It’s taken me awhile to put this on here, but I’m going to attempt to articulate an objection to Nietzsche’s concept of the sickness of the slave morality. From what I understand, human values were first objectively determined by the strong and the powerful with which a system of evaluation developed where morality is based on the life affirming principle of predator versus prey.
The masses then become tired of being the weak, the bad, the impoverished, the slaves and begin to resent their life and develop their own point of view in which the blessed are the weak and the strong are the sinners. This morality is based, according to Nietzsche, on resentment and is considered a ‘slave morality’. This slave morality is founded within the church that blesses the weak as defined through Jesus Christ. Nietzsche then goes on to describe that this value system is sick and a sign of weakness of the human spirit and ultimately denies the true nature of the powerful and the weak.
Maybe I have read too much Marx for my own good; however, let’s examine from the point when slaves began to resent their life. Obviously, this becomes a threat to the powerful as the so called weak are many more in number. According to Marx, it was this point that the church was created by the powerful, the morality in which the weak are the blessed and will ultimately go to heaven. In this sense, the church was created by the powerful in order to pacify the masses and their increasing restlessness. As such, one could argue that the idea of a ‘slave morality’ is a concept invented by the powerful in order to remain control over the masses and thus is a continuation of the natural world in which the powerful prevail and the weak are oppressed.
In this case, I would certainly not consider the hoipolloi weak and sick in any manner because they are not conscious of their position in the natural society as the church and the ‘slave morality’ has put a blanket over their eyes. They are operating in the elite induced perspective of “suffer in this world for an eternal heaven in the next”. However, I would like to add that there does exist the SICK – those that are conscious of this situation yet continue to allow themselves to be oppressed.
Also, I believe a distinction between the conscious and the unconscious is an important one to note and maybe worth discussing in class.
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I'm not at all familiar with Marx's ideas on the topic of morality and the Church, so I am curious as to whether or not he offers a "genealogy" of morals on which he bases his claims, akin to Nietzche's. The key difference here seems to be that Marx argues that the powerful founded the Church in order to subdue the weak and vagrant masses, whereas Nietzche argues that it is the weak that formed the Church so as to boost their own societal status.
The differences between the two is extremely important, seeing as how the fate of this argument determines the morality and social state of billions and billions of people (no big). Of course, that's only if you buy the notion that morals are human-created and that the Judeo-Christian religious tradition is the medium for this value-creation. Obviously, tons of people disagree strongly with this (I think they're called like...Christians? Or something...)
Anyway, I am interested to learn what proof Marx offers for his side of the argument. I think one interesting thing that Nietzsche has going for him in this case is that he traces back the original meanings of certain words and finds words like plain, simple, etc. to have the same root as the current meaning of "bad". And as for "good", he finds it consistent with words meaning noble, strong, etc.
Leslie--
Though you do not consider the hoipolloi weak and sick because they are unconscious of their position as slaves with a slave morality, I think one could most definitely argue that this could be considered the ultimate sickness. I'm not entirely sure how I'd begin fleshing that argument out, but I do think that "the sick" are not only those who recognize their situation and continue accordingly (and yes, that would quite awful) but also those who are so consumed by their sickness--and perhaps for so long--that they cannot differentiate between the blanket in front of their eyes and the actual reality of their situation.
Plato, it seems, would contend that the hoipolloi (chained in the cave, staring at the wall) are very much indeed weak and sick. Though I do not mean for there to be any sort of bridge between Plato and Nietzsche/Marx necessarily, I do think that by thinking about the slaves/slave morality in terms of the chained and the free in the Allegory of the Cave one could easily take issue with unconsciousness exempting any individual from his/her being weak or sick.
Kyle--
I think your distinction between the powerful or the weak creating the Church is very important. When I first read the post I was thinking about responding to that. High five.
Leslie (pt. 2)--
I haven't read much Marx (especially not concerning morals/church/religion) so maybe you can shed some light on the reasons why Marx posits that the strong created Church for the masses instead of what Nietzsche suggests in GoM?
The discussion of Nietzche vs. Marx is very interesting in this regard, and I recently had to read an essay in Dr. O'Sullivan's Philosophy of Religion class that I think also brings to mind another interesting comparison: Nietzche vs. Freud.
Freud, too, offers his take on the origins of religion. Like Nietzche, he believed that religion came to be due to a dissatisfaction with the world on the part of humans. But this is where the similarities between the two stop.
Freud, being the psychoanalyst that he is, argues that human beings were not comfortable with the natural state of the world -- so, in their unwavering need for a father figure, they created a masculine-assumed Supreme Being to aid them in coping with the complexities and intolerable state of the world. According to Freud, this religion-and-value-creating process mimics what he calls an "infantile prototype" -- that is, as infants we needed a father-figure to protect us from scary things and thus that is why we cling to this notion of a Supreme Father Figure.
Thankfully, this is where the article ended and Freud doesn't offer any substantial proof whatsoever for his claims. For this reason, I found Nietzche's account of things to clearly be much more compelling.
One can't help but assume, though, that Freud was probably itching to go into how girls unconsciously have the desire to somehow sleep with God, and how the crucifix is a phallic symbol...What a perv.
This was, I thought, a very interesting blog post. I had never thought of the Church being the perpetrator of a slave morality before. It makes me wonder just how many of the “slaves” are unaware of this concept and how many are aware, yet choose not to act. Because I had never thought of it in this way before it makes me wonder how many others are clueless when it come to the idea of a slave morality. Can it really be that such a massive institution as the Church can be nothing more than a trick used to pacify the masses? While this is a very fascinating angle from which to view the Church, I kind of prefer the idea that maybe it is something more. Despite not being a particularly religious individual, I did attend Catholic school and find Christianity very interesting. I haven’t read very much of Marx so I’m sure it would be very interesting to read what else he has to say about the topic at hand.
Does Marx offer a genealogy of morals?
No, but Marx does not offer a genealogy of morals; however, he does offer a history through the lens of dialectical materialism that focuses on class struggle as the basis for societal history - from feudalism to capitalism and ultimately to the Communist Manifesto. In this sense, under the capitalist system the elite have power over the poor and currently control the environment in which the masses live - including values, norms, and even morals (which Marx points to the church as being a "opiate of the massses" i think it was).
And to further the background on Marx, although this may not be relevant, dialectical materialism refers to the fact that systems of inequality (such as feudalism and capitalism) inherently have contradictions, that is the majority of wealth in the hands of a few, that will ultimately cause a rebellion of the masses. Once the masses are CONSCIOUS of their situation, the rebellion is inevitable. However, until then the church is used as a pacifier and the powerful continue to abuse, use, and ultimately destroy the weak - as we can easily see in the grave economic disparities between the developed and the developing worlds (despite the fact that the developing world contains the majority of the resources but does not necessarily enjoy them, ie dialectical materialism)
Ramble on...
I am not sure whether one is conscious of the situation as a whole that makes them weak or not. It is buying into the slave idealogy one way or another that makes them weak. The most devout of the weak should not care about their situation but be concerned about the dogma of their faith and practicing it regularly. Either way, concsicous of the situation or not, they are weak.
Ummm, ok Mark.
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