The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All...

The state of mind which calls itself "idealism," and which will neither allow mediocrity to be mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not make everything uniform! We should have a clear idea of how dearly we have to pay for the establishment of a virtue; and that virtue is nothing generally desirable, but a noble piece of madness, a beautiful exception, which gives us the privilege of feeling elated....

It is necessary to show that a counter-movement is inevitably associated with any increasingly economical consumption of men and mankind, and with an ever more closely involved "machinery" of interests and services. I call this counter-movement the separation of the luxurious surplus of mankind: by means of it a stronger kind, a higher type, must come to light, which has other conditions for its origin and for its maintenance than the average man. My concept, my metaphor for this type is, as you know, the word "Superman." Along the first road, which can now be completely surveyed, arose adaptation, stultification, higher Chinese culture, modesty in the Instincts, and satisfaction at the sight of the belittlement of man—a kind of stationary level of mankind. If ever we get that inevitable and imminent, general control of the economy of the earth, then mankind can be used as machinery and find its best purpose in the service of this economy—as an enormous piece of clock-work consisting of ever smaller and ever more subtly adapted wheels; then all the dominating and commanding elements will become ever more superfluous; and the whole gains enormous energy, while the individual factors which compose it represent but small modicums of strength and of value.

To oppose this dwarfing and adaptation of man to a specialised kind of utility, a reverse movement is needed -the procreation of the synthetic man who embodies everything and justifies it; that man for whom the turning of mankind into a machine is a first condition of existence, for whom the rest of mankind is but soil on which he can devise his higher mode of existence.

He is in need of the opposition of the masses, of those who are "levelled down"; he requires that feeling of distance from them; he stands upon them, he lives on them. This higher form of aristocracy is the form of the future. From the moral point of view, the collective machinery above described, that solidarity of all wheels, represents the most extreme example in the exploitation of mankind: but it presupposes the existence of those for whom such an exploitation would have some meaning.[2] Otherwise it would signify, as a matter of fact, merely the general depreciation of the type man,—a retrograde phenomenon on a grand scale.

Readers are beginning to see what I am combating—namely, economic optimism: as if the genera] welfare of everybody must necessarily increase with the growing self-sacrifice of everybody. The very reverse seems to me to be the case, the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to a collective loss; man becomes inferior—so that nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose has served. A wherefore? a new wherefore?—this is what mankind requires.

General aspect of the future European: the latter regarded as the most intelligent servile animal, very industrious, at bottom very modest, inquisitive to excess, multifarious, pampered, weak of will,—a chaos of cosmopolitan passions and intelligences. How would it be possible for a stronger race to be bred from him?—Such a race as would have a classical taste? The classical taste: this is the will to simplicity, to accentuation, and to happiness made visible, the will to the terrible, and the courage for psychological nakedness (simplification is the outcome of the will to accentuate; allowing happiness as well as nakedness to become visible is a consequence of the will to the terrible ...). In order to fight one's way out of that chaos, and up to this form, a certain disciplinary constraint is necessary: a man should have to choose between either going to the dogs or prevailing. A ruling race can only arise amid terrible and violent conditions. Problem: where are the barbarians of the twentieth century? Obviously they will only show themselves and consolidate themselves after enormous socialistic crises. They will consist of those elements which are capable of the greatest hardness towards themselves, and which can guarantee the most enduring will-power.

The mightiest and most dangerous passions of man, by means of which he most easily goes to rack and ruin, have been so fundamentally banned that mighty men themselves have either become impossible or else must regard themselves as evil, "harmful and prohibited." The losses are heavy, but up to the present they have been necessary. Now, however, that a whole host of counter-forces has been reared, by means of the temporary suppression of these passions (the passion for dominion, the love of change and deception), their liberation has once more become possible: they will no longer possess their old savagery. We can now allow ourselves this tame sort of barbarism: look at our artists and our statesmen!

The root of all evil: that the slave morality of modesty, chastity, selflessness, and absolute obedience should have triumphed. Dominating natures were thus condemned (1) to hypocrisy, (2) to qualms of conscience,—creative natures regarded themselves as rebels against God, uncertain and hemmed in by eternal values.

The barbarians showed that the ability of keeping within the bounds of moderation was not in the scope of their powers: they feared and slandered the passions and instincts of nature—likewise the aspect of the ruling Cæsars and castes. On the other hand, there arose the suspicion that all restraint is a form of weakness or of incipient old age and fatigue (thus La Rochefoucauld suspects that "virtue" is only a euphemism in the mouths of those to whom vice no longer affords any pleasure). The capacity for restraint was represented as a matter of hardness, self-control, asceticism, as a fight with the devil, etc. etc. The natural delight of æsthetic natures, in measure; the pleasure derived from the beauty of measure, was overlooked and denied, because that which was desired was an anti-eudæmonistic morality. The belief in the pleasure which comes of restraint has been lacking hitherto—this pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed! The moderation of weak natures was confounded with the restraint of the strong!

Vicious and unbridled people: their depressing influence upon the value of the pussions. It was the appalling barbarity of morality which was principally responsible in the Middle Ages for the compulsory recourse to a veritable "league of virtue"—and this was coupled with an equally appalling exaggeration of all that which constitutes the value of man. Militant "civilisation" (taming) is in need of all kinds of irons and tortures in order to maintain itself against terrible and beast-of-prey natures.

In this case, contusion, although it may have the most nefarious influences, is quite natural: that which men of power and will are able to demand of themselves gives them the standard for what they may also allow themselves. Such natures are the very opposite of the vicious and the unbridled; although under certain circumstances they may perpetrate deeds for which an inferior man would be convicted of vice and intemperance.

In this respect the concept, "all men are equal before God" does an extraordinary amount of harm; actions and attitudes of mind were forbidden which belonged to the prerogative of the strong alone, just as if they were in themselves unworthy of man. All the tendencies of strong men were brought into disrepute by the fact that the defensive weapons of the most weak (even of those who were weakest towards themselves) were established as a standard of valuation.

The confusion went so far that precisely the great virtuosos of life (whose self-control presents the sharpest contrast to the vicious and the unbridled) were branded with the most opprobrious names. Even to this day people feel themselves compelled to disparage a Cæsar Borgia: it is simply ludicrous. The Church has anathematised German Kaisers owing to their vices: as if a monk or a priest had the right to say a word as to what a Frederick II. should allow himself. Don Juan is sent to hell: this is very naïf. Has anybody ever noticed that all interesting men are lacking in heaven? ... This is only a hint to the girls, as to where they may best find salvation. If one think at all logically, and also have a profound insight into that which makes a great man, there, can be no doubt at all that the Church has dispatched all "great men" to Hades—its fight is against all "greatness in man."

The rights which a man arrogates to himself are relative to the duties which he sets himself, and to the tasks which he feels capable of performing. The great majority of men have no right to life, and are only a misfortune to their higher fellows.

The misunderstanding of egoism: on the part of ignoble natures who know nothing of the lust of conquest and the insatiability of great love, and who likewise know nothing of the overflowing feelings of power which make a man wish to overcome things, to force them over to himself, and to lay them on his heart, the power which impels an artist to his material. It often happens also that the active spirit looks for a field for its activity. In ordinary "egoism" it is precisely the ... "non-ego," the profoundly mediocre creature, the member of the herd, who wishes to maintain himself—and when this is perceived by the rarer, more subtle, and less mediocre natures, it revolts them. For the judgment of the latter is this: "We are the noble! It is much more important to maintain us than that cattle!"

When it occurs to inferior men to doubt whether higher men exist, then the danger is great I It is then that men finally discover that there are virtues even among inferior, suppressed, and poor-spirited men, and that everybody is equal before God: which is the non plus ultra of all confounded nonsense that has ever appeared on earth! For in the end higher men begin to measure themselves according to the standard of virtues upheld by the slaves—and discover that they are "proud," etc., and that all their higher qualities should be condemned.

When Nero and Caracalla stood at the helm, it was then that the paradox arose: "The lowest man is of more value than that one on the throne!" And thus the path was prepared for an image of God which was as remote as possible from the image of the mightiest,—God on the Cross!

Higher man and gregarious man.—When great men are wanting, the great of the past are converted into demigods or whole gods: the rise of religions proves that mankind no longer has any pleasure in man ("nor in woman neither," as in Hamlet's case). Or a host of men are brought together in a heap, and it is hoped that as a Parliament they will operate just as tyrannically.

Buckle affords the best example of the extent to which a plebeian agitator of the mob is incapable of arriving at a clear idea of the concept, "higher nature." The opinion which he combats so passionately—that "great men," individuals, princes, statesmen, geniuses, warriors, are the levers and causes of all great movements, is instinctively misunderstood by him, as if it meant that all that was essential and valuable in such a "higher man," was the fact that he was capable of setting masses in motion; in short, that his sole merit was the effect he produced.... But the "higher nature" of the great man resides precisely in being different, in being unable to communicate with others, in the loftiness of his rank—not in any sort of effect he may produce even though this be the shattering of both hemispheres.

The Revolution made Napoleon possible: that is its justification. We ought to desire the anarchical collapse of the whole of our civilisation if such a reward were to be its result. Napoleon made nationalism possible: that is the latter's excuse.