Bad & Good and *The Essay

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What is intrinsic regarding this definition of evil is the value that ressentiment has upon it. Ressentiment is a term widely used by Nietzsche and other philosophers (such as Kierkegaard) to refer to the notion of resentment -- which can take many forms including jealousy and other forms of subjugation -- influencing a particular moral perception. Because the weak were oppressed by and opposed to the depredation of the strong, aristocratic nobles, they classified all they did and all that described them as being morally incorrect of evil.

This concept of ressentiment as applied to the terminology of good and evil that was originally used by the impotent masses (according to Nietzsche), would go on to play a prime role in the development and facilitation of the Christian religion, which the philosopher also believed has had a fundamental influence on the morality of the western world. As denoted earlier, the priestly caste was one of the primary members of the inferior classes of people that was able to effect the ressentiment notion in which evil was defined as the antithesis of the powerful elite. This idea is also fundamentally related to what Nietzsche refers to as slave morality, or the slave revolt in morality, which he believes was the main impetus in the development of Christianity and its ultimate restraint upon the powerful aristocrats that had traditionally dominated society until the beginning of this religion. In particular, the "revolt" referred to in preceding mentioning of the slave revolt of morality was used by the philosopher to denote the martyrization of both Judaism and the resulting Christianity, which largely vilified the so-called Holy Roman Empire in doing so.

The inherent weakness which Nietzsche reviles in regards to the origination of Christianity and its role in the development of western morality is due to its ressentiment.

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The philosopher believes that Christianity, like all organizations made up of weak and disenfranchised people, needs to create and maintain enemies in order to accommodate its lack of potency. Whereas the powerful aristocracy could simply crush whatever adversaries it had, the largely weakened priestly castes who were responsible for organized religion and for Christianity in particular lacked the strength to do, and therefore invent all sorts of doctrines that revere its weakness as a virtue and defile strength as a vice. Mantras such as "the meek shall inherit the earth" and "blessed be the meek" merely reinforce these morals that have become both salient within Christianity but also within western civilization to this day.

It is this celebration of weakness and its intrinsic devaluing of strength as being morally unacceptable or incorrect that bothers Nietzsche in regards to Socratic-Judeo-Christian morality. What the author actually wants is a return to the values of strength being a virtue, if not the very definition of what good is. He certainly does not want inferiority or weakness to be the defining point of morality. Additionally, it is noteworthy to mention that the German philosopher has traced the history of Christianity's influence upon the morals of the western world to the ancient struggle between Judaism and the Roman Empire. In this war, Rome symbolized the duality of good and bad since it was largely governed by strong aristocrats who based their morals of right and wrong upon strength and the lack thereof, whereas Judaism, which would eventually spawn.....

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