What did Nietzsche mean exactly when he said that Christianity represents the "slave morality"?

Answer 1

Nietzsche was referring to the fear of retribution, much as a slave fears getting lashed with a whip, as the only motivation for behaving morally. He suggests that the Christian promise of heaven vs. the promise of hell is simply living under a tyrannical master.

In human developmental psychology, this kind of morality is among the least mature forms of morality, based primarily on the moral development of a 5-year-old.

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Answer 2

First we must understand his concept of the Master/Slave ideology. Key to Nietzsche's understanding was what he called the "Will to Power". The Will to Power was something that everybody contained, and the best and brightest among us were able to excel in life because of it. The Master (Over-man, ubermench) is a person who's completely at ease with his self, and his world. He constantly strives to make the world better; strengthening himself and the world by competing with others and creating new and novel solutions to problems. The Slave (which he regarded as about 90% of the population) was a person who used what others created enough to get by. This person was by no means excessively lazy, but lacked the levels of ambition that the Super-man had and was willing to live with things as-is. The Super-man was constantly creating art, culture and value for humanity. He excelled in competition, war, and conflict. Not as a way to promote hatred, but as a way to refine himself and continue striving to better the world. The Super-man, says Nietzsche, creates the world, the Slave uses it.

Christianity is an ethic of the Slaves. It preaches peace, tolerance, subservience, brotherhood, oneness. All these things are anathema to the Master. The lack of conflict in the sameness of the Christian society through the subservience to God is a stifling force on the Master. Nietzsche actually looks at history as a narrative of the Slaves overtaking the Master. Even the Slaves have the Will to Power, but they lack the ability to do anything about their situation. HOWEVER, if they work together, their combined power could overtake that of the Masters. Nowhere was this more evident than in the decline of the Roman Empire.

So, when the masses get together and overthrow the Masters, they set up a morality that stresses the values of the Slaves. They stress peace as preferable to conflict. Social interaction and sameness as opposed to exceptional behavior. Slave mentality is stifling to culture, but is built upon the ashes of an older culture of Masters. It uses what was, never creating anything new, and therefore is merely a shambling rotting corpse, stagnant and fetid. Master dominated society is always renewing itself, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes of old.

Christianity represents the triumph of the masses to Nietzsche. Even amongst the elite, the powerful within the Church structure, they still have the slave mentality of Christ and subservience. Only through the subservience to the established order do they maintain power. This is, for Nietzsche, and always was a lie, as this structure can never last forever. The Will to Power will always manifest itself. The Masters will (and did, and do) pretend to have the Slave mentality (religion) to pacify the masses, but really believe nothing of the sort in private.

A great elucidation of this is in his seminal work "Beyond Good and Evil."

"Thus Spake Zarathustra" is a good one, but it's written as a novel in allegorical form, so it's better to have a grounding in Nietzsche before you read it.

Answer 3

i'm agnostic, yet above that, I even have ethics and morals. no person might desire to question how Christian you're. in case you have faith you're a competent one, so who cares approximately others opinion. and that i think of questioning your self approximately debatable subject concerns is a very useful ideas-set, you're making difference interior the worldwide. in simple terms by way of no longer swalling it up each thing you learn which comprise your priest or at church, is a brilliant element. It proves which you nevertheless have a ideas and you're cabaple do use it, and because you're questioning youself, it shows you're conscious of genuine issues interior the worldwide interior a undeniable comunity. do no longer enable all people say you will bypass to hell to think of like that, because of the fact in accordance to Christianity questioning those issues are not sins in any respect... you at the instant are not doubting gods existence, you're questioning truthfully SOCIAL subject concerns. As I reported, i'm no longer Christian... yet we are loose to make your ideas up directly to have faith although we would prefer to and as i discussed in a prevoius answer: all of it finally ends up THAT a similar PURPORSE - to attain the better "element" responsible for each thing! i desire I helped!

Answer 4

Some people need to have a book to which they can point for all their answers to moral questions. Others find moral values from a combination of their life experiences and looking deep inside themselves.

Answer 5

Well he thought that being meek and obedient and charitable was a sign of weakness, but you must know by experience how much easier it is to go out to the streeet and shout things or to mistreat others as a moslem you must know that, requires much more tre manliness to respect others and to avoid being brainwashed by the latest carzy shout from any who

Answer 6

That the morality COMMANDED unto Christians is enforced by torture. It's not morality at all because it is not based on empathy or any value placed on individuals. It is simply rules barked by a fictional tyrant.

Maybe that's what he meant, cuz he was pretty smart, and that's how it really is.

Answer 7

Quick answer: Christianity says that being oppressed in this life is acceptable, because you will be rewarded in the next life. In that sense, it promotes slaves not rebelling against their masters, which is "slave morality."

Long answer: Skalite will provide it (hopefully).

Answer 8

He was also the person that taught that "inferior people" should be exterminated, and the spark that ignited Hitler on his merry way to exterminating anyone who HE thought was inferior.

An extension of radical Darwinism.

You might study how his life ended, and how happy he was then as well!

I would not accept his teachings! Hitler did though!

Peace!

P.S. Nietzsche went insane for the last 10 years of his life, and while you won't find the information everywhere, there is a un-denyable link between him and Hitler.

Google Nietzsche and Hitler, Hitler was a student of him.