In such a period where the effort of philosophy is strongly empirical, the soul also has been sacrificed. But because it has been sacrificed, in a way the sacrifice renews religion. People sacrifice themselves to God. This can be seen in the way of Kierkegaard, as he sacrifices his entire will to power to engage a God that has been denied by his rational world. But in Nietzsche's world, since that God has been sacrificed by science, there is nothing left but nihilism and pessimism. This tightens the grip upon the lonely and questing individual. Such a thought would only enliven and strengthen the will to power of the self as free spirit.
Nietzsche's method is rich and does not stop in its pronouncements. Christianity has made a value of protecting the weak and the sick so much so that to suffer and to be weak become values as against the strength of the strong spiritual man. Because of this Europe has become weakened and its people mediocre. The slave revolt of morality, the track of Judeo-Christian religion, has led to the weakened people resenting the strong and saving their own strength for the afterlife. In this case religion forces the self to deny an aggression that could be rewarding and fulfilling. The self is instead plunged into nihilism. But perhaps even this nihilism has no grounding.
For example, how does one interpret "There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause." This is number 180 of the epigrams. All of the one sentence epigrams are written to show the deep conflicts of the self, how on the surface there is one interpretation that can easily lead to its opposite. There is no way to accept an interpretation without meeting its direct conflict. Hence a will to power is extended to crush the conflict and move over it. The effect is like a seesaw in which the self finds itself and then looses itself: "The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness" (155). If one were a slave to morality, then one would deny sensuousness and accept tragedy, or one would accept sensuousness and deny tragedy. Would the moral person deny tragedy and accept sensuousness? Would the priest?
Yes, the priest would. Because "... when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you" (146). The self takes shape as something which can deny something. The something which is denied and is buried keeps coming out and perhaps keeps changing. The will to power will always re-create it until the abyss is no longer denied, but pursued with a Kierkegaardian leap to faith over it and the expression of a self of free will and inner power.
But how easy it is for the self to lose its questing for the inert peacefulness of the herd. The self continues to pay Comcast Cable TV bills without analyzing them while knowing that the company does everything it can to up the price of the bill. But the self acquiesces to the herd mentality and does not go line by line over the bill. So Comcast can safely assume the macroeconomic principles of growth without being offended by a crazed Nietzschean. Yet for Nietzsche it is for the will to power to turn upon itself and sublimate itself to obedience. Perhaps it is the Dionysian spirit subsuming to the Apollonian spirit. And in the case of true discipline, perhaps great art is created.
The self either expresses the slave or the master morality. The slave must get his appraisal from others, the master draws his appraisal from himself and from the slaves who hate him. The free spirit must force herself from this arrangement and perhaps does for awhile. But then finds it possible and better to wear a mask of subsistence...
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