Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
V: The Moral Ideal§335 It is difficult to have sufficient respect for man, when one sees how he understands the art of fighting his way, of enduring, of turning circumstances to his own advantage and of overthrowing opponents; but when he is seen in the light of his desires, he is the most absurd of all animals —
It is just as if he required a playground for his cowardice, his laziness, his feebleness, his sweetness, his submissiveness, where he recovers from his strong virile virtues. Just look at man’s “desiderata” and his “ideals”. Man, when he desires, tries to recover from that which is eternally valuable in him, from his deeds; and then he rushes into nonentity, absurdity, the valueless, childishness. The intellectual indigence and lack of inventive power of this resourceful and inventive animal is simply terrible. The “ideal” is at the same time the penalty man pays for the enormous expenditure which he has to pay in all real and pressing duties. Should reality cease to prevail, there follow dreams, fatigue, weakness: an “ideal” might even be regarded as a form of dream, fatigue, or weakness.
The strongest and the most impotent men become alike when this condition overtakes them: they deify the cessation of work, of war, of passions, of suspense, of contrasts, of “reality” — in short, of the struggle for knowledge and of the trouble of acquiring it.
“Innocence” to them is idealised stultification; “blessedness” is idealised idleness; “love”, the ideal state of the herd animal that will no longer have an enemy. And thus everything that lowers and belittles man is elevated to an ideal.