I've been reading quite a bit of Nietzsche lately. I can't say I understand all of what he writes so far, but I am currently going through what may be his greatest work, Beyond Good and Evil, and I get the impression it is, at least in part, an extended meditation on what it means to be noble, or great-souled. I'd like to quote a passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in which Aristotle speaks of the noble person because Nietzsche's ideas were influenced by Aristotle's description, and because it works as a tentative summary.
So, Aristotle on the noble person:
He is fond of conferring benefits, but ashamed to receive them, because the former is a mark of superiority and the latter of inferiority...It is also charateristic of the great-souled men never to ask help from others, or only with reluctance, but to render aid willingly; and to be haughty towards men of position and fortune, but courteous towards those of moderate station...He must be open both in love and in hate, since concealment shows timidity; and care more for the truth than for what people will think;...he is outspoken and frank, except when speaking with ironical self-depreciation, as he does to common people...He does not bear a grudge , for it is not a mark of greatness of soul to recall things against people, especially the wrongs they have done you, but rather to overlook them. He is...not given to speaking evil himself, even of his enemies, except when he deliberately intends to give offence...Such then being the great-souled man, the corresponding character on the side of deficiency is the small-souled man... (Book IV, Chapter 3)
How much of this can we recognize as the modern version of a noble, great-souled, human being? If very little, what does that say about us and our times? Have we fallen in with what Nietzsche calls the herd morality, as characterized by its small-souled denizens? Nietzsche would probably say as much.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Hitchens, an immersive journalist
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