Die Ordnung der Kasten, das oberste, das dominierende Gesetz, ist nur die Sanktion einer Natur-Ordnung, Natur-Gesetzlichkeit ersten Ranges, über die keine Willkür, keine "moderne Idee" Gewalt hat. Es treten in jeder gesunden Gesellschaft, sich gegenseitig bedingend, drei physiologisch verschieden-gravitierende Typen auseinander, von denen jeder seine eigne Hygiene, sein eignes Reich von Arbeit, seine eigne Art Vollkommenheits-Gefühl und Meisterschaft hat. Die Natur, nicht Manu, trennt die vorwiegend Geistigen, die vorwiegend Muskel- und Temperaments- Starken und die weder im einen, noch im andern ausgezeichneten Dritten, die Mittelmäßigen, von einander ab, - die letzteren als die große Zahl, die ersteren als die Auswahl.
Omdat mij Duits wat roestig is post ik 'm ook ff in 't Engels.
The order of castes, the highest, the dominating law, is merely the ratification of an order of nature, of a natural law of the first rank, over which no arbitrary fiat, no "modern idea," can exert any influence. In every healthy society there are three physiological types, gravitating toward differentiation but mutually conditioning one another, and each of these has its own hygiene, its own sphere of work, its own special mastery and feeling of perfection. It is not Manu but nature that sets off in one class those who are chiefly intellectual, in another those who are marked by muscular strength and temperament, and in a third those who are distinguished in neither one way or the other, but show only mediocrity--the last-named represents the great majority, and the first two the select.
Het doet me sterk denken aan Plato's "Politeia", maar Hitler zie ik er niet in. Ten eerste selecteert het Nationaal-Socialisme niet op individuele kwliteiten maar op ras. Ten tweede is het intellect niet het hoogste in de Nationaal-Socialistische maatschappij. Maar laten we vooral ook het
gehele stuk posten, en niet slechts een uit zijn verband gerukt paartje zinnen.
One catches the unholiness of Christian means in flagranti by the simple process of putting the ends sought by Christianity beside the ends sought by the Code of Manu--by putting these enormously antithetical ends under a strong light. The critic of Christianity cannot evade the necessity of making Christianity contemptible.--A book of laws such as the Code of Manu has the same origin as every other good law-book: it epitomizes the experience, the sagacity and the ethical experimentation of long centuries; it brings things to a conclusion; it no longer creates. The prerequisite to a codification of this sort is recognition of the fact that the means which establish the authority of a slowly and painfully attained truth are fundamentally different from those which one would make use of to prove it. A law-book never recites the utility, the grounds, the casuistical antecedents of a law: for if it did so it would lose the imperative tone, the "thou shalt," on which obedience is based. The problem lies exactly here.--At a certain point in the evolution of a people, the class within it of the greatest insight, which is to say, the greatest hindsight and foresight, declares that the series of experiences determining how all shall live--or can live--has come to an end. The object now is to reap as rich and as complete a harvest as possible from the days of experiment and hard experience. In consequence, the thing that is to be avoided above everything is further experimentation--the continuation of the state in which values are fluent, and are tested, chosen and criticized ad infnitum. Against this a double wall is set up: on the one hand, revelation, which is the assumption that the reasons lying behind the laws are not of human origin, that they were not sought out and found by a slow process and after many errors, but that they are of divine ancestry, and came into being complete, perfect, without a history, as a free gift, a miracle . . . ; and on the other hand, tradition, which is the assumption that the law has stood unchanged from time immemorial, and that it is impious and a crime against one's forefathers to bring it into question. The authority of the law is thus grounded on the thesis: God gave it, and the fathers lived it.--The higher motive of such procedure lies in the design to distract consciousness, step by step, from its concern with notions of right living (that is to say, those that have been proved to be right by wide and carefully considered experience), so that instinct attains to a perfect automatism--a primary necessity to every sort of mastery, to every sort of perfection in the art of life. To draw up such a law-book as Manu's means to lay before a people the possibility of future mastery, of attainable perfection--it permits them to aspire to the highest reaches of the art of life. To that end the thing must be made unconscious: that is the aim of every holy lie.--The order of castes, the highest, the dominating law, is merely the ratification of an order of nature, of a natural law of the first rank, over which no arbitrary fiat, no "modern idea," can exert any influence. In every healthy society there are three physiological types, gravitating toward differentiation but mutually conditioning one another, and each of these has its own hygiene, its own sphere of work, its own special mastery and feeling of perfection. It isnot Manu but nature that sets off in one class those who are chiefly intellectual, in another those who are marked by muscular strength and temperament, and in a third those who are distinguished in neither one way or the other, but show only mediocrity--the last-named represents the great majority, and the first two the select. The superior caste--I call it the fewest--has, as the most perfect, the privileges of the few: it stands for happiness, for beauty, for everything good upon earth. Only the most intellectual of men have any right to beauty, to the beautiful; only in them can goodness escape being weakness. Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:30 goodness is a privilege. Nothing could be more unbecoming to them than uncouth manners or a pessimistic look, or an eye that sees ugliness--or indignation against the general aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala; so is pessimism. "The world is perfect"--so prompts the instinct of the intellectual, the instinct of the man who says yes to life. "Imperfection, what ever is inferior to us, distance, the pathos of distance, even the Chandala themselves are parts of this perfection. "The most intelligent men, like the strongest, find their happiness where others would find only disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is in self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, an instinct. They regard a difficult task as a privilege; it is to them a recreation to play with burdens that would crush all others. . . . Knowledge--a form of asceticism.--They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does not prevent them being the most cheerful and most amiable. They rule, not because they want to, but because they are; they are not at liberty to play second.--The second caste: to this belong the guardians of the law, the keepers of order and security, the more noble warriors, above all, the king as the highest form of warrior, judge and preserver of the law. The second in rank constitute the executive arm of the intellectuals, the next to them in rank, taking from them all that is rough in the business of ruling-their followers, their right hand, their most apt disciples.--In all this, I repeat, there is nothing arbitrary, nothing "made up"; whatever is to the contrary is made up--by it nature is brought to shame. . . The order of castes, the order of rank, simply formulates the supreme law of life itself; the separation of the three types is necessary to the maintenance of society, and to the evolution of higher types, and the highest types--the inequality of rights is essential to the existence of any rights at all.--A right is a privilege. Every one enjoys the privileges that accord with his state of existence. Let us not underestimate the privileges of the mediocre. Life is always harder as one mounts the heights--the cold increases, responsibility increases. A high civilization is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its primary prerequisite is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity. The handicrafts, commerce, agriculture, science, the greater part of art, in brief, the whole range of occupational activities, are compatible only with mediocre ability and aspiration; such callings would be out of place for exceptional men; the instincts which belong to them stand as much opposed to aristocracy as to anarchism. The fact that a man is publicly useful, that he is a wheel, a function, is evidence of a natural predisposition; it is not society, but the only sort of happiness that the majority are capable of, that makes them intelligent machines. To the mediocre mediocrity is a form of happiness; they have a natural instinct for mastering one thing, for specialization. It would be altogether unworthy of a profound intellect to see anything objectionable in mediocrity in itself. It is, in fact, the first prerequisite to the appearance of the exceptional: it is a necessary condition to a high degree of civilization. When the exceptional man handles the mediocre man with more delicate fingers than he applies to himself or to his equals, this is not merely kindness of heart--it is simply his duty. . . . Whom do I hate most heartily among the rabbles of today? The rabble of Socialists, the apostles to the Chandala, who undermine the workingman's instincts, his pleasure, his feeling of contentment with his petty existence--who make him envious and teach him revenge. . . . Wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the assertion of "equal" rights. . . . What is bad? But I have already answered: all that proceeds from weakness, from envy, from revenge.--The anarchist and the Christian have the same ancestry. . . .
Ik herhaal:
It would be altogether unworthy of a profound intellect to see anything objectionable in mediocrity in itself. It is, in fact, the first prerequisite to the appearance of the exceptional: it is a necessary condition to a high degree of civilization. When the exceptional man handles the mediocre man with more delicate fingers than he applies to himself or to his equals, this is not merely kindness of heart--it is simply his duty.
Is dat de basis these van het nazisme? Zou Hitler dit ooit gezegd kunnen hebben? Hitler, die wat hij als de laagste mens zag genadeloos uit wou roeien? Hoe
durf je deze passage van Nietzsche ook maar te vergelijken met Hitler! Maar laten we eens kijken wat deze passage nu eigenlijk zegt. Het begint met een analyse van de 'objectieve' moraal - en als we eerlijk zijn, een hele sympathieke analyse voor een tegenstander van juist die soort moraal. Vervolgens schetst Nietzsche zijn idee van een ideale staat - een staat waar
iedereen een zinvolle taak heeft (dus niet bepaalde bevolkingsgroepen niet), een samenleving waar geregeerd wordt door degenen die het hoogste intellect hebben - en daarmee dus het meest gekwalificeerd zijn om te regeren.
Anti-democratisch? Ja. Nazistisch? Welnee. Onvervreemdbare standpunten van het nazisme zijn: nationalisme, nadruk op fysieke kracht, rassenleer, macht gebaseerd op de meerderheid, fysieke gewelddadigheid tegenover tegenstanders. Geen van deze leerstellingen zal je bij Nietzsche aantreffen, en tegen enkele (zoals rassenhaat en nationalisme) heeft hij zich zelfs uitrdukkelijk gekeerd.
Wat een enge site overigens, te oordelen naar de runen op de frontpage. Gelukkig zijn er ook serieuze sites die filosofisch materiaal aanbieden:
http://www.friedrichnietzsche.de/home.php4?dir=1.
Maar zijn volledige afwijzing van de traditioneel christelijke moraal, zijn theorieen over veredeling en elite, zijn verheerlijking van der Wille zur Macht en de herenmoraal hebben er zeker mede toe geleid dat er in Duitsland een klimaat werd geschapen waarin een groepering op heel enge wijze die macht heeft misbruikt.
Dat zou kunnen - ik weet het niet. Ik heb mij niet bezig gehouden met de historie van Nietzsches gedachtengoed, maar met de inhoud. Ik heb geen idee of het nationaal-socialisme er zonder Nietzsche anders uit zou hebben gezien; maar het gaat sowieso meer om de inhoud dan om het historisch effect, lijkt mij.