Nietzsche’s Critique: Unnatural Morality and the Affirmation of Life
Nietzsche’s Critique of Unnatural Morality
Unnatural Morality: Nietzsche argues that the prevailing morality in the West is ‘unnatural’ because it opposes life by establishing laws and mandates that threaten life instincts. His critique targets Platonic-Christian morality.
The Philosophical Basis: Platonism
The philosophical foundation of this unnatural morality is Platonism. The world of Ideas provides a ‘beyond,’ which becomes the basis for Christian religion. Christianity, in Nietzsche’s view, is ‘Platonism for the people.’ This shifts the moral center of gravity from this life to a transcendent realm, a ‘beyond’ for salvation.
Repressive Nature of Traditional Morality
Traditional morality, according to Nietzsche, suppresses impulses, desires, and sensitivities. It ‘castrates’ individuals, filling them with hatred towards their instincts. It is a ‘slave morality,’ where the weak, unable to manage their passions, seek to abolish them. Nietzsche asserts, ‘But the passions attack… to attack life means…: the practice of the Church is hostile to life.’
Rejection of Repressive Morality
Nietzsche rejects this morality because it is repressive, imposed, heteronomous, and universal. It is an anti-vital and unnatural system that establishes laws against the fundamental drives of life. It is a morality of resentment against instincts and passions, obsessed with limiting the role of the body and sexuality. It castrates man: ‘The saint in whom God has his complacency is the ideal gelding. Life ends where it begins the kingdom of God.’
Morality Against the Strong
This unnatural morality fights against anyone who is not meek, refusing those who forge their own morality. It exalts the meek, the weak, and the compassionate, while condemning the intellectually and morally strong, making them dependent on ‘pastors.’ It prioritizes the spiritual and rational over the body, which is seen as the seat of instincts and lusts. For this morality, instincts are inherently bad and do not lead to virtue: ‘The church fights passion with excision… your medicine, cure is castradismo.’
The Sickness of Western Culture
The prevailing morals in the West reveal a culture that is sick and afraid of life, with all its joys and struggles. It focuses on the pursuit of truth, goodness, and the spiritual, seeking escape from the body and denying instinctive life for a world beyond. This arises from man’s fear of ignorance, death, loneliness, and the inability to overcome these fears, leading to the creation of God.
God as Metaphysical Comfort
God provides metaphysical comfort, offering a world beyond this one, a world where everything is good, true, and final, a world where man need not be afraid. However, in exchange for escaping these fears, God demands the denial of this life and this world.
The Affirmation of Life: Healthy Morality
Against this unnatural morality, Nietzsche proposes a healthy morality, characteristic of the ‘Superman.’ This morality affirms the mere existence of this life and this world, driving individuals to live fully and intensely, unhindered by asphyxiation or false heavenly sacrifices. It is a morality that affirms life, embracing instinct, passion, sensitivity, and the body.
The Morality of the Superior Individual
This morality belongs to those who can channel their passions without eliminating them, those who do not need pastors, those who forge their own morality (autonomy), the daring, the superior individual, the high-spirited, the brave, who say yes to life, even in its most terrible aspects.