[2][1] Fall 2011
I propose that slave morality be understood as consciousness disconnecting from the organisms self-valuing. A being can no longer rely, in its actions of acquisition of power, on what it is – it is forced to re-determine what it is in terms of the lack, the gap left by the removal of its self-valuation. Since a gap has no content, the identification is shifted to that which has caused the gap, the enemy. A moral slave determines itself in terms of what it hates, by positing itself as not-that. It posits, or attempts to posit, a self-value by establishing a sense of power over the entity that it blames for the loss of its self-value.
As it is still exerting its will to power, it still operates as an entity, a subject, so it is in fact still grounded in a self-valuing. What has been lost is the connection between self-valuing and consciousness. Consciousness has detached from nature, what results can be described as disintegration of value. As long as slave-morality persists, as the unconsciously self-valuing entity persists in its behavior of willing to power on the terms of another entity, as it tries to establish a conscious self-valuing as the negative of what it perceives as powerful (but evil), it operates directly against its natural, innate self-valuing, and this must result in decay.
I think that slave morality can not be inherited, that every new-born being has a master-morality, by which I mean that its consciousness is rooted in a self-valuing. (For example, the mother is valued in terms of the self, that is why we have the Freudian complex of interpreting the mother / parent as the self).
By the genetic passing-on and cultural / physical sustainment of forms of weakness / unhealth, it becomes more likely that a conscious being strays into slave-morality. If the being is both physically unhealthy and immersed in a culture where slave-morality is the norm, it is likely that it abandons its “child-like” master-morality and becomes a value-decaying, alike to its cultural environment. I think of the modern Islamic world, which morality is rooted in the rejection of the west (not to say that the west presently holds a master morality, but it serves as the standard of hated enemy by rejecting of which the morality is largely defined). Breaking out of this cycle, “salvation” could only occur through impulses of a freshly, life affirming nature such as is operative in children.
It seems likely that the teachings of Jesus Christ (whether this is only a metaphorical figure or if he really lived is not important) were aimed to remedy a similar condition operative in the Jews under Roman oppression – a re-establishment of self-valuing by taking on a infant-like perspective. “Render unto Caesar what is his” – his value – have for yourself what is yours – your value: “divinity” –i.e. your self-valuing
Nietzsche had good reason to say that the last Christian died on the cross, because much of Christianity as a culture was a continuation of the self-denying/ignoring against which a “spiritual rebirth” was proposed a remedy. It continued to focus on the enemy, on Evil, even if it politically overcame all enemies, and succeeded so in including in this negativity-standard against which it set its efforts, the things that naturally sustain positive valuing – beauty, strength, pleasure, the ‘good things in life’.
It seems that ultimately such a reverse valuing must come to an end, as the acting consciousness of resentment erodes the unconscious self-valuing on wich it rests to such a point that it can no longer be sustained. Physical reserves are exhausted, the psychological driving force is no longer sustained sufficiently to act aggressively-destructively, the active anti-ethics are no longer possible, nihilism is the result. Depending on the circumstances in wich the organism finds itself, this may lead to, in natural, nurturing conditions of culture, a gradual recovery of natural, positive valuation, conscious self-valuation, master morality – in less favorable circumstances, death seems the only outcome.
Now the will to power is dependent on self-valuing (the standard-setting interpreted as the root/ground of the subject), so where self-valuing is sabotaged by consciousness, as is the case where slave-morality takes hold, will to power remains operative only until it exhausts its resources, it wills the entity to death. The energy is transferred to vital subjects / structures. In such a case the will to power is not aimed at power of the subject, but rather at a transferring of power from the subject. The subject wills himself
Can the will of an entity possessed of a slave morality still be called a will to power? Can it still be called a will? What is more, can we still speak an entity? I think that the answer is: only in as far as it is unconscious. And this makes it clear how (and that, which is a departure from Nietzsches “all is blood” dogma) we may begin to dispel slave-morality.