Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit One: January 31 - February 20

David Potts on
Friedrich Nietzsche's Geneology of Morals 2nd and 3rd Essays

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Friday, February 11, 2000 6:25 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Notes on GM 2nd and 3rd Essays

[From: David L. Potts ]

[In this post, I] ...briefly note some of the more interesting points that
struck my notice in the second and third essays [of The Genealogy of
Morals].

At ii.12-13, Nietzsche articulates a view of creativity as _reorganization_.
If you've been wondering how the blond beasts, acting only on brute
instincts, can be the fount of creativity and culture (an honor I would
hardly expect him to confer upon the herd), the answer is that creativity is
merely a matter of the reorganization, the imposition of a new _form_, upon
whatever is to hand. So long as _any_ "reorganization" counts as creation
(as a building may be "reorganized" into a pile of rubble, for example),
intellect is unnecessary.

In this same passage, reorganization is often referred to as
_reinterpretation_. That is, one important way in which social institutions
are reshaped to new functions involves reinterpreting their meaning in
society, reconceptualizing them as it were. This is a very Foucauldean idea,
and I would expect to find this a favorite passage of Foucault and other
postmodernists.

At ii.16, he seems to say that a social existence requires bad conscience.
Later, he asserts clearly, however, that bad conscience is not something
suffered by the blond beasts of prey but rather something which _they_ force
_others_ to suffer. That further seems to imply that the blond beasts are
not fit for society (society being a thing Nietzsche regards as good),
whereas the herd are not good at being human. Thus human nature itself seems
in a way incoherent for Nietzsche. (This incoherence I think is the source
of many interesting tensions in Essay 2, not just this one.)

There is a very interesting epistemological digression at iii.12, in which
Nietzsche comes very close to identifying the diaphanous model at the heart
of Kant's epistemology.

Finally, at iii.23-25 Nietzsche attacks science as unidealistic. (He also
attacks it as grounded ultimately on faith, but that is less interesting to
me.) This raises a very interesting question for Objectivists: exactly what
is the nature of "objective ideals"?

-David


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Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
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