Civil Commotion

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality

§297   The vestiges of the depreciation of Nature through moral transcendence: The value of disinterestedness, the cult of altruism; the belief in a reward in the play of natural consequences; the belief in “goodness” and in genius itself, as if the one, like the other, were the result of disinterestedness, the continuation of the Church’s sanction of the life of the citizen; the absolutely deliberate misunderstanding of history (education as a means towards moralisation) or pessimism in the attitude taken up towards history (the latter is just as much a result of the depreciation of Nature, as is that pseudo-justification of history, that refusal to see history as the pessimist sees it).

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality

§296   The great crimes in psychology.

1. That all pain and unhappiness should have been falsified by being associated with what is wrong (guilt). (Thus pain was robbed of its innocence).

2. That all strong emotions (wantonness, voluptuousness, triumph, pride, audacity, knowledge, assurance and happiness in itself) were branded as sinful, as seductive and as suspicious.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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).

6. 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.

• Down in Texas, they’re so overwrought about this summer’s Jade Helm 15 war games that the governor has ordered the State Guard to keep an eye on Uncle Sam’s activities.

  During the training operation, it is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property right and civil liberties will not be infringed. I am directing the Texas State Guard to monitor Operation Jade Helm 15.

  Uh-huh. At least one former Republican state representative was so upset that the governor caved to conspiracy lunatics that he sent an open letter to the governor.

  You are Governor of Texas! This is an open request—from a ghost of our State’s recent Republican past—that you act like it. Enough is enough. You have embarrassed and disappointed all Texans who are also informed, patriotic Americans. And it is important to rational governance that thinking Republicans call you out on it.

  Ghost indeed; the Republicans abandoned rationalism a long time ago.

• Meantime, over at Pyromaniacs, they’re looking for bulletproof language for church constitutions.

  The “Gaystapo” is on the march. We’re where we are thanks to years of rampant relativism, the gospel of “follow your heart,” postmodernism, and Christianoid defection and/or timidity. Any day we may find it knocking at the door of our church, no matter where we are. That this is just one tentacle on an octopus of rebellion against God is beside our point, which (as is my wont here) is very focused.

  I mean to pose to you the question I find surprisingly absent from the blogs I’d expect to take lead on it:

  what language do we need to put in our
  church Constitutions
  to proof us (to any degree) against lawsuits?

  I don’t ask in the interest of evading all persecution. I think that’s coming, and Christians shouldn’t be surprised.

  Oh, yeah — the fearsome gaystapo. One wonders, inevitably, just what kind of persecution he thinks is coming? Did anybody persecute those churches which, just a few years ago, refused to permit interracial couples to enter their sacred precincts? No; nobody persecuted them. They did draw hoots of disdain from the whole of the civilized world — and even, I believe, from some Southern Baptists. But: Just like the church that drew no public sector interference for refusing to allow an interracial couple to attend, the public sector isn’t going to bother a church that won’t conduct same-sex weddings, or permit same-sex couple to attend.

  Excepting the devout, everybody understands the vital distinction at work here: You can have any rules you like inside your own clubhouse, but you can’t expect the rest of the world to follow those same rules outside your clubhouse.

  There is a legitimate tax issue: Should the public be obliged to provide a de facto subsidy to a club whose membership rules are contrary to settled public policy? No. A club can have any rules it likes — but it should not be allowed to exact a compulsory subsidy from its neighbors.

The Wartburg Watch parses yet another church membership contract. This one binds you to the church until it decides it is allright for you to leave and start going someplace else.

Leaving CityView as a way to avoid conflict or avoid a sin-issue is not simply a matter of leaving CityView, but a living, breathing picture of abandoning the Gospel – because that same Gospel has the promise of power in addressing sin and healing damaged relationships. If someone were to leave CityView without addressing a relational conflict or a sin-issue, we could not give our blessing to such a departure until the conflict or sin-issue were settled. In such a situation, an individual or family would NOT be considered departed in good standing.

Well.

The bald fact that a church thinks it needs contracts with its members, and would even consider the possibility of hounding former members through subsequent churches, is disconcerting enough — but they certainly are revelatory. They mean exactly what they say: Y’all are sheep, to be herded this way and that by your betters.

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality

§295   We are heirs to the conscience-vivisection and self-crucifixion of two thousand years: in these two practices lie perhaps our longest efforts at becoming perfect, our mastery and certainly our subtlety; we have associated natural propensities with a bad conscience.

An attempt to produce an entirely opposite state of affairs would be possible: that is to say, to associate all desires of a beyond, all sympathy with things which are opposed to the senses, the intellect and nature in fact, all the ideals that have existed hitherto (which were all anti-worldly), with a bad conscience.