Ascetic Values Abnormal for Most of Us

Linked from Essay III, Section 13: "...the ascetic ideal springs from the protective instinct of a degenerating life... against which the deepest instincts of life, which have remained intact, continually struggle with new expedients and devices."

Chastity is a virtue in some, but almost a vice in many. They abstain, but the bitch, sensuality, leers enviously out of everything they do. Even to the heights of their virtue and to the cold regions of the spirit this beast follows them with her lack of peace. And how nicely the bitch, sensuality, knows how to beg for a piece of spirit when denied a piece of meat."  

"On Chastity," from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Penguin, 1978: 54-55.

RETURN TO ESSAY THREE

Matthew's Defense of the Ascetic's Life

Linked from Essay III, Section 13: "...the ascetic ideal springs from the protective instinct of a degenerating life... against which the deepest instincts of life, which have remained intact, continually struggle with new expedients and devices."

"His disciples say unto him, "If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry." Be he said unto them, "All men cannot receive [accept] this saying, save to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."

From The Gospel According to Matthew, 2nd Ed, Richmond: University of Richmond Core Course, p. 35

Reader's Questions

• Here Jesus defends the life of the ascetic, in this case those who become eunuchs (literally, a castrated man; here, those who abstain from sex) for religious reasons. How would Nietzsche judge this?
• Jesus admits that not everyone can "receive" this law. What else does Jesus say, in Matthew's gospel, that relates to who can and cannot receive Jesus' teaching? How would that relate to Nietzsche's idea that the ascetic priest is a shepherd to a "sick herd"?

RETURN TO ESSAY THREE

At the Root of Civilization, A Great Deceit (from Rousseau) Linked from Essay III, Section 13: "...the ascetic ideal springs from the protective instinct of a degenerating life... against which the deepest instincts of life, which have remained intact, continually struggle with new expedients and devices."

[L]et us unite... to protect the weak from oppression to restrain the ambitious, and ensure for each the possession of what belongs to him; let us institute rules of justice and peace to which all shall be obliged to conform, without exception, rules which compensate in a way for the caprice of fortune by subjecting equally the powerful and the weak to reciprocal duties." From Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essay on Inequality, p. 121 Reader's Question Both writers see at the root of civilization a great deceit, but they are utterly at odds over who is responsible for this deceit and why. Explain this difference of opinion. RETURN TO ESSAY THREE