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I've been reading Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals lately and in order to understand it better I thought this might be the right place to start the discussion. This is my understanding of the first two parts of the book (part three will follow soonish). Here we go! Part I In the beginning, the ruling elite (i.e. slave masters) define good and bad. Originally they only refer to qualitative differences. Good is nothing more than someone / something better, higher, stronger than the average. In a similar way bad only means something low, weak and ugly – the plebs and the products of their work. No morality has been invented yet, might makes right – the nobility takes what they think naturally belongs to them in a similar way as wolves hunt elks. It is hardly a coincidence that most heraldic signs of the nobility have lions, eagles and bears in them. Morality gets invented by the slave class as a survival mechanism for themselves: whatever the slaves must do in order to survive becomes a virtue. Since the slaves cannot openly be rebellious and keep the product of their own labour they define weakness, lack of courage and even obedience as virtues. In the slave morality 'good' means someone not like the slave masters, it defines good purely by negation of the 'noble' good. To describe slave masters in these new terms it uses the word 'bad'. At the bottom of this morality is the feeling of resentment hiding in plain sight – instead of avenging masters in the real world, what the slave morality offers as medicine is the idea of the spiritual world after death, where a rightful judge will punish the slave masters for their sins and reward the slaves for their virtues. To propagate these ideas, you'll need a new class, the priests. Part II – conscience and bad conscience If I understood correctly Nietzsche thinks that the origin of conscience follows roughly this causal chain: Active forgetting → Active remembering → Being able to give and keep promises → Seeing every human transaction through the lenses of validity of promises to others and/or to yourself == conscience. Remembering with regard to promises is a manifestation of your own strong will to power (yearning for freedom) – you can only give promises if you believe you're strong enough to be able to keep them even in the face of accidents etc. Older societies needed to 'remind' people of the necessity of remembering with different forms of torture. In order to understand bad conscience we need to grasp the origin of guilt. The most primitive form of agreement (promise) is the contract between the debtor and the creditor. Nietzsche claims that in the ancient world people enjoyed causing each other pain – usually this privilege was reserved for the masters, but even the plebs had sometimes this luxury. If your debtor was unable to pay you, you could demand your payment in pound of flesh – either as some organ of your debtor or as your debtors freedom all together (i.e. your debtor would become your slave). In a similar way, tribes we're thought to be indebted to their ancestors (gods). Amount of debt would be directly proportional to success of the tribe. Therefore, to please the gods they would sacrifice cattle and even humans to their ancestors. Original sin ('Schuld' means both guilt and debt!!) is precisely this feeling of indebtedness to your forefathers. This is also the bad conscience people feel and religions – such as environmentalism and multiculturalism - utilize in order to keep the slaves in check; “polluting the Earth by existing” and “white guilt”. Christianity claims to solve this problem by sacrificing the God himself on a cross for the unpayable debts of mankind. Bad conscience is formed once the human animal recognizes he cannot escape the society – his natural aggression and cruelty now turn inwards. Original sin would be one form in which this phenomenon manifests itself. So what do you think? Did I miss something crucial here? Should I read 'Beyond Good and Evil' before I even start to tackle this book? One of the most important parts was the link between guilt and credit. Could this ancient moral link be the real cause why nobody has succeeded reinventing the money and making it popular - instead of it (credit money system that is) having been the monopoly of the governments for so long? Anyway, I'm happy to hear your thoughts.

Hi all, I am posting here today in an attempt to discuss some ideas that have been on my mind for some time, firstly, I will begin with a thought/experience that occurred several days ago that I jotted down in one of my notepads: I feel the haze pass over my mind (?) - And am met again with familiar thoughts - Am I in control of my thoughts and rational processes? or as Nietzsche puts it are all my apparent 'emotional free' rationalizations [and that of all other material aspects that constitute my being] simply the work of 'seed' emotions, subconscious drivers that I have no control over. It is difficult to come to a conclusion, although I feel as if one can come to be in control through the pursuit of self knowledge and understanding, it does not allude me that the capacities responsible deducing this conclusion may, in fact be the controlling force. This also leads me to think about the underlying implications that this may have on 'human nature', determinism and human consciousness. 'To our strongest drive, the tyrant in us, not only our reason but also our conscience submits' - Friedrich Nietzsche I may make further posts late about further thoughts on the matter, however, for now I would just like have this looked over with fresh eyes to see if anyone has a different perspective to what I may have thought, thanks for taking the time to read this - Ajax

I really enjoyed reading this book. Below is the review I posted to Amazon. I give a shout-out to Stef. 'Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche' by James Miller Surely, you would not take nutrition advice from someone who was three hundred pounds overweight. An equivalent skepticism is warranted towards philosophers who, often by their own admission, did not, could not, or would not apply their principles consistently. I highly recommend reading this book before delving into the complex writings of any of these philosophers. The context of their life choices and circumstances is fundamental to evaluating the content of what each of these twelve men—or, for that matter, any man claiming to be wise—says. Did you know that Descartes bore a child out of wedlock? Or that Augustine in his adolescence was a heretical follower of the teachings of Mani? Or that Plato was placed under house arrest by the tyrant Dionysius? These anecdotes reveal the humanity in these fabled intellectual giants. Some philosophers acknowledged their own flaws, while others attempted to shield their abstract discourse from their own lives. Perhaps, a more accurate statement would be to say that they used philosophy to avoid living a philosophical life. Granted, this criticism cannot be applied to all of the well-known figureheads in the book. Montaigne, with the publication of his Essays, opened the door among modern philosophers to introspection rather than stoicism as a way of gaining enlightenment. So too, Rousseau and Emerson followed a self-reflective path in their search for truth. Interestingly, the latter two ended their lives loved and praised by many, while the norm among philosophers appears to be the opposite. Seneca, Descartes, Montaigne, Nietzsche and countless others, who had the courage to speak against the moral commandments of the rulers of the time, did not live to see their works gain wide acceptance by the rest of the world. This, I must declare, is the nature of the discipline; if you aren’t willing to go against the masses, then you are not truly a philosopher but an appeaser with a knack for stringing together pleasant sounding words. The enormous fear that thinkers like Descartes and Montaigne must have felt in the face of uncertain accusations of treason or heresy, should I think give those of us who yearn to spread philosophy today deep appreciation for the amazing opportunity we have in front of us. I cannot conclude my review without echoing Miller’s disclaimer that Nietzsche was not the last philosopher. Even at present, the same fiery spirit that ignited the minds of Socrates and Aristotle is still alive and kicking. Host of Freedomain Radio, Stefan Molyneux, is one who I am certain will be remembered as one of the great philosophers of the 21st century. If you haven’t heard of him yet, then I’ve only added to my point about the twisted relationship between philosophers and popularity. My only criticism of James Miller’s collection of biographies here is that the focus on early development of these men’s childhoods is not as fleshed out as I would have liked. Even if only speculation, one cannot ignore the heavy influence of parental attachment, trauma, and abuse on the development of the brain. We may never know what drove these enigmatic souls to cry out for the milk of philosophy’s teat, but to me that question is as worthy of scrutiny as the very topics with which these men wrestled. When they’re learning about the world, children don’t pay attention to what adults say; they pay attention to what adults do. As children ourselves, learning the ropes of the philosophical world, we are, I dare say, wasting our time if we only read the writings of philosophers long dead and do not study how they actually lived. “Sapere aude.”—A favorite motto of Montaigne, requoted by Kant two centuries later—means “Dare to know.” Nietzsche is quoted as saying that “The love of truth is terrible and mighty.” The truth about the world is not what frightens us; it’s the truth about ourselves. In the absence of religion, we still recognize, and more strongly than ever, that the spirit which we seek lies within, and is the foundation from which immovable mountains of conviction lasting as long as man remains curious are built. Dare to know; dare to speak. Matt Ryan Drake unconsciousconnection.com

Were they good for the needy?

Eternal return theory is the idea that the universe has been and will continue to recur. Assuming time and space are infinite, imagine the probability of another world like ours existing, where everything plays out exactly like it has here on Earth, with me writing this post and you reading it. If "a mathematical certainty" wasn't your first thought then like myself you probably don't have as good of an understanding of infinity as you may have thought. Another example is monkeys typing on a keyboard until a copy of Shakespear's Hamlet is produced. The likeliness is extremely low but through infinite time it's bound to happen. I'm sharing this idea just because I like it and want to know what other people think of it.