a history of morality - slave vs. master

OK, its been a little while since my last proper post, but I know that bothers nobody but me, cos as far as I know, my mum is the only person to check here regularly!

Its some more chat that's come out of a lecture. This time it was an Ethics class, and we read Nietzsche for it, specifically from his 'genealogy of morals.'

As I now see it, he argued that, contrary to popular psychological theory, actions that are culturally understood as good, or moral, did not grow out of their inherent 'usefulness' to people, but were defined and established in pre-modern societies (as in, all pre-modern societies that weren't influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition, eg. greek society) by the Masters, or rulers, aristocrats within those societies. These wealthy, landed, high-minded individuals, many of them Kings etc, saw themselves, the objects of their desires, and the values they held dear as good, purely because they themselves held them in esteem - they themselves became the arbiters of morality. To quote, and therefore put that in different way, 'the word "good" is definitely not linked from the first and by necessity to unegoistic actions' (From section 2 essay 1, Genealogy of Morals). This he calls the 'master mindset', or master morality.

He goes on to compare this genealogy of morals with a different tradition of morals, and its genealogy. He claims that the judeo-christian tradition of morals is best characterised as a 'slave morality/mindset'. As a priestly nation, Jews are described as 'the greatest haters in world history'. This comes out of a desire for revenge upon the 'masters', from a place of powerlessness: the jews are siad to have radically revaluated the values of their conquerors out of a desire for vengence upon them, saying that 'Only those who suffer are good, only the poor, the powerless, the lowly are good'. And later, as regards Jesus Christ, he says 'from the trunk of ... Jewish hatred - the deepest and most sublime, indeed a hatred which created ideals and changed values ... grew something just as incomparable, a new love, the deepest and most sublime kind of love. ...But dont make the mistake of thinking that it had grown forth as a denial of the thirst for revenge ... This love grew out of hatred. ... This Jesus of Nazareth ... was he not seduction in its most sinister and irresistible form, seduction and the circuitous route to just those very Jewish values and innovative ideals?'

Anyway, I think I'm going to write my essay on his thoughts on moral genealogy, mainly cos, right off hand I think its preposterous in the large part, and would be quite fun to deride. However I do value it as another non-'metanarrative', another faulty but interesting way of viewing part of what we've inherited culturally and morally in the West.

I'm sure these thoughts relate to some other stuff I've read of late, but cant remember where from:

A criticism - that judeo-christian fixation on the afterlife, effectively ruins life in the present (it was prob Nietzsche!). Also that this has opened the way for, or provided the justification for the abuse of the planet and people in the present, cos what does it really matter if Jesus is coming back next week?!

A lot of emerging christian conversations are covering this kind of ground, accepting the critique and calling for a huge shift in attitude within the Church. Many would also say that its a protestant emphasis on heaven, or redemptive theology, that encourages this kind of mistake, and that a more roman catholic emphasis on incarnational theology would go some way to correcting the imbalance.

Interesting.

Back to my shitty research proposal.