Nietzsche's Critique of Judeo-Christian Values
Nietzsche’s critique of Judeo-Christian values
As perhaps one of the most important pieces of work written by Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morality” contains some of his most complex and provocative thoughts on the nature of morality and its origins. It is evident throughout his essays that Nietzsche has a profound discontent with modern society and its values, a discontent that Nietzsche attempts to explain through a thorough critique of the modern values that have stemmed from the rise of Judeo-Christianity values that have shaped today’s civilization. In his analysis of concepts such as morality and guilt, he explores the history of the deformation of the once noble and animalistic human society that succumbed to its death at the hands of Christian morals. Through an unforgiving critique of Judeo-Christian values, Nietzsche argues that the loss of the human animal comes as a result of the slave revolt that destroyed the once pure and idolized form of living characterized by the ancient nobles. In this essay, I will evaluate and deconstruct Nietzsche’s analysis of why and how he associates the rise of Jewish and Christian morality with the uprising he aptly names the “slave revolt in morality,” and to what extent these Judeo-Christians values differ from that of the nobles.
In Nietzsche’s philosophy, the slave revolt in morality develops as a direct result of the emergence of Judeo-Christian morality. In order to fully understand why Nietzsche so adamantly correlates the two, one must first understand the origins and the essence of the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ through the lenses of ‘Master Morality’ and ‘Slave Morality’. The idea of ‘good’ was originally a term created and implemented by the ‘good’ themselves, that is to say, “the noble, the mighty, the high-placed and high-minded, who saw and judged themselves and their actions as good” (Nietzsche 11). In contrast, those who possessed the undesirable traits of being common, plebian, and low-minded
As perhaps one of the most important pieces of work written by Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morality” contains some of his most complex and provocative thoughts on the nature of morality and its origins. It is evident throughout his essays that Nietzsche has a profound discontent with modern society and its values, a discontent that Nietzsche attempts to explain through a thorough critique of the modern values that have stemmed from the rise of Judeo-Christianity values that have shaped today’s civilization. In his analysis of concepts such as morality and guilt, he explores the history of the deformation of the once noble and animalistic human society that succumbed to its death at the hands of Christian morals. Through an unforgiving critique of Judeo-Christian values, Nietzsche argues that the loss of the human animal comes as a result of the slave revolt that destroyed the once pure and idolized form of living characterized by the ancient nobles. In this essay, I will evaluate and deconstruct Nietzsche’s analysis of why and how he associates the rise of Jewish and Christian morality with the uprising he aptly names the “slave revolt in morality,” and to what extent these Judeo-Christians values differ from that of the nobles.
In Nietzsche’s philosophy, the slave revolt in morality develops as a direct result of the emergence of Judeo-Christian morality. In order to fully understand why Nietzsche so adamantly correlates the two, one must first understand the origins and the essence of the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ through the lenses of ‘Master Morality’ and ‘Slave Morality’. The idea of ‘good’ was originally a term created and implemented by the ‘good’ themselves, that is to say, “the noble, the mighty, the high-placed and high-minded, who saw and judged themselves and their actions as good” (Nietzsche 11). In contrast, those who possessed the undesirable traits of being common, plebian, and low-minded