• Ross
    142
    Nietzsche describes Christianity as a slave morality but what about Fascism and Nazism they appear to me as being prime examples of slave morality or values rather than Christianity. Hitler, before assuming power was a down and out, la ggard, a feckless drifter unlike Jesus who displayed great virtue, courage, compassion and strength of character. Nietzsche characterizes slave morality as one which emphasized obedience, pity, conformity and following the herd. And he said that it's a morality based on resentment but it seems to me that this is more true of nazism rather than Christianity'. The Nazis were full of resentment against so-called enemies and full of self-pity and emphasised blind obedience and conformity to their Fuhrer. Seems to me a classic example of nietzsche's so-called slave morality. Whereas in Christianity the emphasis on love, forgiveness, compassion, hope and kindness seems to me sources of strength, rather than weakness, which are completely absent from nazism.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    The Nazis were full of resentment against so-called enemies and full of self-pity and emphasised blind obedience and conformity to their Fuhrer.Ross Campbell

    Yes. But that's exactly what the Stalinists did with Stalin long before Hitler and Maoists with Mao Zedong after him. And you can see the same attitudes in religious movements like militant Islam.
  • Fooloso4
    6.2k
    I would have hoped that in a thread whose title is Nietzsche's notion slave of morality there would be a discussion of Nietzsche's notion slave of morality. His analysis is genealogical.

    What should not be overlooked is that Nazism went hand in hand with Christianity.
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    What should not be overlooked is that Nazism went hand in hand with Christianity.Fooloso4

    This is very much a minority view. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_aspects_of_Nazism#cite_note-SG-19

    The consensus is noted to be that Christianity and Nazism are not related. The article does note that at some point, likely for political reasons and not theological ones, the Nazi party did support "Positive Christianity," which bears little resemblance to what many would consider Christianity, as it appears its chief aim was to cleanse it of any Jewish context:

    "Alfred Rosenberg was influential in the development of Positive Christianity. In The Myth of the Twentieth Century, he wrote that:[20]

    Saint Paul was responsible for the destruction of the racial values which existed in Greek and Roman culture;
    the dogma of hell which was advanced in the Middle Ages destroyed the free Nordic spirit;
    original sin and grace are Oriental ideas which corrupt the purity and strength of Nordic blood;
    the Old Testament and the Jewish race are not an exception and one should return to the Nordic peoples' fables and legends;
    Jesus was not Jewish, because he had Nordic blood which he had inherited from his Amorite ancestors."
  • Fooloso4
    6.2k


    Christianity and Nazism are related by the simple fact that most Nazis were also Christians.

    Many Christians were also anti-semitic which was one reason Nazism was attractive.

    But none of this has anything to do with Nietzsche's notion of slave morality.
  • Hanover
    12.9k
    Christianity and Nazism are related by the simple fact that most Nazis were also Christians.Fooloso4

    That's not a correlation. The vast number of people in Western civilization were Christians. Most Christians were opposed to Nazism. You have to establish a link between the belief system of Nazism and Christianity to form some correlation. It'd be like saying having 10 fingers is associated with Nazism.

    Many Christians were also anti-semitic which was one reason Nazism was attractive.Fooloso4

    Nazism wasn't a religious movement It was a minority position among Western nations, and it was defeated by Christians. In fact, it was defeated by a large percent of people of Germanic descent. To the extent you define "anti-Semitic" as anti-Jewish, again, it's obvious that in the West they'd be Christians, considering the overwhelming percent of the population was Christian, with only few percent being Jewish and an even smaller percent being of other religions.

    But none of this has anything to do with Nietzsche's notion of slave morality.Fooloso4

    Nietzsche was openly critical of Christianity and he would describe that religion as being consistent with a slave morality.

    You claimed that Nazism and Christianity go hand in hand, so it appeared you were making the argument that Nazis and the Christians, whose hands were clasped together, were all members of the same slave moral mentality. It would be in that regard that all of this has to do with the slave morality, but, for some reason, you now declare your prior posts irrelevant.
  • Fooloso4
    6.2k
    That's not a correlation. The vast number of people in Western civilization were Christians.Hanover

    I am not suggesting a correlation. It is not because they were Christian that they were Nazis. What I am saying is that the fact that they were Christian did not prevent them from becoming Nazis. The OP points to the Christian emphasis on love, forgiveness, compassion, hope and kindness, but this did not prevent them from becoming Nazis.

    He claims that:

    Nietzsche characterizes slave morality as one which emphasized obedience, pity, conformity and following the herd. And he said that it's a morality based on resentment but it seems to me that this is more true of nazism rather than Christianity'.Ross Campbell

    My point is that this seems true of both, especially given the fact that they were both.

    Nietzsche was openly critical of Christianity and he would describe that religion as being consistent with a slave morality.Hanover

    Yes, but if I understand him correctly Ross Campbell objects to that description.

    You claimed that Nazism and Christianity go hand in hand, so it appeared you were making the argument that Nazis and the Christians, whose hands were clasped together, were all members of the same slave moral mentality.Hanover

    Perhaps I did not make my point clear enough. Hand in hand rather than opposed to each other.

    With regard to all being members of the same slave moral mentality, from my first post:

    His analysis is genealogical.Fooloso4

    In other words, Nietzsche was talking about a particular historical movement, that cannot be reduced to obedience, pity, conformity and following the herd, or transferred from one time and place to another. As a genealogy its concern is how that morality developed. A main point of which is how its weakness became its strength.

    Again:

    I would have hoped that in a thread whose title is Nietzsche's notion slave of morality there would be a discussion of Nietzsche's notion slave of morality.Fooloso4
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k


    I don't blame @Hanover to be honest. You do tend to employ oracular pronouncements that you subsequently seem to retract without apparently retracting them - or without knowing what you're actually asserting.

    In any case, the OP does seem slanted to me.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    Well, Nietzsche hated Nazis along with "Christianity."
    See the Genealogy of Morals for details.
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    Well, Nietzsche hated Nazis along with "Christianity."
    See the Genealogy of Morals for details.
    Valentinus

    This.



    The Nazi's made use of Christianity's centuries of anti-semitism including Martin Luther's fulminations against Jews. It's likely Nietzsche would have thought the Nazi's a bunch of tossers and cowardly conformists. His sister certainly cultivated Hitler and tried to skew her brother's ideas to support him.
  • Ross
    142
    Nietzsche died before the Nazis came into existence. In relation to My point which I made earlier Nietzsche's target for attack is Christianity because it's a slave morality but my point is that the values Nazism espouses is closer to a slave morality than Christianity is. It is all about obedience, self pity, resentment, conformity, hatred of life , all the things which Nietzsche accusses Christianity of. Jesus however was a strong, courageous, independent minded person.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k
    It's likely Nietzsche would have thought the Nazi's a bunch of tossers and cowardly conformists.Tom Storm

    It is not only likely but something expressly directed against the immediate ancestors of the Nazis:

    In the Genealogy of Morals, he says:

    All honor to the ascetic ideal insofar it is honest! so long as it believes in itself and does not play tricks on us! But I do not like all these coquettish bedbugs with their insatiable ambition to smell out the infinite, until at last the infinite smells of bedbugs; I do not like these whited sepulchers who imitate life; I do not like these weary played-out people who wrap themselves in wisdom and look "objective"; I do not like these agitators dressed up as heroes who wear the magic cap of ideals on their straw heads; I do not like these ambitious artists who like to pose as ascetics and priest but who are at bottom only tragic buffoons; and I also do not like these latest speculators in idealism, the anti-Semites who today roll their eyes in a Christian-Aryan-bourgeois manner and exhaust one's patience by trying to rouse up all the horned-beast elements in the people by a brazen abuse of the cheapest of all agitator's tricks, moral attitudinizing (that no kind of swindle fails to succeed in Germany today is connected with the undeniable and palpable stagnation of the German spirit; and the cause of that I seek in a too exclusive diet of newspapers, politics, beer, and Wagnerian music, together with the presupposition of such a diet: first, national constriction and vanity, the strong but narrow principle "Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles," and then the paralysis agitans of modern ideas. — Translated by Walter Kaufman, 3rd essay, section 26
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    It is all about obedience, self pity, resentment, conformity, hatred of life , all the things which Nietzsche accusses Christianity of. Jesus however was a strong, courageous, independent minded person.Ross Campbell

    V is pointing to N's ideas which clearly stand against organised views like Nazism. The date isn't relevant.

    Remember N said Christianity failed because the last true Christian died on the cross. Pretty sure N didn't think Jesus was a real person but a contrived myth which grew out of control. I personally disagree with N on Christian compassion.

    Contrasting virtuous Christianity with depraved Nazism is no great intellectual achievement. The Nazi's did not base their ideas on Nietzsche and seemed to be very keen to have the support of Christianity - which they often received. They also had "God is with us" festooned on Nazi/Wehrmacht belt buckles.
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    We posted at the same time...
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    They also had "God is with us" festooned on Nazi/Wehrmacht belt buckles.Tom Storm

    "Gott mit uns" was a Prussian military tradition going back to the 1800s. The Nazis simply continued it. I don't think we should read too much into it.
  • Fooloso4
    6.2k
    my point is that the values Nazism espouses is closer to a slave morality than Christianity is.Ross Campbell

    The fundamental difference is that the early Christians had no power. They turned inward because they were powerless to make outward changes. Their inwardness led to their power. Rather than impose rule on the world they learned to impose their will on themselves and rule themselves. Nietzsche saw this as a great advancement for mankind.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    "Gott mit uns" was a Prussian military tradition going back to the 1800s. The Nazis simply continued it. I don't think we should read too much into it.Apollodorus

    This is the same as saying "The Christian faith is a tradition going back to the first year. The rest of the Christians simply continued it. I don't think we should read too much into it."

    You are probably unable to see how wrong your statement was, because you can't see yourself doing anything that is wrong. But look at my statement and see the fallacy in it. Then look at your statement and see the fallacy in it. I challenge you to do this -- I bet you are unable to.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    "Gott mit uns" was a Prussian military tradition going back to the 1800s. The Nazis simply continued it. I don't think we should read too much into it.
    9 minutes ago
    Apollodorus

    You just admitted your historical ignorance when you said that. "God is with us" is a slogan many if not all warring Christians say -- since Christians have started warring. It is NOT exclusively a Prussian military tradition.

    For your information, Muslim warriors say something similar if not the same in their language for their God.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    Regarding pity, Nietzsche argued it was a form of contempt when expressed in certain registers. The idea has certainly been used in a condescending fashion in different contexts. Nietzsche's contempt for the contempt is not an argument against the idea.

    The quality is no longer easily identifiable.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    It is NOT exclusively a Prussian military tradition.god must be atheist

    lol I never said "Gott mit uns" was "exclusively" Prussian. I simply said the Nazis continued a Prussian tradition. They didn't specifically introduced it to appeal to Christians as suggested by @Tom Storm.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    I simply said the Nazis continued a Prussian tradition.Apollodorus

    And that's where you were wrong. They continued a world-wide tradition.

    They didn't specifically introduced it to appeal to ChristiansApollodorus

    Like what else the fuck would they introduce it for? You are out of logic, my dear friend. Let us see you say, "They introduced it to appeal to Satan worshippers and to atheist communist scum."

    If you only made sense ONCE!! JUST ONCE, I beg you.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k


    lol I do appreciate your sense of humor. Do carry on.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    lol I do appreciate your sense of humor. Do carry on.Apollodorus

    I do appreciate your sense of delusional misunderstandings to the core. What I wrote was not humorous. You are simply trying to discredit the information by slighting it. You are a disgrace to thoughtful argumentation, because you render your own arguments to the level of the fallacies of a seventh-grader in public school.

    How do you live with yourself?
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    Leave it be. There is no wrestler on the other side.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    There is no wrestler on the other side.Valentinus

    I am sorry... I don't get this. Please explain in nominative terms, not in parables, similes or metaphors. I really don't get what you are saying.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k


    If you mean not to kick a guy who is down, then I say he shouldn't be getting up. As long as he's on his feet, kicking is fair.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    You aren't being challenged upon what you actually said. I like to see some recognition that what I asserted was understood by any who would object.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    You aren't being challenged upon what you actually said.Valentinus

    Then I have really no clue what you are talking about.

    I like to see some recognition that what I asserted was understood by any who would object.Valentinus

    Thanks. I have NO clue what you are talking about. Sorry. You must speak less mysteriously if you wish for my understanding.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    You were challenged to explain your point of view as expressed by your comment.
    You expressed the thought that you were not understood by way of the reply.
    So, is the following discussion an argument about an agreed matter of discussion or two ships passing in the sea, with little to say about each other than they noticed the passing of the other.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    Ibid. Over and out. From here on you are talking to yourself, because I asked you twice to speak normally to me, and you refused. I am done listening to you.

    "From here on" as in "the following discussion" does not express the meaning of the first two posts I asked you to clarify for me.

    You are on your own.
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