development of the concept by the time we get to § 3.14
nietzsche on the pathos of distance
willow
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nietzsche, genealogy of morals All respect them for the good spirits that may rule in these historians of morality! But it is, unhappily, certain that the historical spirit itself is lacking in them, that precisely all the good spirits of history itself have left them in the lurch! As is the hallowed custom with philosophers, the thinking of all of them is by nature unhistorical; there is no doubt about that. The way they have bungled their moral genealogy comes to light at the very beginning, where the task is to investigate the origin of the concept and judgment "good." "Originally"- so they decree"one approved unegoistic actions and called them good from the point of view of those to whom they were done, that is to say, those to whom they were useful; later one forgot how this approval originated and, simply because unegoistic actions were always habitually praised as good, one also felt them to be good as if they were something good in themselves." One sees straightaway that this primary derivation already contains all the typical traits of the idiosyncrasy of the English psychologists we have "utility," "forgetting," "habit," and finally "error," all as the basis of an evaluation of which the higher man has hitherto been proud as though it were a kind of prerogative of man as such. This pride has to be humbled, this evaluation disvalued: has that end been achieved? Now it is plain to me, first of all, that in this theory the source of the concept "good" has been sought and established in the wrong place: the judgment "good" did not originate with those to whom "goodness" was shown! Rather it was "the good" themselves, that is to say, the noble, powerful, high-stationed and high-minded, who felt and established themselves and their actions as good, that is, of the first rank, in contradistinction to all the low, low-minded, common and plebeian.
It was out of this pathos of distance that they first seized the right to create values and to coin names for these values: what had they to do with utility! The viewpoint of utility is as remote and inappropriate as it possibly could be in face of such a burning eruption of the highest rank-ordering, rank-defining value judgments: for here feeling has attained the antithesis of that low degree of warmth which any calculating prudence, any calculus of utility, presupposes— and not for once only, not for an exceptional hour, but for good. The pathos of nobility and distance, as aforesaid, the protracted and domineering fundamental total feeling on the part of a higher ruling order in relation to a lower order, to a "below" — that is the origin of the antithesis "good" and "bad." (The lordly right of giving names extends so far that one should allow oneself to conceive the origin of language itself as an expression of power on the part of the rulers: they say "this is this and this," they seal every thing and event with a sound and, as it were, take possession of it.) It follows from this origin that the word "good" was definitely not linked from the first and by necessity to "unegoistic" actions, as the superstition of these genealogists of morality would have it. Rather it was only when aristocratic value judgments declined that the whole antithesis "egoistic" “unegoistic" obtruded itself more and more on the human conscience it is, to speak in my own language, the herd instinct that through this antithesis at last gets its word (and its words) in. And even then it was a long time before that instinct attained such dominion that moral evaluation was actually stuck and halted at this antithesis (as, for example, is the case in contemporary Europe: the prejudice that takes "moral," "unegoistic," "désintéressé" as concepts of equivalent value already rules today with the force of a "fixed idea" and brain-sickness).
But there could be no greater and more fateful misunderstanding than if, through this process, the fortunate, the successful, the powerful in body and spirit should start to doubt their right to happiness. Away with this "twisted world"! Away with this disgraceful softening of feelings! That the invalids do not make the healthy sick-and that would be such a softening that should surely be ruling point of view on earth. But that would require above everything that the healthy remain separated from the sick, protected even from the gaze of sick people, so that they don't confuse themselves with the ill. Or would it perhaps be their assignment to attend on the sick or be their doctors? But they could not misjudge or negate their work more seriously something higher should never demean itself by becoming the tool of something lower. The pathos of distance should keep the work of the two groups forever separate! Their right to exist, the privilege of a bell with a perfect ring in comparison to one that is cracked and oft key, is a thousand times greater. They alone are guarantors of the future; they alone stand as pledge for humanity's future. Whatever they can do, whatever they should do the sick can never be able to do and should not do. But if they are to be able to do what they should do, how can they have the freedom to make themselves the doctor, the consoler, the "person who cures" the invalids? And therefore let's have fresh air! fresh air! In any case, let's keep away from the neighborhood of all cultural insane asylums and hospitals! And for that let's have good companionship, our companionship! Or loneliness, if that's necessary! But by all means let's stay away from the foul stink of inner rotting and of muck from sick worms! ... In that way, my friends, we can defend ourselves, at least for a little while, against the two nastiest scourges which may be lying in wait precisely for us against a great disgust with humanity! against a great pity for humanity!