>[...]As long as we are trapped in the
>Christian worldview, life really is not worth living, since it is past sin
>and the possible afterlife that rules us. We seem to agree thus far. To
>overcome the Christian worldview, one must create a new perspective, that
>of the overman, of which the ER is a essential part.
Christianity is the highest example of "anti-natural morality" or the
"ascetic ideal." It is the high-water mark of the "slave-revolt" against
nature, against life. "Natural morality," on the other hand, reaffirms life
as the ground for all value, and thus as invaluable. It stands not in the
way of life, but is one with life:
"Every naturalism in morality--that is, every healthy morality--is dominated
by an instinct of life; some commandment of life is fulfilled by a
determinate canon of 'shalt' and 'shalt not'; some inhibition and hostile
element on the path of life is thus removed. _Anti-natural_ morality--that
is, almost every morality which has so far been taught, revered, and
preached--turns, conversely, _against_ the instincts of life: it is the
condemnation of these instincts, now secret, now outspoken and impudent."
(Twilight of the Idols, V, 4.)
Natural morality, it seems, has always been the exception, a rarity, even,
one might venture, an aberration. Why is this? Is it not because "morality"
can only serve as a means for life, but never as an end? Anti-natural
morality, which is virtually all morality we have known up until now,
asserts itself as the end of life by which life, itself, might be judged. It
makes "a means of life into a standard of life; instead of discovering the
standard in the highest enhancement of life itself." It is "the means to a
quite distinct kind of life to exclude all other forms of life, in short to
criticize and select life" (Will to Power, 354). However, it would seem that
natural morality, to the degree that it is a "morality," is also a means to
"select life." Its selections, however, run counter to those of anti-natural
morality, for it selects for, rather than against, life. But in so doing, it
discovers its standard "in the highest enhancement of life itself." Natural
morality, however, can never posit itself as the end of life, without
becoming thereby unnatural. It cannot pressume to confer a value back onto
life that then can be used to establish the value of all other things. Life
remains beyond value, beyond good and evil. Life remains invaluable. So, on
what basis does "natural morality" establish its authority, its legitimacy,
its right to command?
"If one severs an ideal from reality one debases the real, one impoverishes
it, one defames it." (Will to Power, 298.)
Natural morality becomes possible, even necessary, on the basis of the
self-destruction of anti-natural morality. The ultimate end-result of
anti-natural morality is complete nihilism, the complete devaluation of the
"real,' of this world (the only world). Natural morality becomes possible,
even necessary, in that from any other perspective the world, the earth, is
ultimatelly denuded of value.
Best,
Steve C.
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