Morality As Anti-Nature
MORALITY AS ANTI-NATURE
TARGET AUDIENCE: 10TH GRADERS IN TOMAHAWK
PURPOSE: TO SUMMARIZE Friedrich Nietzsche, a prominent German philosopher in the 19th century is one of the most well-read philosophers of the past two-centuries. His ideas regarding morality and nature continue to be discussed and debated to this day among scholars of all beliefs. All living things are given desires by nature. These desires exist as part of who we are. They define us in a way; they can aid us and they can also do us great harm. The cardinal sin of Pride, for instance, can be a good thing, to have pride in yourself and your abilities, and be able to brag about them may be what stands between you and another person applying for the same job. But according to the Bible, it is a sin. So the other person might have the moral high ground, but you will end up with the job. Which is better? Only you can decide that for yourself. Another way to look at it is this. You have a great passion for reading, but morality says that reading is evil. So you deny yourself the pleasure of a good book, magazine article or even a street sign in order to follow what someone else has deemed to be a moral code. You are denying your true self, for no other purpose, but to be accepted in society. In your heart, and in your mind, you know that reading is no more evil that breathing, but because society has told you differently, you ignore reality. To Nietzsche, denying your own passions is like denying reality. If your passions were a tiger, a strong man would catch the tiger and tame it. A weak man would at least run away. But it is only a fool who pretends that the tiger doesn't exist. The greatest of moralities are those that accomodate nature... the weakest of moralities are those that deny it. Even though many people at the time truly believed that the church provided them a great direction in life, Nietzsche strongly disagreed. Nietzsche believed that following a religion is to
TARGET AUDIENCE: 10TH GRADERS IN TOMAHAWK
PURPOSE: TO SUMMARIZE Friedrich Nietzsche, a prominent German philosopher in the 19th century is one of the most well-read philosophers of the past two-centuries. His ideas regarding morality and nature continue to be discussed and debated to this day among scholars of all beliefs. All living things are given desires by nature. These desires exist as part of who we are. They define us in a way; they can aid us and they can also do us great harm. The cardinal sin of Pride, for instance, can be a good thing, to have pride in yourself and your abilities, and be able to brag about them may be what stands between you and another person applying for the same job. But according to the Bible, it is a sin. So the other person might have the moral high ground, but you will end up with the job. Which is better? Only you can decide that for yourself. Another way to look at it is this. You have a great passion for reading, but morality says that reading is evil. So you deny yourself the pleasure of a good book, magazine article or even a street sign in order to follow what someone else has deemed to be a moral code. You are denying your true self, for no other purpose, but to be accepted in society. In your heart, and in your mind, you know that reading is no more evil that breathing, but because society has told you differently, you ignore reality. To Nietzsche, denying your own passions is like denying reality. If your passions were a tiger, a strong man would catch the tiger and tame it. A weak man would at least run away. But it is only a fool who pretends that the tiger doesn't exist. The greatest of moralities are those that accomodate nature... the weakest of moralities are those that deny it. Even though many people at the time truly believed that the church provided them a great direction in life, Nietzsche strongly disagreed. Nietzsche believed that following a religion is to