Daybreak Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-09-22T20:01:04+00:00

B O O K I I I

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and warlike souls which are difficult to conquer, whether with fear or

with pity, but which find it useful to grow soft from time to time: but

of what use is tragedy to those who are as open to the 'sympathetic

affections' as sails to the winds! When the Athenians had grown

softer and more sensitive, in the age of Plato - ah, but how far they

still were from the emotionality of our urban dwellers! - the

philosophers were already complaining of the harmfulness of

tragedy. An age full of danger such as is even now commencing, in

which bravery and manliness become more valuable, .will perhaps

again gradually make souls so hard they will have need of tragic

poets: in the meantime, these would be a little superfluous - to put it as

mildly as possible. - For music, too, there may perhaps again come a

better time (it will certainly be a more evil one!) when artists have to

make it appeal to men strong in themselves, severe, dominated by

the dark seriousness of their own passion: but of what use is music tc

the little souls of this vanishing age, souls too easily moved,

undeveloped, half-selves, inquisitive, lusting after everything!

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Those who commend work. - In the glorification of 'work', in the

unwearied talk of the ' blessing of work', I see the same covert idea as

in the praise of useful impersonal actions: that of fear of everything

individual. Fundamentally, one now feels at the sight of work - one

always means by work that hard industriousness from early till late -

that such work is the best policeman, that it keeps everyone in

bounds and can mightily hinder the development of reason,

covetousness, desire for independence. For it uses up an extraordinary

amount of nervous energy, which is thus denied to reflection,

brooding, dreaming, worrying, loving, hating; it sets a small goal

always in sight and guarantees easy and regular satisfactions. Thus a

society in which there is continual hard work will have more security:

and security is now worshipped as the supreme di'·inity. - And now!

Horror! Precisely the 'worker' has become dangerous! The place is

swarming with ' dangerous individuals'! And behind them the

danger of dangers - the individual!

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Moral fashion of a commercial society. - Behind the basic principle of the

current moral fashion: 'moral actions are actions performed out of

sympathy for others', I see the social effect of timidity hiding behind

an intellectual mask: it desires, first and foremost, that all the dangers

which life once held should be removed from it, and that everyone

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