On the Genealogy of Morality (book, Friedrich Nietzsche)

**Preface**

1. Look, we're all pretty confused. And we want answers to our burning questions.
2. For instance, why are we declining morally as a society? I have some ideas about this, and I've been thinking about them for a long time, which makes them worth writing down.
3. Ever since I was a kid, I've wondered where the ideas of good and evil came from. And since then, I've also wondered whether the ideas of good and evil are really good for humanity, and how they've evolved.
4. I first wrote something about these questions after reading *The Origin of Moral Sensations* by Paul Ree and disagreeing with a lot of what he said, albeit with respect for his intelligence.
5. One of the topics I explored was the value (or lack thereof) of compassion. Most philosophers up until modern times agreed that compassion is worthless.
6. Up until now, no one has questioned whether or not good or evil are really healthy ideas for humanity.
7. If we explore the genealogy of morality, its history back to its origins, we may someday build a truer, cheerfully whole understanding of morality.
8. If you have a hard time with this text, it's not really my fault. Make sure you read my earlier works, and remember that aphorisms require time and rumination to understand.

**First essay: 'Good and Evil', 'Good and Bad'**

1. We have to thank the English for proposing a genealogy of morality, but they are so perverse in their efforts to explore the most obscure and undesirable parts of humanity that it's not easy.
2. The English think that actions deemed useful over time became deemed good by virtue of their consistent usefulness, but this is wrong. Good and bad have nothing to do with usefulness; they're means by which the "good" people have historically distinguished themselves socially and hierarchically from the "bad" people.
3. Another thing about the English theory: it doesn't make sense that people would "forget" the usefulness of those things which prove themselves persistently to be useful.
4. It's no coincidence that "good" etymologically is tied to the nobility, whilst "bad" shares etymological associations with the common and the lower-class.
5. Historically, people in power have associated their privilege with morally superior traits.
6. Priests took that moral superiority a step further by distinguishing themselves from the aristocracy and calling themselves "pure." But their visions of purity have caused neurosis and confusion time and again.
7. Priests (and especially the Jews) are more dangerous than the aristocracy because, being powerless, they are more filled with hate and suggest that any form of power is akin to evil, while suffering is good.
8. Consider that from Jewish priestly, powerless hatred sprang Jesus, who, in toppling Judaism, also poisoned forever the aristocratic vision of good and evil.
9. And Judaism, by way of Christianity, has won, so that the morality of the common people has toppled the original good of the aristocracy. The poison is spreading, and nothing can stop it outright.
10. Whereas the noble conceives of himself as good, the common man conceives first of the evil of the noble man. Filled with resentment, the common man hates first while the noble man loves himself first.
11. Whereas the nobles envision good and evil within themselves (perceiving the commoners as bad rather than evil), the commoners envision their enemies as evil and themselves as good.
12. All of this is exhausting, but we must keep our faith in man if we are to avoid nihilism.
13. Common people conceive of themselves as good in opposition to the powerful, but the powerful cannot help but express their power by exploiting the weak. To separate the powerful from the act of exploiting power is a delusion.
14. Conceiving of their goodness in opposition to the powerful, the common people pervert the qualities of weakness (impotence, servility, etc.) into the qualities of goodness, ultimately perverting their hate of the nobility into the negative source of their "brotherly love" for one another.
15. Consider how the common people view the reward for their "good" weakness as eternal freedom and power, and also the punishment of those they hate, the powerful.
16. The battle between the noble division society between good and bad and the common division of society between good and evil has been waged for thousands of years, and although Judaea toppled Rome, the war is not over.
17. So you can see now why it might be better for humanity to move beyond conceptions of good and evil (albeit not necessarily good and bad). And there's much work yet to be done exploring good and evil's genealogy.