Civil Commotion

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
IV: How Virtue Is Made to Dominate

§319   A virtuous man is of a lower species because, in the first place, he is not a “person” but acquires his value by conforming with a certain human scheme which has been once and for ever fixed. He has no independent value: he may be compared; he has his equals, he must not be an individual.

Reckoning up the qualities of the good man, why is it that they appear pleasant to us? Because they urge us neither to war, to mistrust, to caution, to the accumulating of forces, nor to severity: our laziness, our good nature and our levity, have a good time. It is this feeling of our well-being that we project into the good man in the form of a quality, as a value.

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
IV: How Virtue Is Made to Dominate

§318   Above all, gentlemen of virtue, you have no superiority over us; we should like to make you take modesty a little more to heart: it is wretched personal interests and prudence which suggest your virtue to you. If you had more strength and courage in your bodies you would not lower yourselves thus to the level of virtuous nonentities. You make what you can of yourselves: partly what you are obliged to make, that is to say, what your circumstances force you to make, partly what suits your pleasure and partly what seems useful to you. But if you do only what is in keeping with your inclinations, or what necessity exacts from you, or what is useful to you, you ought neither to praise yourselves nor let others praise you! One is a thoroughly small kind of man if one is only virtuous: nothing should mislead you in this regard! Men who have to be considered at all, were never such virtuous asses: their inmost instinct, that which determined their quantum of power, did not find its satisfaction thus: whereas with your minimum amount of power, nothing can seem more full of wisdom to you than virtue. But you have numbers on your side: and because you tyrannise over us, we shall make war on you -—

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
IV: How Virtue Is Made to Dominate

§317   Virtue must be defended against the preachers of virtue: they are its worst enemies. For they teach virtue as an ideal for everyone, they divest virtue of the charm which consists in its rareness, its inimitableness, its exceptional and non-average character that is to say, of its aristocratic charm. A stand must also be made against those embittered idealists who eagerly tap all pots and are satisfied to hear them ring hollow: what naivety to demand great and rare things and then to declare, with anger and contempt of one’s fellows, that they do not exist! It is obvious, for instance, that a marriage is worth only as much as those whom it joins together, that is to say, that in general it will be something wretched and inept: no priest or authority can make anything else of it.

Virtue has all the instincts of the average man against it: it is not profitable, it is not prudent and it isolates. It is related to passion and not very accessible to reason; it spoils the character, the head and the senses — always, of course, subject to the average standard of men; it provokes hostility towards order and towards the lies which are concealed beneath all order, all institutions, all reality — when seen in the light of its harmful influence upon others, it is the worst of vices.

I recognise virtue in that

1. it does not insist upon being recognised;

2. it does not presuppose the existence of virtue everywhere, but precisely something else;

3. it does not suffer from the absence of virtue, but regards it rather as a relation of perspective which throws virtue into relief: it does not proclaim itself;

4. it makes no propaganda;

5. it allows no one to pose as judge because it is always a personal virtue;

6. it does precisely what is generally forbidden: virtue as I understand it is the real vetitum within all herd legislation;

7. in short, virtue in the style of the Renaissance, virtu, free from all moralic acid -—.

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
IV: How Virtue Is Made to Dominate

§316   Observe the hypocritical colour in which all civil institutions are painted, just as if they were the offshoots of morality — for instance: marriage, work, one’s profession, patriotism, the family, order and rights. But as they were all established in favour of the most mediocre type of man, to protect him from exceptions and the need of exceptions, one must not be surprised to find them full of lies.

If you think the anti-choice crowd is merely against abortion, you need to look a bit closer; their real aim is to end the availability of contraception.

Discussing plans for the event, Rita Diller, director of STOPP International, stated, “On June 6, we will hit the streets and the Internet to decry the Griswold decision and the havoc the pill brings to women’s lives and to our world. Doctors, nurses, lawyers, clergy, moms, and dads from all walks of life—with facts in hand—will refute the lies of Planned Parenthood and Big Pharma.”

Notice the misdirection: they’re talking about hormonal contraceptives — e.g., the pill, which 50-years of experience has shown to be safe — but attacking Griswold, which struck down a Connecticut law which forbade all contraceptive use and, even, the distribution of literature about contraception. Seriously: These backward-looking morons aren’t going to be happy until they’ve restored the Middle Ages.

Don’t forget this, either: All of us are subsidizing these nuisances via the tax privileges afforded churches and ministries.

UPDATE:   And another thing: Contraception leads to same-sex marriage.

The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan T. Anderson — the fresh face of the movement against marriage equality — agreed with an interviewer last week that the road to marriage equality started with widespread contraception use, saying that the acceptance of gay marriage came about because “we’ve had a culture since the ‘60s, since the sexual revolution, that has largely made a mess of human sexuality, the family and marriage.”

So there.