Virtue Gone Mad: Manager Punished More Harshly Than The Shoplifter He Stopped Authored by Theodore Dalrymple via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Commentary Nietzsche thought that the decline of the Christian religion in Europe would inevitably lead to a social, cultural, and moral crisis. This was because a traditional morality based upon religious belief could not be upheld once the religious be...
Virtue Gone Mad: Manager Punished More Harshly Than The Shoplifter He Stopped Authored by Theodore Dalrymple via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Commentary Nietzsche thought that the decline of the Christian religion in Europe would inevitably lead to a social, cultural, and moral crisis. This was because a traditional morality based upon religious belief could not be upheld once the religious belief itself weakened or was abandoned. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images This was not an original thought. The poet and essayist Matthew Arnold said much the same thing in a poem, “Dover Beach,” written in the 1840s but not published until 1867, before Nietzsche: The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar... This, thought Arnold, had the consequence that life would have no transcendent meaning. His answer to this problem was human love, the only solution to moral, social, and intellectual chaos: Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. Nietzsche’s solution was different. He didn’t approve of the old morality anyway, of compassion for the poor, kindness to strangers, and so forth, which he thought was the means, or even the ploy, by which the weak and feeble lorded it over the strong and healthy, and subdued them to the great detriment of human creativity. He suggested instead that strong men should take life into their own hands, submit to no authority, and decide for themselves what they should do, all in the pursuit of superior creativity and Dionysian enjoyment. The strong, not the meek, would inherit the earth, and the best would ri...