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 And there are those for whom
virtue is the spasm under the scourge, and you have listened
to their clamor too much.... And there are others who are drawn
downward: their devils draw them. But the more they sink, the
more fervently glow their eyes and their lust for their god."
"On
the Virtuous," from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans.
Walter Kaufmann. New York: Penguin, 1978: 94.
Reader's
Notes
- What
is the relationship established here between "virtue"
and "the scourge" (a lash used by some religious people
to beat themselves)?
- Zarathustra
is saying that some who sink into lust and other "deadly
sins" call all the more loudly for what they are not: God.
How does he develop this relationship in his discussions of a
"will" to feel guilty in Essay II and of the role of
the priest in Essay III?
RETURN
TO ESSAY TWO |
|
'I suffer: someone must be to blame for it' -- thus
thinks every sickly sheep. But his shepherd, the ascetic priest,
tells him: 'Quite so,
my sheep! Someone must be to blame for it: but you yourself are
this someone, you alone are to blame for it -- you alone are
to blame for yourself!' -- This is brazen and false enough:
but one thing at least is achieved by it, the direction of ressentiment
is altered."
From On
the Genealogy of Morals, Essay III, Section 15, p. 128
Reader's
Questions
- Note
that the ascetic priest uses trickery to control people. Go back
to Essay I and consider the tactics that nobles use to control
others under their system of values.
- Why
do you think Nietzsche would say that people accept this value
judgment by the ascetic priest?
- Why
would the ascetic priest alter the "direction of ressentiment"?
RETURN
TO ESSAY TWO |
Ascetic
Priest Controls Others
The Will of Man