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What is the slave revolt in morality? Why does Nietzsche disapprove of this development?

In Nietzsche's conception, during the Jewish slave revolt in morality, the Jews turned against the idea that only aristocrats were good and instead believed that the powerless were associated with the idea of goodness. Nietzsche describes their ideas as, "Only those who suffer are good, only the poor, the powerless, the lowly are good; the suffering, the deprived, the sick, the ugly, are the only pious people, the only ones saved, salvation is for them...

In Nietzsche's conception, during the Jewish slave revolt in morality, the Jews turned against the idea that only aristocrats were good and instead believed that the powerless were associated with the idea of goodness. Nietzsche describes their ideas as, "Only those who suffer are good, only the poor, the powerless, the lowly are good; the suffering, the deprived, the sick, the ugly, are the only pious people, the only ones saved, salvation is for them alone" (page 17). This is the idea of what he calls ressentiment, or resentment--that the meek shall inherit the earth and that those who suffer and are poor will be saved. The aristocrat and the rich came to be associated with evil and cruelty. Therefore, they were believed to be damned. 


Nietzsche writes that the slave revolt resulted in the Christian idea of the gospel of love, but he warns that this love "grew out of the hatred" (page 18). He asks, "Did Israel not reach the pinnacle of her sublime vengefulness via this very ‘redeemer?'" (page 18). In other words, this form of love, practiced in the Judeo-Christian tradition, was in fact a form of revenge against those it deemed evil.


In addition, he traces the idea of nihilism, or belief in nothing, to the slave revolt. He writes:







"Right here is where the destiny of Europe lies – in losing our fear of man we have also lost our love for him, our respect for him, our hope in him and even our will to be man. The sight of man now makes us tired – what is nihilism today if it is not that?. . . We are tired of man . . ." (page 25).



He believes that the promise of the afterlife has made modern people so indifferent of their present-day happiness that they have slipped into a state of nihilism and a way of life that is dull and uninspiring. He traces this sense of nihilism back to the slave revolt in morality. 





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