This week, we learned about Nietzsche and his belief that morality was created by weak, slavish people who had ressentement (or envy) towards the strong and their advantages in the world. The weak decided that God loves them simply because they were weak and since they are the majority, this belief has been carried down for centuries. Nietzsche also says that morality is a fabrication because values differ between each individual, and there is not a set of values that can be given out to everyone.
The issue with this morality is that it keeps strong and intelligent from using their full potential to get what they want. Nietzsche and his beliefs remind me a lot of a short story called Harrison Bergeron. In the 1962 tale that is set in the future America, there are new Amendments that give a a lot of "equality" to the country. To summarize the story, everyone who has an advantage- intelligence, strength, beauty, etc., is handicapped. The strong carry sand bags to make them weaker, the intelligent wore a radio in their ears that rang a piercing a sound every twenty seconds, and the beautiful wore bags to conceal themselves. The main character, 14 year old Harrison, is very strong and very intelligent boy who escapes from jail with the intent to overthrow the government. His parents watch him on the breaking news as he declares himself emperor and selects a gorgeous empress to rule beside him. In his very brief ruling, he ordered musicians to play their best, not averagely like they always had. As he danced with his empress, he was gunned down by the government because they cant have anyone with an advantage running around.
As soon as we learned about Nietzsche, Harrison Bergeron stood out to me. If you want to read it, here's the link:
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
This comparison between Nietzsche and Harrison Bergen is a great example of the slippery slope that a repressive ideology, such as Nietzsche suggests is the case with morality and the weak, can lead to within a society. When the strong are oppressed, advancement in all aspects of society is halted. Just as in the short story mentioned above, muscians cannot perform to the highest of their ability, the thinkers cannot think as they should, and all of society suffers for the stagnation caused by limiting the strong. However, I do not believe this is how morality and the confrontation between the strong and weak actually exhists. I see too many advancements in technology, medicine, art, and culture for Neitzsche's theory to be completely true. I do think there are forms of oppression from both the government and groups in our society that try to silence some beliefs that are held by a large number of the population, but as for a complete oppression of the strong, Nietzsche appears to be wrong.
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