Responding to someone who has referred to the well-known religious/philosophical conception of the world (or universe) as “a mighty plan of work aiming at awakening and developing consciousness,” Nisargadatta says, “All you say is right for the outgoing (𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖) path. For the path of return (𝑛𝑖𝑣𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖) naughting oneself is necessary.” (𝐼 𝐴𝑚 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡, 86)
Nietzsche appears to take it for granted that love and affirmation of life in this (sensually, temporally present) world are unequivocal signs of health, courage, honesty, and – so far as human specimens go – superiority. This affirmation of worldly existence – made by the strong, the well turned out, the “masters” – is what may be said to constitute 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠, while badness is all that falls lamentably or contemptibly short of this splendid measure. Admittedly, such goodness is the privilege of the few – since such excellence is as difficult to attain as it is rare. What about the majority of botched and failed existences that stink up the world with their rancorous, malodorous whining and complaining? Nietzsche’s analysis: This envious, impotent herd obtains its eventual revenge against their happy, superior masters by successfully inverting moral values.
Or rather, their cunningly clever and envenomed priest-shepherds engineer this “slave revolt of morality.” The life-poisoning, resentful priests re-baptize all the weaknesses and unavoidable shortcomings of the herd as virtues (𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 for revenge gets magically translated into refusal to retaliate; 𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 to act on one’s own behalf is cunningly refashioned into patience and kind forbearance; 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 is renamed as “meekness” and “gentleness”). Simultaneously, an inversion of the masters’ virtues occurs (pride becomes a sin, worldliness becomes a sin, love of strength and the senses become the surest path to sin and damnation). The body and its natural pleasures and appetites become shameful when juxtaposed with the spirit and “holy” yearnings. In this way the happy, childlike, noble master types are impelled, by the new “popular” moral valuations, to feel unhappy, sinful, and guilty before “God.”
This is certainly 𝑜𝑛𝑒 way to interpret the salient phenomena that Nietzsche lumps together under the label of “slave morality.” To be fair, this interpretation is actually quite compelling in many (perhaps even a majority of) cases where the person under consideration is indeed afflicted with oppressive feelings of envy, hatred, and resentment for those who enjoy a better or freer existence than s/he does. And while such cases exist – and perhaps have always existed – in sufficient numbers to guarantee the continuing plausibility of Nietzsche’s psychologically astute and illuminating 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒́, perhaps we should resist the temptation to regard this interpretation as exhaustive or sufficient. What, if anything, might Nietzsche be conveniently leaving out of consideration here?
Is it possible that a segment of that majority who embrace an un-heroic, modest-sized, quiet, contented, humble way of life (that Nietzsche tends to associate with the slave and with the “ascetic ideal”) deliberately chooses such a life for perfectly respectable reasons – and not merely out of incapacity, spite, bitter resentment, or fear of risk and failure? (Epictetus, Diogenes, and Epicurus? Odysseus in the Myth of Er at the end of Plato’s 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐?) Nietzsche comes very close to acknowledging the existence and legitimacy of this respectable segment in his brilliant discussion of how philosophers have typically made good use of the ascetic ideal in creating the optimal conditions for their (exceptional) work. (𝐺𝑀, III, 8)
Mightn’t we also be allowed to “interpret” some of these cases through the lens Nisargadatta provided above? The “path of return” (𝑛𝑖𝑣𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖) and “self-naughting” – once it takes hold – is unmistakably a path of shedding and burning away those tendencies and attachments that are both natural and perfectly fitting for those (perhaps always greater in number) whose lives and consciousness are on the “outgoing path” (𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖).
