Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality§296 The great crimes in psychology.
That all pain and unhappiness should have been falsified by being associated with what is wrong (guilt). (Thus pain was robbed of its innocence).
That all strong emotions (wantonness, voluptuousness, triumph, pride, audacity, knowledge, assurance and happiness in itself) were branded as sinful, as seductive and as suspicious.
That feelings of weakness, inner acts of cowardice, lack of personal courage, should have decked themselves in the most beautiful words and have been taught as desirable in the highest degree.
That greatness in man should have been given the meaning of selflessness, self-sacrifice for another’s good, for other people; that even in the scientist and the artist, the elimination of the individual personality is presented as the cause of the greatest knowledge and ability.
That love should have been twisted round to mean submission (and altruism), whereas it is in reality an act of appropriation or of bestowal, resulting in the last case from a superabundance in the wealth of a given personality. Only the most complete person can love; the disinterested, the “objective” are the worst lovers (just ask the girls!) This principle also applies to the love of God or patriotism: a man must be able to rely absolutely upon himself. (Egotism may be regarded as the pre-eminence of the ego, altruism as the pre-eminence of others).
Life regarded as a punishment (happiness as a means of seduction); the passions regarded as devilish; confidence in one’s self as godless.
The whole of psychology is a psychology of prevention, a kind of defensiveness built out of fear; on the one hand we find the masses (the underprivileged and mediocre) defending themselves, by means of it, against the stronger ( — and to destroy them in their development — ), on the other hand, we find all the instincts with which these classes are best able to prosper, sanctified and alone held in honour by them. Compare the Jewish priesthood.