Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who had a lot of controversial views on society. In his book “Twilight of the Idols”, there are a lot of different themes being explored of which some include what the Germans are lacking, how moralities have “improved” human beings, why the senses are superior to reason and even the problem with Socrates. One of the statement that we will be focusing on would be “Every individual may be regarded as representing either the ascending or the descending line of life.” This statement will be looked at and compared to the four of the themes that were found in his book. To start, according to Nietzsche, people from the ascending line of life are people who are noble, healthy, commanders, birds of prey,
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There are two ways which this is done and they include taming/domestically and breeding. Nietzsche uses an example of Christianity. He uses the priest as an example of animal trainers where they convert a person to Christianity. After a while this person commits a sin and is labeled as a sinner and has his life ruined. Even though the priest wanted to improve that person, it was conducted with immoral methods. The priest in this case is a person from the ascending line of life because he has power and control over people (hence animal trainer training animals). Whereas the person being trained is from a descending line of life (hence animal being trained). Another example used is the caste system in India. The people who made it the so called “improvers” were attempting to moralize individuals by making levels and putting the labourers and the Chandala (Outcastes) at the very bottom. They demoted the Chandala and labourers for the goal of moralization. This shows that every effort to improve humans morally has been done so immorally. Relating this back to the statement, in this case, the people who made attempts to improve humans morally were from the ascending line of life. They were powerful and noble and had control. Whereas the people being negatively affected by this were usually lower class people and people who did not have strength and people who were from the descending line of
There are two ways which this is done and they include taming/domestically and breeding. Nietzsche uses an example of Christianity. He uses the priest as an example of animal trainers where they convert a person to Christianity. After a while this person commits a sin and is labeled as a sinner and has his life ruined. Even though the priest wanted to improve that person, it was conducted with immoral methods. The priest in this case is a person from the ascending line of life because he has power and control over people (hence animal trainer training animals). Whereas the person being trained is from a descending line of life (hence animal being trained). Another example used is the caste system in India. The people who made it the so called “improvers” were attempting to moralize individuals by making levels and putting the labourers and the Chandala (Outcastes) at the very bottom. They demoted the Chandala and labourers for the goal of moralization. This shows that every effort to improve humans morally has been done so immorally. Relating this back to the statement, in this case, the people who made attempts to improve humans morally were from the ascending line of life. They were powerful and noble and had control. Whereas the people being negatively affected by this were usually lower class people and people who did not have strength and people who were from the descending line of