My favorite example of slave morality can only be seen by visiting the Parthenon replica in Nashville. Inside the Parthenon, on the wall is a FAQ page and the top FAQ is "Why is it so gaudy?"
I have been listening to podcasts for over a decade and this is the best episode of any podcast I have ever heard. Truly remarkable work guys. I savored every minute. Beautiful.
Do you have any book recommendations/resources where I can learn about how Christianity was specifically preaching to Roman Slaves?
This was really great. I appreciate the historical narrative explanation of Nietzche's concepts. Definitely a new way of looking at things. Will take some time to digest. Many thanks for publishing it.
So, I'm a little late with this comment, but I'm new to the show and I've been working through the older episodes piece-meal and just finished this one today. First off, I want to mention that I really enjoy the show a lot. I appreciate the topics you cover, and your interviews are very interesting. I've learned a lot from your stuff, and I have a lot of respect for Nietzsche's ideas. However, as a regularly practicing, traditional catholic, I feel obligated to throw in my two cents on this particular topic and do my best to defend my old slave-morality (which amounts to a poorly rationalized, long winded, ramble). Just don't take my criticisms of your stances as criticisms of your show. The world needs a lot more of the ideas that you work on and explore, and I would ABSOLUTLY rather debate with a rational Western-grounded ideology such as that of Nietzsche than with the illogical open-sourced pseudo religion of the Woke.
My first point (or rather criticism) is to please beware overgeneralization and oversimplification of very complex histories. This seemed to occur a lot when you and Uberboyo would boil the very, very, complex histories of the early church, the gospels, the Middle Ages, and even the rise of communism and rationalism into 3 or 4 minute clean story-board narratives that perfectly fit your point. An example is when you describe Jesus's teachings as simply being a blueprint for the rabble to survive their oppression by the masters. This sounds all well and good with a brief glance at the gospels but just doesn't hold up to the fact that Jesus not only taught real dissidence to the Priest-class in power, but even went willingly to his own execution that was then later glorified by the movement. If he was just explaining how to not die, then why is his execution the biggest part of his impact? Also, how did a morality built by a bunch of Jewish slaves so easily and so quickly spread through the Germanic tribes that consisted of nothing but blond-haired beasts living their best lives as the ultimate chads? How did Christianity spread via a bunch of rich, horny widows when the followers were being publicly tortured and executed by the Roman Empire during the first four centuries? Other oversimplifications arise when you describe the church throughout the Middle Ages as nothing but the propagation of weak slave-morality in the first half of the episode, but then switch, and describe the political power the Church held during the high Middle Ages as an example of master-morality in the second half. It's obvious that the reality is far more complex than either option of: "Christianity is nothing but a bunch of weak slaves who got together and justified their own weakness and then outsourced this ideology to the whole of society" or "Christianity is another example of a human power structure that the real chads rise to the top through their innate will to power while all the weak slaves grovel at the bottom." The reality is likely somewhere in-between these with a little bit of both, but if you argue one when it’s convenient than switch later, you lose any real stance. Plus, oversimplification is a two-way street. If you can say that Christianity was really just started by a bunch of rabble, slaves, and rich middle-eastern Karens and thus anybody who still follows it is just believing their lies, than I can turn around and say that this whole theory that the strong are morally justified to crush the weak due to their will to power was really just made up by a loser weakling German who never got a wife, never saw substantial literary success during his life, and never once beat anyone in any kind of battle and anybody who listens to him is just buying into a new rationalization of how the world works by another nerd who fetishizes the very success he never had. Why listen to someone who only ever lost about how important it is to win? You'll protest and say that I am grossly oversimplifying the reality to fit my agenda of making Nietzsche's ideas look bad, but therein lies the point.
My second objection lies with the ideology of Nietzsche itself, as described in this episode, verses Christianity, and it boils down to: you can't compare them. The ideology of Nietzsche is, as far as I can tell, merely an ideology that has never been more than a neat theory that gets debated in educated think-tanks and Twitter spaces; whereas, Christianity has been tested by fire from the moment of its conception by adherents, advocates, martyrs, missionaries, kings, and emperors on every continent of the earth and in every century of the last two millenniums. The worldview and theories that you guys explored in this episode is really good at looking back at history and saying, “oh wow, look at all of these great men of the past, they all were great because they were great and didn’t let silly slave-morals stop them, if we want to be great we should be more like them”, but what does that actually get us? All the real adherents to the much-admired master-morality are blue-collar workers, sport athletes, and clever opportunists who have rarely, if ever, even heard of Nietzsche and don’t give a rat’s ass about his fuddy-duddy ideas. If you think I’m being too harsh than try and point out a single great man of the past two centuries that openly espoused Nietzsche’s ideas (and the Nazis don’t count since they only ever gave Nietzsche a polite nod and carried on with building a pretty standard nationalist nation-state). So, it’s pretty easy to say how everything Nietzsche said is 100% right without missing anything since it has never left the realm of theory, whereas its really easy to point out the faults of Christianity (immoral Popes, blatant corruption, hypocritical adherents) because it’s been busy building our entire Western culture the whole time while the existentialists were bitching and moaning about how the Christians are really just a bunch of slaves and don’t deserve all of the success that they forged for themselves.
And this leads me to my last point in this far-too-long-already post: as far as I’m concerned, (and as far as any true adherent to Nietzsche should be) the proof is in the pudding. Christianity has been the cornerstone of Western culture for 2000 years, has unarguably led to revolutions in architecture, art, nation building, exploration, and science. It built monasteries in post-Rome Europe, preserved and taught the ancient Greek philosophies, built modern Europe’s political structure, laid the foundation for the Enlightenment, and started modern science. It has produced hundreds of great men including St King Louis IX of France, St Benedict the “Father of Europe”, St Joan of Arc the “Maid of Orleans”, and nearly all the American founding fathers. The rebuttal could be made that these people were secretly chads that just paid lip service to the prevailing slave-morality that was in vogue, but there is literally ZERO evidence that great men such as St Benedict, St Bernard, St Gregory the Great, St Augustine, or St Joan of Arc had anything but genuine zeal and love for Christ and his Father. I find it so convenient that the examples used of great men who followed master-morality are always either Augustus Ceaser or Napoleon, and all of the objectively powerful kings, warriors, and leaders of the past 2000 years that were highly religious are ignored. How can Christianity be nothing but slave morality and yet produce the very same great men that Nietzsche adores? How can it be big bad Christianity’s fault that Rome fell when it was taken over by a bunch of badass Germanics who then promptly converted and began spreading Christianity themselves?
You may start to claim that God is dead, but people have been smugly saying that since Jesus was nailed to a cross. You may say that religion itself is dying in face of the emerging rationalism of the modern day, but Christianity has survived heresies, schisms, reformations, and enlightenments. Until someone proves to me that following Nietzsche’s ideas can actually lead to a stable, successful society that actualizes those within it and results in innovations in science and culture, I’m not even going to consider it as a legitimate belief system compared to Christianity. And as far as I’m concerned, the “Woke” are nothing but the next batch of heretics that are going to get steam-rolled by the march of the Church.
And this doesn’t even touch any moralistic arguments, but those are rarely well received by either the Woke or the non-religious dissident right, so I’ll just end this poorly structured rebuttal and shut up.
My favorite example of slave morality can only be seen by visiting the Parthenon replica in Nashville. Inside the Parthenon, on the wall is a FAQ page and the top FAQ is "Why is it so gaudy?"
I have been listening to podcasts for over a decade and this is the best episode of any podcast I have ever heard. Truly remarkable work guys. I savored every minute. Beautiful.
Do you have any book recommendations/resources where I can learn about how Christianity was specifically preaching to Roman Slaves?
This was really great. I appreciate the historical narrative explanation of Nietzche's concepts. Definitely a new way of looking at things. Will take some time to digest. Many thanks for publishing it.
This is kinda silly.
This was a great conversation. A lot of “yes I’ve thought this but didn’t know how to articulate it.” Those are the best
So, I'm a little late with this comment, but I'm new to the show and I've been working through the older episodes piece-meal and just finished this one today. First off, I want to mention that I really enjoy the show a lot. I appreciate the topics you cover, and your interviews are very interesting. I've learned a lot from your stuff, and I have a lot of respect for Nietzsche's ideas. However, as a regularly practicing, traditional catholic, I feel obligated to throw in my two cents on this particular topic and do my best to defend my old slave-morality (which amounts to a poorly rationalized, long winded, ramble). Just don't take my criticisms of your stances as criticisms of your show. The world needs a lot more of the ideas that you work on and explore, and I would ABSOLUTLY rather debate with a rational Western-grounded ideology such as that of Nietzsche than with the illogical open-sourced pseudo religion of the Woke.
My first point (or rather criticism) is to please beware overgeneralization and oversimplification of very complex histories. This seemed to occur a lot when you and Uberboyo would boil the very, very, complex histories of the early church, the gospels, the Middle Ages, and even the rise of communism and rationalism into 3 or 4 minute clean story-board narratives that perfectly fit your point. An example is when you describe Jesus's teachings as simply being a blueprint for the rabble to survive their oppression by the masters. This sounds all well and good with a brief glance at the gospels but just doesn't hold up to the fact that Jesus not only taught real dissidence to the Priest-class in power, but even went willingly to his own execution that was then later glorified by the movement. If he was just explaining how to not die, then why is his execution the biggest part of his impact? Also, how did a morality built by a bunch of Jewish slaves so easily and so quickly spread through the Germanic tribes that consisted of nothing but blond-haired beasts living their best lives as the ultimate chads? How did Christianity spread via a bunch of rich, horny widows when the followers were being publicly tortured and executed by the Roman Empire during the first four centuries? Other oversimplifications arise when you describe the church throughout the Middle Ages as nothing but the propagation of weak slave-morality in the first half of the episode, but then switch, and describe the political power the Church held during the high Middle Ages as an example of master-morality in the second half. It's obvious that the reality is far more complex than either option of: "Christianity is nothing but a bunch of weak slaves who got together and justified their own weakness and then outsourced this ideology to the whole of society" or "Christianity is another example of a human power structure that the real chads rise to the top through their innate will to power while all the weak slaves grovel at the bottom." The reality is likely somewhere in-between these with a little bit of both, but if you argue one when it’s convenient than switch later, you lose any real stance. Plus, oversimplification is a two-way street. If you can say that Christianity was really just started by a bunch of rabble, slaves, and rich middle-eastern Karens and thus anybody who still follows it is just believing their lies, than I can turn around and say that this whole theory that the strong are morally justified to crush the weak due to their will to power was really just made up by a loser weakling German who never got a wife, never saw substantial literary success during his life, and never once beat anyone in any kind of battle and anybody who listens to him is just buying into a new rationalization of how the world works by another nerd who fetishizes the very success he never had. Why listen to someone who only ever lost about how important it is to win? You'll protest and say that I am grossly oversimplifying the reality to fit my agenda of making Nietzsche's ideas look bad, but therein lies the point.
My second objection lies with the ideology of Nietzsche itself, as described in this episode, verses Christianity, and it boils down to: you can't compare them. The ideology of Nietzsche is, as far as I can tell, merely an ideology that has never been more than a neat theory that gets debated in educated think-tanks and Twitter spaces; whereas, Christianity has been tested by fire from the moment of its conception by adherents, advocates, martyrs, missionaries, kings, and emperors on every continent of the earth and in every century of the last two millenniums. The worldview and theories that you guys explored in this episode is really good at looking back at history and saying, “oh wow, look at all of these great men of the past, they all were great because they were great and didn’t let silly slave-morals stop them, if we want to be great we should be more like them”, but what does that actually get us? All the real adherents to the much-admired master-morality are blue-collar workers, sport athletes, and clever opportunists who have rarely, if ever, even heard of Nietzsche and don’t give a rat’s ass about his fuddy-duddy ideas. If you think I’m being too harsh than try and point out a single great man of the past two centuries that openly espoused Nietzsche’s ideas (and the Nazis don’t count since they only ever gave Nietzsche a polite nod and carried on with building a pretty standard nationalist nation-state). So, it’s pretty easy to say how everything Nietzsche said is 100% right without missing anything since it has never left the realm of theory, whereas its really easy to point out the faults of Christianity (immoral Popes, blatant corruption, hypocritical adherents) because it’s been busy building our entire Western culture the whole time while the existentialists were bitching and moaning about how the Christians are really just a bunch of slaves and don’t deserve all of the success that they forged for themselves.
And this leads me to my last point in this far-too-long-already post: as far as I’m concerned, (and as far as any true adherent to Nietzsche should be) the proof is in the pudding. Christianity has been the cornerstone of Western culture for 2000 years, has unarguably led to revolutions in architecture, art, nation building, exploration, and science. It built monasteries in post-Rome Europe, preserved and taught the ancient Greek philosophies, built modern Europe’s political structure, laid the foundation for the Enlightenment, and started modern science. It has produced hundreds of great men including St King Louis IX of France, St Benedict the “Father of Europe”, St Joan of Arc the “Maid of Orleans”, and nearly all the American founding fathers. The rebuttal could be made that these people were secretly chads that just paid lip service to the prevailing slave-morality that was in vogue, but there is literally ZERO evidence that great men such as St Benedict, St Bernard, St Gregory the Great, St Augustine, or St Joan of Arc had anything but genuine zeal and love for Christ and his Father. I find it so convenient that the examples used of great men who followed master-morality are always either Augustus Ceaser or Napoleon, and all of the objectively powerful kings, warriors, and leaders of the past 2000 years that were highly religious are ignored. How can Christianity be nothing but slave morality and yet produce the very same great men that Nietzsche adores? How can it be big bad Christianity’s fault that Rome fell when it was taken over by a bunch of badass Germanics who then promptly converted and began spreading Christianity themselves?
You may start to claim that God is dead, but people have been smugly saying that since Jesus was nailed to a cross. You may say that religion itself is dying in face of the emerging rationalism of the modern day, but Christianity has survived heresies, schisms, reformations, and enlightenments. Until someone proves to me that following Nietzsche’s ideas can actually lead to a stable, successful society that actualizes those within it and results in innovations in science and culture, I’m not even going to consider it as a legitimate belief system compared to Christianity. And as far as I’m concerned, the “Woke” are nothing but the next batch of heretics that are going to get steam-rolled by the march of the Church.
And this doesn’t even touch any moralistic arguments, but those are rarely well received by either the Woke or the non-religious dissident right, so I’ll just end this poorly structured rebuttal and shut up.
*kills you with my beaner faggor killer beam*