In section 262 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche writes of the emergence and development of
different types or kinds, different species, and gives principles of what I will call “social
evolution.”
Under conditions of abundance, Nature produces a great diversity of types, both good and
bad, prodigies and monstrosities.
Under leaner conditions, the surviving types are fewer.
We might say that only when times are good does Nature experiment; at other times she
rewards efficient adaptation.
In human societies it was the same way: early societies were rigid and aristocratic precisely
because the entire social group saw itself on the edge of extinction.
Under these circumstances there was little variation, no room for individual eccentricity.
The qualities that helped the group survive were named the virtues of these societies:
hardness, simplicity, uniformity, obedience.
“Every aristocratic morality is intolerant,” writes Nietzsche.
It is different under later conditions.
When abundance comes, the old discipline is no longer necessary for the group’s survival.
Older moral forms and institutions might live on as luxuries, but their force is no longer felt.
Variation appears, and we find Individuals in such societies.
The older morality bent the bow of human possibilities, storing up cultural energy, but it no longer
restricts that energy’s expression.
Thus we find modern life characterized by a “tropical tempo,” a battle of savage
egoisms.
Society reaches the uncanny point of transcending the old morality, living beyond its boundaries.
Nietzsche characterizes the flowering of such culture: There are “no shared formulas any longer;
misunderstanding allied with disrespect; decay, corruption, and the highest desires gruesomely
entangled, the genius of the race overflowing from all cornucopias of good and bad; a calamitous
simultaneity of spring and fall, full of new charms and veils that characterize young,
still unexhausted, still unwearied corruption.”
As corruption accelerates the philosophers of such an age will see the end fast approaching.
And from this recognition emerges a new morality, a morality of survival, a morality of mediocrity.
But this new morality will not be able to declare itself openly; it will have to express
itself in older moral language and concepts.
“It may never admit what it is and what it wants,” writes Nietzsche.
“It must speak of measure and dignity and duty and neighbor love—it will find it difficult
to conceal its irony.”
I think we see here the transition from master morality to slave morality, in the transition
from heroic/aristocratic culture to modern/democratic culture.
And we see at the end a hint that modern moral forms will contain a new level of deception
and self-deception.
They will not do and say what they purport to do and say.
Moral speech will always be suspected of irony.
That brings us to the end of section 262.
The next video is about section 263, instinct for rank, and reverence.
Thanks for watching today; goodbye.