Nietzsche: the Conscience Essay Example

is to stay in the memory it must be burned in: only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory” (Nietzsche 1989b, p.

61). Therefore, the central stimuli in the formation of conscience are this sense of responsibility and a trained memory. Nietzsche says that while our current view of guilt is associated with accountability and responsibility; this has not always been the case. In more ancient societies, guilt was more simply equivalent to debt.

For example, if one failed to fulfill a promise to another, the person who has een let down could punish them somehow to make up for the wrongdoing. This would give the person who was wronged a good feeling because if he could not get what he really wanted in the first place, he could at least inflict some sort of punishment upon the person who wronged him. At this point the matter would be settled and the two parties would see each other as being even. This type of system helps to ensure that people will not fail to uphold their promises more than once, but more importantly it allows for a more “cheerful” society. Even though the act of punishing another may be “cruel”, it is simple.You commit a wrongdoing, you make up for it by submitting to punishment, and everyone is even.

Both parties feel fulfilled. This is not how is happens in todays world. The feeling of bad conscience looms over those who fail to keep promises as regardless of punishment we are still being judged by society and ourselves. Having dismissed punishment This creditor/debtor relationship applies not only from person to person, but

from person to society.

A society that provides shelter, protection, and other benefits to its members also puts them in debt, even if not for anything other than its existence.An important difference between older civilizations and more modern ones is that in the past the member of society who was wronged was the force who would uphold justice; but in more modern society, it is the community itself that does this. The person offended does not enjoy the gratification of being the one to punish the person who has done him wrong. Therefore the institution of law ends up facilitating feelings of ressentiment in individuals who are offended, by denying them their drives, contributing to general unhappiness in a society .Nietzsche points out that while the act of punishing remains the same in both the more primitive and the more modern societies, the meaning behind the acts are different. This distinction between meaning and act not only applies to punishment, but to almost all moral concepts.

For example, the act of harming a person whether it is for the purpose of self-preservation, or to exercise power over another, is still the same act. The difference lies in the will of the person who is performing or interpreting the act. The will to power, which Nietzsche identifies as an instinct for freedom, is the drive to avoid being dominated by another.Man is forced to subdue this instinct, as well as other instincts and drives in order to participate in modern society. In a specific adaptation of the debitor-creditor relation that was discussed earlier, we owe our ancestors a debt of gratitude for making our society prosperous,

at least to the extent that we continue to exist. The more prosperous the society in which an individual find himself, the more debt he find himself owing.

It is this situation man is forced to suppress his natural instincts, particularly his will to power, in order to be a social animal reaping the benefits of society.This ironically is done for the sake of survival. “I regard the bad conscience as the serious illness that man was bound to contract under the stress of the most fundamental change he ever experienced—that change which occurred when he found himself finally enclosed within the walls of society and of peace..

. in this new world they no longer possessed their former guides, their regulating, unconscious and infallible drives: they were reduced to thinking, inferring, reckoning, co-ordinating cause and effect, these unfortunate creatures; they were reduced to their “consciousness,” their weakest and most fallible organ! (Nietzsche 1989b, p. 84). “… All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward—this is what I call the internalization (Verinnerlichung) of man: thus it was that man first developed what was later called his “soul.

” The entire inner world, originally as thin as if it were stretched between two membranes, expanded and extended itself, acquired depth, breadth, and height, in the same measure as outward discharge was inhibited. ” (Nietzsche 1989b, p. 84). When humans are compelled to not act, the drive to act is blocked from outward expression.This leads the drive to turn inward, devoid of physical manifestation, it becomes a thought within the consciousness. Since we cannot activate our will to power within the external world, we exercise it

internally.

This indebtedness of member of a society towards its founders evolves retroactively as the ancestors are transformed into Gods. Other members feel so indebted that they sacrifice and perform other rituals to pay tribute. Once the founders are seen as Gods, the laws that they imposed on the society become more than just laws created by men, but divine laws.The spiritual presence of the ancestors becomes dangerous, interfering in the lives of society members.

The moral code becomes one of guilt and debt, a debt that can never be repaid, and therefor a guilty conscience that can never be mended. Once the member comes to the realization that this is an impossible position to be in, he tries to project this guilt elsewhere. It is projected either on the primal ancestors, on nature are a primordial source of evil, or on existence in general. This paints an image of a suffering human existence which one is then forced to try to escape.

Nietzsche cites the Greeks solution to this problem, which was to admit to the imperfections of mankind to relieve their guilt. The Gods that they believed in justified man because the Gods themselves were evil. The Greeks did not have this perfect Christian God looming in the back of their minds telling them that what they thought and felt was morally wrong. A God that shunned them with original sin who was molded to promote the political and moral agenda of a particular group. From all of this, it may seem like Nietzsche simply labels the past, before internalization of drives, as “good” and the present as “bad,” but this is not the

case.

While Nietzsche certainly speaks badly about the bad conscience, he does acknowledge that human history has progressed from past to present. While mankind in the past may have been more cheerful, free-spirited and uninhibited, they were strictly governed by their instincts. Their will to power was always directed externally, which allowed for cruel acts to be committed on a more regular basis. They had no interest in themselves, so they did not make any attempt at understanding themselves.While the formation of more modern societies created the bad conscience, it also created the inner life of mankind.

According to Nietzsche, this made mankind more “interesting” and more deep as we became less like other animals. It is therefore, in objecting to contemporary society, not Nietszche’s position that we should regress back to a more barbaric way of life. Instead, he insists on pushing forward. Since our inner life is a struggle involving our will to power turning inward, Nietszche wants mankind to overcome the struggle so that we are rid of our bad conscience and ressentiment.