III Exposition

1

Morality as Impotence

From a biological standpoint the phenomenon morality is of a highly suspicious nature.¹ Cui bono?—Whom shall we suspect of profiting by this institution? Is it a mode of enhancing life?—Does it make men stronger and more perfect?—or does it make for deterioration and decay? It is obvious that up to the present, morality has not been a problem at all; it has rather been the very ground on which people have met after all distrust, dissension, and contradiction, the hallowed place of peace, where thinkers could obtain rest even from themselves.² But what if morality be the greatest of all the stumbling-blocks in the way of human self-betterment? Is it possible that morality itself is the social problem, and that the solution of that problem lies in the judicious abolition of morality? It is a view for which something can be said.

You have heard that morality is a means used by the strong to control the weak. And it is true: just consider the conversion of Constantine. But to stop here is to let half the truth be passed off on you as the whole; and half a truth is half a lie. Much more true is it that morality is a means used by the weak to control the strong, the chain which weakness softly lays upon the feet of strength. The whole of the morality of Europe is based upon the values which are useful to the herd.³ Every one’s desire is that there should be no other teaching and valuation of things than those by means of which he himself succeeds. Thus the fundamental tendency of the weak and mediocre of all times has been to enfeeble the strong and to reduce them to the level of the weak; their chief weapon in this process was the moral principle.⁴ Good is every one who does not oppress, who hurts no one, attacks no one, does not take vengeance but hands over vengeance to God; who goes out of the way of evil, and demands little from life; like ourselves, patient, meek, just. Good is to do nothing for which we are not strong enough.⁵ Zarathustra laughed many times over the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had lame paws!⁶ Obedience, subordination, submission, devotion, love, the pride of duty; fatalism, resignation, objectivity, stoicism, asceticism, self-denial; in short, anemia: these are the virtues which the herd would have all men cultivate,—particularly the strong men.⁷ And the deification of Jesus,—that is to say of meekness,—what was it but another attempt to lull the strong to sleep?

2

Democracy

See, now, how nearly that attempt has succeeded. For is not democracy, if not victorious, at least on the road to victory to-day? And what is the democratic movement but the inheritor of Christianity?⁸ Not the Christianity of the great popes; they knew better, and were building a splendid aristocracy when Luther spoiled it all by letting loose the levelling instincts of the herd.⁹ The instinct of the herd is in favor of the leveller (Christ).¹⁰ I very much fear that the first Christian is in his deepest instincts a rebel against everything privileged; he lives and struggles unremittingly for “equal rights.”¹¹ It is by Christianity, more than by anything else, that the poison of this doctrine of “equal rights” has been spread abroad. And do not let us underestimate the fatal influence! Nowadays no one has the courage of special rights, of rights of dominion. The aristocratic attitude of mind has been most thoroughly undermined by the lie of the equality of souls.¹²

But is not this the greatest of all lies—the “equality of men”? That is to say, the dominion of the inferior. Is it not the most threadbare and discredited of ideas? Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and select classes; everybody equals everybody else; “at bottom we are all herd.” There is no welcome for the genius here; the more promising for the future the modern individual happens to be, the more suffering falls to his lot.¹³ If the rise of great and rare men had been made dependent upon the voices of the multitude, there never would have been any such thing as a great man. The herd regards the exception, whether it be above or beneath its general level, as something antagonistic and dangerous. Their trick in dealing with the exceptions above them—the strong, the mighty, the wise, the fruitful—is to persuade them to become their head-servants.¹⁴

But the torture of the exceptional soul is only part of the villainy of democracies. The other part is chaos. Voltaire was right: “Quand la populace se mêle de raisonner, tout est perdu.” Democracy is an aristocracy of orators, a competition in headlines, a maelstrom of ever new majorities, a torrent of petty factions sweeping on to ruin. Under democracy the state will decay, for the instability of legislation will leave little respect for law, until finally even the policeman will have to be replaced by private enterprise.¹⁵ Democracy has always been the death-agony of the power of organization:¹⁶ remember Athens, and look at England. Within fifty years these Babel governments will clash in a gigantic war for the control of the markets of the world; and when that war comes, England will pay the penalty for the democratic inefficiency of its dominant muddle-class.¹⁷

This wave of democracy will recede, and recede quickly, if men of ability will only oppose it openly. It is necessary for higher men to declare war on the masses. In all directions mediocre people are joining hands in order to make themselves master. The middle classes must be dissolved, and their influence decreased;¹⁸ there must be no more intermarrying of aristocracy with plutocracy; this democratic folly would never have come at all had not the master-classes allowed their blood to be mingled with that of slaves.¹⁹ Let us fight parliamentary government and the power of the press; they are the means whereby cattle become rulers.²⁰ Finally, it is senseless and dangerous to let the counting-mania (the custom of universal suffrage)—which is still but a short time under cultivation, and could easily be uprooted—take deeper root; its introduction was merely an expedient to steer clear of temporary difficulties; the time is ripe for a demonstration of democratic incompetence and a restoration of power to men who are born to rule.²¹

3

Feminism

Democracy, after all, is a disease; an attempt on the part of the botched to lay down for all the laws of social health. You may observe the disease in its growth-process by studying the woman movement. Woman’s first and last function is that of bearing robust children.²² The emancipated ones are the abortions among women, those who lack the wherewithal to have children (I go no farther, lest I should become medicynical).²³ All intellect in women is a pretension; when a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something wrong with her sex. These women think to make themselves charming to free spirits by wearing advanced views; as though a woman without piety would not be something perfectly obnoxious and ludicrous to a profound and godless man!²⁴ If there is anything worthy of laughter it is the man who takes part in this feminist agitation. Let it be understood clearly that the relations between men and women make equality impossible. It is in the nature of woman to take color and commandment from a man,—unless she happens to be a man. Man’s happiness is “I will,” woman’s happiness is “He will.”²⁵ Woman gives herself, man takes her: I do not think one will get over this natural contrast by any social contract.²⁶ Indeed, women will lose power with every step towards emancipation. Since the French Revolution the influence of woman has declined in proportion as she has increased her rights and claims. Let her first do her proper work properly (consider how much man has suffered from stupidity in the kitchen), and then it may be time to consider an extension of her activities. To be mistaken in this fundamental problem of “man and woman,” to deny here the profoundest antagonism, and the necessity for an eternally hostile tension, to dream here of equal rights, equal training, equal claims and obligations: that is a typical sign of shallow-mindedness. On the other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, and has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and harshness, and easily confounded with them, can only think of woman as Orientals do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her mission therein—he must take his stand in this matter upon the immense rationality of Asia, upon the superiority of the instincts of Asia.²⁷

4

Socialism and Anarchism

All this uprising of housekeepers is, of course, part of the general sickness with which Christianity has inoculated and weakened the strong races of Europe. Consider now the more virulent forms of the disease: socialism and anarchism. The coming of the “kingdom of God” has here been placed in the future, and been given an earthly, a human, meaning; but on the whole the faith in the old ideal is still maintained. There is still the comforting delusion about equal rights, with all the envy that lurks in that delusion. One speaks of “equal rights”: that is to say, so long as one is not a dominant personality, one wishes to prevent one’s competitors from growing in power.²⁸ It is a pleasure for all poor devils to grumble—it gives them a little intoxicating sensation of power. There is a small dose of revenge in every lamentation.²⁹ When you hear one of those reformers talk of humanity, you must not take him seriously; it is only his way of getting fools to believe that he is an altruist; beneath the cover of this buncombe a man strong in the gregarious instincts makes his bid for fame and followers and power. This pretense to altruism is only a roundabout way of asking for altruism, it is the result of a consciousness of the fact that one is botched and bungled.³⁰ In short, socialism is not justice but covetousness.³¹ No doubt we should look upon its exponents and followers with ironic compassion: they want something which we have.³²

From the standpoint of natural science the highest conception of society according to socialists is the lowest in the order of rank among societies. A socialist community would be another China, a vast and stifling mediocracy; it would be the tyranny of the lowest and most brainless brought to its zenith.³³ A nation in which there would be no exploitation would be dead. Life itself is essentially appropriation, conquest of the strange and weak; to put it at its mildest, exploitation.³⁴ The absence of exploitation would mean the end of organic functioning. Surely it is as legitimate and valuable for superior men to command and use inferior men as it is for superior species to command and use inferior species, as man commands and uses animals.³⁵ It is not surprising that the lamb should bear a grudge against the great birds of prey, but that is no reason for blaming the great birds of prey.³⁶ What should be done with muscle except to supply it with directive brains? How, otherwise, can anything worthy ever be built by men? In fact, man has value and significance only in so far as he is a stone in a great building; for which purpose he has first of all to be solid; he has to be a “stone.”³⁷

Now the common people understand this quite well, and are as happy as any of the well-to-do, so long as a silly propaganda does not disturb them with dreams that can never be fulfilled.³⁸ Poverty, cheerfulness, and independence—it is possible to find these three qualities combined in one individual; poverty, cheerfulness, and slavery—this is likewise a possible combination: and I can say nothing better to the workmen who serve as factory-slaves.³⁹

As for the upper classes, they need be at no loss for weapons with which to fight this pestilence. An occasional opening of the trap-door between the Haves and the Have-nots, increasing the number of property-owners, will serve best of all. If this policy is pursued, there will always be too many people of property for socialism ever to signify anything more than an attack of illness.⁴⁰ A little patience with inheritance and income taxes, and the noise of the cattle will subside.⁴¹

Notice, meanwhile, that socialism and despotism are bedfellows. Give the socialist his way, and he will put everything into the hands of the state,—that is to say, into the hands of demagogue politicians.⁴² And then, all in the twinkling of an eye, socialism begets its opposite in good Hegelian fashion, and the dogs of anarchism are let loose to fill the world with their howling. And not without excuse or benefit; for politicians must be kept in their place, and the state rigidly restricted to its necessary functions, even if anarchist agitation helps one to do it.⁴³ And the anarchists are right: the state is the coldest of all monsters, and this lie creeps out of its mouth, “I, the State, am the people.”⁴⁴ So the wise man will turn anarchism, as well as socialism, to account; and he will not fret even when a king or two is hurried into heaven with nitroglycerine. Only since they have been shot at have princes once more sat securely on their thrones.⁴⁵