Historicity of Jesus - 2

[ramana]

Brilliant post by Brihaspati in BRF..

Although OT, there are parallel undercurrents within western philosophy - besides Hegel or Kant, like Nietzsche. Should we also not consider what he says about the "west", Christianity, "morality", power, etc? From wiki, which is a good summary : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche





In Daybreak Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality".[48] He calls himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral schemes of his day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism. In Ecce Homo Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of good and evil a "calamitous error",[49] and wished to initiate a re-evaluation of the values of the Judeo-Christian world.[50] He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.



In both these works, Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of master-slave morality occupies a central place. Nietzsche presents master-morality as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece. Here, value arises as a contrast between good and bad, or between 'life-affirming' and 'life-denying': wealth, strength, health, and power, the sort of traits found in a Homeric hero, count as good; while bad is associated with the poor, weak, sick, and pathetic, the sort of traits conventionally associated with slaves in ancient times.



Slave-morality, in contrast, comes about as a reaction to master-morality. Nietzsche associates slave-morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions. Here, value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission; evil seen as worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche sees slave-morality born out of the ressentiment of slaves. It works to overcome the slave's own sense of inferiority before the (better-off) masters. It does so by making out slave weakness to be a matter of choice, by, e.g., relabeling it as "meekness."



Nietzsche sees the slave-morality as a source of the nihilism that has overtaken Europe. In Nietzsche's eyes, modern Europe, and its Christianity, exists in a hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality, both values contradictorily determining, to varying degrees, the values of most Europeans (who are "motley").Nietzsche calls for exceptional people to no longer be ashamed of their uniqueness in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which Nietzsche deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. However, Nietzsche cautions that morality, per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses, and should be left to them. Exceptional people, on the other hand, should follow their own "inner law." A favorite motto of Nietzsche, taken from Pindar, reads: "Become what you are."



More relevant for this thread is his use and construction of the Brahmin, "Manu" and his "law", as a kind of source for all enlightenment and perhaps even a barely conscious mechanism to deconstruct the "western/Christian" claim to "superiority".



I will try to post some relevant material : though not sure if it will be relevant here. We are not discussing India's nationhood as yet, are we?