by Gurleen K. Kulaar
I do not know everything. Nobody does, and anyone who claims they do actually does not, but they do not know that they actually do not know. Mankind is inherently ignorant, and Friedrich Nietzsche explores this complicated and humbling account of man in On the Genealogy of Morality, exploring how little people know themselves. Throughout the text Nietzsche highlights sources of this ignorance a person has of themselves; power structures, such as religious institutions or a noble hierarchy, are shown as enablers and supporters of the continuation of man’s ignorance. Power structures declare what is “good,” thus creating an opposition by declaring what is “bad.” In making this rigid distinction with their seemingly unmovable power, a person does not question the powerful people making this claim that defines an individual’s understanding of their morality. Not knowing the origin of “good” and “bad” and lacking the information that would aid one to expand their knowledge of their inner self contributes to the ignorance they have towards themselves as well. Furthermore, when the definitions of “good” and “bad” that society has said to be true are accompanied with the ideas of “debt” and “guilt,” they work to influence one’s consciousness, specifically their bad conscience, through the means of external forces. Religious institutions work to keep this ignorance intact, misguiding individuals and working towards their self-satisfactory needs. However, these religious leaders and nobles from powerful structures are nothing but people themselves. They too are subjected to this ignorance that Nietzsche describes, and acknowledging and attempting to understand this aids one to see their morality as something that can be influenced by society. Therefore, society makes man ignorant through the means of power structures that declare moral values that dictate how one understands their moral self, ultimately proving that man does not know and will never know themselves completely.
What is “good” or “bad” is defined by power structures, notably nobles and people of “higher-ranking” (10), thus the foundations of a person’s ignorance are created by other people—the only difference is how much power these people have. Nietzsche puts forth a “new challenge” of critiquing “moral values, for once the value of these values must itself be called into question—and for this we need a knowledge of the conditions and circumstances out of which they have grown, under which they have developed and shifted” (5). He emphasizes that there were specific ways in which the ideas of what is “good” and “bad” came from, and that these ideas evolved, ultimately becoming “good” and “evil” (22). The foundation of humankind’s ignorance of themselves comes from what their sense of morality is and what they believe to be true. In how these initial definitions of what is “good” and “bad,” and then what is “evil,” are established, an individual reaches a limited sense of their moral values because they cannot question the declarations made by those in power. When “the noble, powerful, higher-ranking, and high-minded […] felt and ranked themselves and their doings good,” they “took themselves the right to create values [and] to coin names for values.” In doing so, the contrasting “base, low-minded, common, and vulgar” (10) became considered as the “‘below’” (11), and this difference between the “higher ruling nature” and “lower nature” created “the opposition ‘good’ and ‘bad’” (11). This condition and circumstance form a rigid dichotomy between “good” and “bad” by people who exist in society as seemingly unmovable forces. If there is no space to question these definitions of “good” and “bad,” no space to critique moral values as Nietzsche does, then there is no space for one’s unawareness of themselves to lessen and no space for one to expand their knowledge of their own morality.
The foundation of humankind’s ignorance of themselves comes from what their sense of morality is and what they believe to be true, but these beliefs come from “the nobles [who] felt themselves to be humans of higher rank,” and no matter what the “words and roots that designate ‘good’” are, this “main nuance still shimmers through.” The nobles—the powerful—gave themselves titles that reflected their “superiority in power,” and simultaneously they claim to be “the truthful” (13). The assurance people have of their own power in society contributes to not only how much faith is put into these powerful figures and their declarations of morality, but also how everyone else is perceived in relation to them. Those who are not in powerful positions are seen as “base, low-minded, common, and vulgar” (10) only because it is the obvious opposite to the “good.” Even when the people of the “lower nature” (11) declare the nobles as “evil” (22), thereby shifting meanings of “good” and redefining moral values, they declare themselves as “good” only because the nobles are seen as “evil.” The relationship between powerful structures and how one understands their moral self still exists, thus power structures directed by humankind become the source of humankind’s ignorance of themselves, and the development and evolution of these moral values also allow the same powerful people to control and shape the unawareness humankind has of themselves.
As individuals’ ideas of “good,” “bad,” and “evil” are difficult to question and are inextricably linked to nobles, one’s ignorance of themselves is further developed when one learns of their conscience, specifically their bad conscience. An obvious assumption would be that if one is aware of their deep consciousness then they would attain a sense of self-awareness. However, not knowing the source of “bad conscience” allows for it to be controlled and misguided by powerful figures. Nietzsche argues that the “‘bad conscience’” forms when “the instincts of the wild free roaming human,” such as, “Hostility, cruelty, pleasure in persecution, in assault, in change, in destruction” begin “turning itself against the possessors of such instincts” (57). This “internalizing” (57) of instincts allows for the “bad conscience” to be in a state of vulnerability all the time because it is constantly fighting the repression of the “wild” and “free” (57) ways that humans used to function, according to Nietzsche. The human conscience is host to one’s greatest moral struggles, so having it exist where part of it—the “bad conscience”—is essentially constructed through what feelings can be expressed and what cannot, allows for those “wild” feelings that have internalized to be defined by powerful figures. Through punishment, for example, in which the creditor and debtor dynamic informs who punishes whom and why (45), an “increase of fear, a sharpening of prudence, [and a] mastery of appetites” is achieved; therefore, “punishment tames man, but it does not make him ‘better’” (56). A powerful figure, who takes the place of the creditor, attempts to control and manipulate the “wild” (57) parts of a person, and dictates what instincts should always be repressed through punishing actions influenced by said instincts. If these instincts are the ones that give reason to these punishable actions, but the origins of the true reasons behind these actions are unknown to the creditor and the debtor—the punisher and the punished—then the punishments only work to distance a person from the origins of their actions. Thus, the imposition of punishment which enables the “bad conscience” to grow enforces the development of the ignorance a person has regarding themselves.
The idea of controlling what is known or unknown by people is also supported by the idea of “debt,” which developed and transformed into “guilt” in the modern day (39). This idea of thinking “‘the criminal has earned his punishment because he could have acted otherwise’—is in fact a sophisticated form of human judging and inferring that was attained extremely late” (39). A new idea, a new way to dictate what is “good” or “evil;” this has its roots in the creditor and debtor dynamic—it comes from what an individual owes to another person. In the modern day, this “guilt” in not giving a person what one owes feeds into the conscience, thus it influences what one thinks is right or wrong— “good” or “evil”—and it influences what they feel guilty about and to whom they feel this guilt towards. However, the unawareness of where this idea of guilt is coming from—the unawareness that powerful structures have assisted in constructing humans’ guilt because of previous power dynamics—allow powerful figures today to continue to control and direct an individual’s guilt, furthermore their “bad conscience,” and their overall ideas of moral values in whichever way benefits the power structures said figures represent. Again, in not knowing how a thing exists, power structures can control this ignorance and use it to their own advantage. This works because “However well one has grasped the utility of some physiological organ (or of a legal institution, a social custom, a political practice, a form in the arts or in a religious cult), one has still not comprehended anything regarding its genesis” (51). Nietzsche stresses that knowing—or believing to know—the reason for the existence of something like a moral value does not equate to knowing how it exists in the first place. Lacking knowledge of this how perpetuates and increases the ignorance a person holds towards themselves, and power structures attempt to answer this how in ways that ensure this ignorance remains for the sake of their own needs. When this is controlled then a large part of the human conscience is controlled and how one understands their morality is controlled as well. Furthermore, the act of ensuring a person’s ignorance of themselves deviates one from the original how of moral values and concepts, like the “bad conscience” that forms a person’s understanding of themselves.
A bad conscience and feelings of guilt are inevitable in the modern day, and arguably necessary in current society. However, since the general population of humankind are unaware of the origins of guilt, bad conscience, and other moral values, the way these are defined can be changed by people who benefit from this development of one’s sense of morality, who benefit from one’s internal suffering. Power structures “fabricate ideals” that Nietzsche sees embedded in “sheer lies” (27). They construct these “lies” to veil the original impetuses of moral values and this contributes to how ignorant a person is towards themselves because the origin, the how, of such values are manipulated to fulfill the “higher-ranking” (10) people’s needs. However, the individuals who represent these structures are unaware of the original motivation of their actions themselves. They are merely responding to their deep instincts that vouch for what would now be considered as part of one’s “bad conscience.” Whatever “feeling of satisfaction comes from being permitted to vent his power without a second thought on one who is powerless” reflects “the carnal delight ‘de faire le mal pour le plaisir de la faire,’ the enjoyment of doing violence” (41) in people that are part of power structures. For example, when individuals represent religious institutions, such as priestly figures in Christianity, they work to enforce a creditor-debtor dynamic between an individual and a Christian god. However, the religious figure themselves also act as partial creditors because an individual goes to them to help them understand their morality and they owe the religious figure—a priest perhaps—their belief in not only God, but the abilities of the priest to give them meaning. Therefore, the internal suffering of a person benefits and pleases the “wild” (57) instincts repressed in the priest. The unawareness the priest holds regarding what drives their motivations, and the unawareness an individual holds regarding their morality which makes them go to a religious figure or to a god, ensures that this ignorance Nietzsche speaks of which exists across humankind, prevails.
If religious figures, like priests, have instincts that tell them to conduct actions that would satisfy their repressed, “wild” (57) selves, but are unaware that their priesthood is an outlet for their repressed instincts to act, then they too are subjected to this unawareness that Nietzsche claims everyone has because they too do not know the true source of their cruelty. Religious institutions as a whole do not generally see their actions as cruel because they offer “the meaningless suffering…that thus far lay stretched out over humanity…a meaning” (117); but, to give suffering meaning, suffering itself must exist first. The creation of suffering, defining and declaring moral values as the nobles did or using the “bad conscience” for the needs of powerful structures, ensures the existence of human ignorance towards oneself. When one uses the unknown and plays with others’ moral values for their own benefit, as well as to achieve a goal for the power structure(s) in question—goals could be maintaining belief in a god or keeping the hierarchy of social statuses alive—a person is prevented from getting closer to the true source of their suffering. For example, Nietzsche suggests that “The rise of the Christian god as the maximum god that has been attained thus far therefore also brought a maximum of feelings of guilt into appearance on earth” (62), and that perhaps “the origin of the gods [is] an origin…out of fear!” (61). An aspect of one’s morality that has defined the “bad conscience” in the modern day is used to maintain and justify the existence of a god. Guilt being used and suggesting some sort of debt is owed to said god, encourages the development of a “bad conscience” that needs guidance. It encourages the idea that one can not know themselves on their own and must turn to some higher power—that could be a god or a noble or a religious figure—to answer their questions of their morality. When the answers come from fabricated ideals (27), when the answers work to satisfy another person’s repressed instincts who happens to be in a position in power in the modern world, then the awareness a person has of their true morality is further distanced from them. Nietzsche speaks about what religious institutions will do to a person and how it ensures suffering:
that will to self-torment, that suppressed cruelty of the animal-human who had been made inward, scared back into himself, of the one locked up in the ‘state’ for the purpose of taming, who invented the bad conscience in order to cause himself pain after the more natural outlet for this desire to cause pain was blocked, —this man of bad conscience has taken over the religious presupposition in order to drive is self-torture to its most gruesome severity and sharpness. Guilt before God; this thought becomes an instrument of torture for him. (63)
Guiding a “bad conscience” and ensuring a form of guilt exists towards “God” is just another way of ensuring suffering exists for the sake of some greater structure, like religion. Moral values that have been defined in the past are further moulded to appease to the needs of the power structures and the people who represent them, but as previously said, these representatives of power structures are ignorant of themselves too.
Nobody knows everything. Regardless of how much power a person may hold, it remains that “We are unknown to ourselves, we knowers” (1). The true source, the how, regarding morality will forever remain unknown because the development and evolution of moral values is a constant; that is why humankind is unknown to itself: “for good reason. We have never sought ourselves—how then should it happen that we find ourselves one day?” (1). In not knowing, and not ever being able to completely know the true origins of moral values and the true source of one’s suffering, it would seem the attempt to even try to know would be worthless—but it is not. Nietzsche says that humankind “remain[s] of necessity strangers to ourselves” and that “we do not understand ourselves,” and rather “we must mistake ourselves” (1). If one can attempt to analyze and understand power structures, and then try to understand how one’s morality has been influenced by superior people, then one can achieve a better grasp of their moral selves. This becomes a less daunting task when one accepts that to trace absolute, objective moral origins is quite impossible, but what one learns throughout that task about the motivations of power structures like societal hierarchies and religious institutions can lessen the ignorance an individual holds of themselves. One can begin to question the motives or look at people in those positions as nothing more than what they are—not nobles, not priests, not gods, just people with their own morality.
Power structures work to maintain the ignorance humankind holds of themselves through defining, guiding, and controlling their understanding of their moral values and how said values and ideas came to be. Humankind ultimately does not know everything about what they understand to be true. Even people like religious leaders and figures, and nobles do not know everything about the truth of moral origins because they are ultimately responding to a part of their repressed instincts that encourage the misguidance, control, and use of other people’s unawareness. It may seem like a problem to some that the true source of matters regarding morality will remain unknown, but attempting to trace patterns as Nietzsche has in this book, and questioning what one believes to be true, can aid one to understand and recognize their ignorance.
Works Cited
Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen. Hackett, 1998.