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Nietzsche would no doubt consider me to be a weak man, a member of ‘the herd,’ because of my reluctance to cause harm, even to my enemies. Instead, I outsource my weakness to the government and to the indifference of men who will happily kill and maim on my behalf such as soldiers and policemen, tough men whose will to power has been optimised by ‘the herd,’ into protecting them, but I’m not one of them. I’m always gladdened whenever I hear that a terrorist has been shot dead, but would I be able to pull the trigger myself, to rid society of one of its enemies, I’m not so sure, which brings me on to this wonderful quote from Nietzsche, that clearly points the finger at me for being a timid symptom of society’s collapse and not its strong rejuvenating essence:
“There comes a point of morbid mellowing and over-tenderness in the history of society at which it takes the side of him who harms it, the criminal, and does so honestly and wholeheartedly. Punishment that seems to it somehow unfair – certainly the idea of ‘being punished,’ and ‘having to punish,’ is unpleasant to it, makes it afraid. ‘Is it not enough to render him harmless? Why punish him as well? To administer punishment is itself dreadful!’ – with this question herd morality, the morality of timidity, draws its ultimate conclusion. Supposing all danger, the cause of fear, could be abolished, this morality would therewith also be abolished: it would no longer be necessary, it would no longer regard itself as necessary! – He who examines the conscience of the present-day European will have to extract from a thousand moral recesses and hiding places always the same imperative, the imperative of herd timidity:
‘We wish that there will one day no longer be anything to fear!’ One day – everywhere in Europe the will and way to that day is now called ‘progress.’”
Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism – 201
Could I pull the trigger, sending a killer to instant oblivion, or yank the lever that hangs a man? I doubt it. I would have to be angry at least, to be murderous myself, I would have to know that he’s done wrong, to have complete knowledge, like God Almighty, to be sure of the sinner’s guilt, and that the punishment fits the crime. Would I send someone like the now infamous Axel Rudakubana to the fires of hell? Would I delight in his burning alongside the likes of Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler, the types of people who really make you stop and think for a while, ‘do I really understand Nietzsche?’ Had he lived long enough to see Hitler’s rampage, Nietzsche no doubt would probably have declared his expression of the will to power to be crude, unsophisticated, unsubtle, but not actually wrong, because there being no good or evil in a world devoid of meaning, such as the one that exists in the wake of God’s philosophical death.
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
Friedrich Nietzsche – The Joyous Science – Aphorism 125
I’m sure that had Nietzsche lived, he would have admonished Hitler, not for the mass killings and the industrialisation of slaughter, but because he failed to live up to his best self, to overcome his baser urges, he’d tell him to go back to painting, or instead to direct his energies into the arts, music and creativity typical of the higher man, the overman, the noble soul or ‘superman,’ who makes up his morality as he goes along, always in the pursuit of personal excellence, turning his share of the Will to Power inward marrying both ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ into a holistic unity in which one is constantly overcoming.
The problem with the God’s Eye View is this, that an omnipotent and loving being, would have no choice but to forgive, having understood every step along the way that it takes to make a man like Axel Rudakubana or Adolf Hitler. God would know why they did such things, what dark archetypes motivated them towards murder, and God being love, would have no choice but to forgive. He’d have no time for vengeance, he understands that the world spirit, the Will to Power, demanded murder and they gratefully obliged, but I am not God, some things for me at least, are unforgivable, so yes, on balance I think I’d pull the trigger that kills a terrorist or tug on the lever that hangs Rudakubana, but I’d exhaust all other possibilities first. I am reluctant to destroy in order to create anew. I can hear the ghost of Nietzsche whispering in my ear, ‘perhaps there’s some hope for you, but not today…’
