Sorry this is so long but I couldn't bring myself to paraphrase it... I feel it is worth the read.

"He defends his sick herd well enough indeed, this strange shepard - He defends it against itself as well, against what smolders within the herd itself; badness, deceitfulness, maliciousness and whatever else is characteristic of all sick and invalids when among themselves; he fights shrewdly, hard, and secretively against the anarchy and ever-incipient self-dissolution within the herd, where that most dangerous blasting and explosive material, ressentiment, is constantly mounting and mounting. To discharge this explosive in such a way that it does not blow up either the herd or the shepard, that is his true feat, also his supreme usefulness; if one wanted to sum up the value of the priestly mode of existence in the shortest formula one would have to say straight away: the priest changes the direction of ressentiment. For every sufferer instinctively seeks a cause for his suffering; still more precisely, a perpetrator, still more specifically, a guilty perpertrator who is receptive to suffering - in short, some living thing on which, in response to some pretext or other, he can discharge his affects in deed or in effigy: for the discharge of affect is the sufferer's greatest attempt at release, namely at anesthetization - his involuntary craved narcotic against torment of any kind. It is here alone, according to my surmise, that one finds the true physiological casuality of ressentiment, of revenge, and of their relatives - that is, in a longing for anesthetization of pain through affect:- this casuality has been commonly sought, very mistakenly it seems to me, in the defensive counterblow, a mere reactive protective measure, a "reflex movement" in the case of some sudden harm and endagerment, of the kind a frog without a head still carries out in order to get rid of a corrosive acid. But the difference is fundamental: in the one case, one wishes, by means of a more vehement emotion of any kind, to anesthetize a tormenting, secret pain that is becoming unbearable and at least for the moment, to put it out of consciousness - for this one needs an affect, as wild an affect as possible and, for its excitation, the first best pretext. "Someone must be to blame for the fact that I feel bad" - this kind of reasoning is characteristic of all those who are diseased, indeed the more true cause of their feeling bad, the physiological one, remains concealed from them (-it can lie for instance in a sickening of the nervous system or in an excessive secretion of bile, or in a deficiency of potassium sulfate or phosphate in the blood or in pressure conditions in the abdomen that stop circulation of the blood, or in degeneration of the ovaries and the like). Those who suffer are one and all possessed of a horrifying readiness and inventiveness in pretexts for painful affects, they savor even their suspicion, their brooding over bad deeds and apparent curtailments; they dig around after dark questionable stories in viscera of their past and present, where they are free to wallow in a tormenting suspicion and to intoxicate themselves on their own poison of malice - they tear open the oldest wounds, they bleed to death from scars long healed, they make malefactors out of friend, wife, and child and whatever else stands closest to them. "I am suffering: for this someone must be to blame" - thus every diseased sheep thinks. But his shepard, the ascetic priest, says to him: "That's right, my sheep! someone must be to blame for it: but you yourself are this someone, you alone are to blame for it - you alone are to blame for yourself!" That is bold enough, false enough: but for one thing at least has been achieved by it, in this way, as noted, the direction of the ressentiment has been - changed."

I just want to add a bit more which I feel is relevant...

One can now guess that lifes healing-artist instinct has at least attempted through the ascetic priest and to what end a temporary tyranny of such paradoxical and paralogical concepts such as 'guilt,' 'sin,' 'sinfullness,' corruption,' 'damnation,' has had to serve him: to make to a certain degree harmless, to destroy the incurable through themselves, to strictly direct the more mildly sick toward themselves, to give a backwards direction to their ressentiment..." Nietzsche


I think this is an absolute brilliant view of the advantages of religion for the people who need it. Please look past his very evident bias on the subject to see what is being said and if not anything else you have to admit he has a brilliant way of looking at things.

The reason I posted this is not for it's attack (its not really an attack) on religious followers... but for his desire to acknowledge that some people need religion and some people don't... I was wondering if there was any possible way of the two living together but at the same time very seperate - all of our laws and popular beliefs have beginnings in religious beliefs and hold a complete turning away from instinct - basically like Nietzsche says: Not everyone is tame.

[This message has been edited by govinda (edited 12-13-2002).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by govinda:
Sorry this is so long but I couldn't bring myself to paraphrase it... I feel it is worth the read.

---

No, you should have. He's way overrated. This particular rant of excessiveness notwithstanding.

So, priest as pusher eh? I was going to say spiritual counseler, but that's way to tame, lol.

quote:

---

all of our laws and popular beliefs have beginnings in religious beliefs and hold a complete turning away from instinct.

---

This is three-legged logic. Are you saying that because laws don't reflect instinct, that it's because religion didn't?

I agree with most of it.

Though I've always thought the role of the priest was to think of religious things in order that the people need not.

Are you saying that because laws don't reflect instinct, that it's because religion didn't?

I don't really even see how a law in the first place could reflect instinct... but I am saying that I think our laws are based on religious principles and I think it would be interesting idea to see what a true seperation of religion and state entails.

Religion and law are based on the same things.

I agree, and have always seen those societies that had a homogenous moral base to be less hypocritical.

The western world is still largely a Christian society, and this initial (and relatively new) break from religion will probably lead to an almost pure secular society. It could be a difficult time, this transition. And it will be postponed while the challenge from Islam is answered.

And doesn't anybody else find Niezsche's style to be over-the-top? I find that Germans have always had difficulty expressing passion. He hung out with Wagner though, and that's cool.

quote:

---

Originally posted by govinda:
I don't really even see how a law in the first place could reflect instinct...

---

Laws protecting minors are borne out of the procreation instinct.

quote:

---

Originally posted by govinda:
Sorry this is so long but I couldn't bring myself to paraphrase it... I feel it is worth the read.

[i]"He defends his sick herd well enough indeed, this strange shepard - He defends it against itself as well, against what smolders within the herd itself; badness, deceitfulness, maliciousness and whatever else is characteristic of all sick and invalids when among themselves(edited 12-13-2002).]

---

The first part of this: He defends the people from the church; PRIESTS ARE RAPING CHILDREN. Read between the lines, as a teacher might say.

Religion and law are based on the same things.

This is a hard one for me to argue but I disagree. I think the reasons behind the laws are entirely religious... although I don't think they were purposely designed to represent religious ideals, they do.


The western world is still largely a Christian society, and this initial (and relatively new) break from religion will probably lead to an almost pure secular society. It could be a difficult time, this transition. And it will be postponed while the challenge from Islam is answered.

What is this break from religion you are talking about? If you mean like England's laws are devoid of religious motives - then it is no or little different than how America is now.

Laws protecting minors are borne out of the procreation instinct.

yeah I agree... although even this can be seen from more than one angle... what I mean is that a law (the way I see it) usually entails curbing an instinct... I do not see any good reasoning behind laws curbing instinct which leads me to believe they are based on religious ideals.
this is more an idea than an opinion.

As to Nietzsche's style I would be disappointed if it wasn't so over the top... a blase feeling towards your own beliefs would be much worse. That is one of the reasons I dislike analytical philosophers.

I said "western world". And I'm talking about the last 200 years. The seperation of church and state is a reletively new concept.

Regarding law; "curbing instinct" is just the method, whereas protection of the individual is the goal. Even so-called protection-of-self law, like prostitution and drug use. I disagree with protection-of-self though, because it's sometimes used by self-righteous leaders to supress instinct in others, and they are motivated by fear.

quote:

---

This is a hard one for me to argue but I disagree. I think the reasons behind the laws are entirely religious... although I don't think they were purposely designed to represent religious ideals, they do.

---

It depends on your definition of religion. If you go by Defiant's definition of religion as "way of life," then you're correct. The basic laws were established in order to maintain order and promote production, to protect people and their way of life.

Some kinds of religion are a type of law.