Walter Kauffman argues forcefully against the claim that Nietzsche disparages
slave morality in favor of the master morality of the "blonde beast," the
barbarian, that maims and slaughters. While it seems clear that Nietzsche would
prefer these barbarians to contemporary Europeans, his other writings suggest
that his ideal is far from this master morality as well. That Nietzsche does
not align himself with master morality is consistent with the claim that he does
not align himself with any system of morals. In the later essays, we shall see
how Nietzsche values the drive to refine oneself, to control oneself, and to
affirm oneself. While master morality is better off for lacking
ressentiment, it lacks the discipline and self-control necessary to fit
Nietzsche's ideal. For instance, Nietzsche suggests that the man of
ressentiment is cleverer than the noble man: either Nietzsche does not
think the noble man is perfect, or he thinks that being clever is a weakness.
We might want to offer a brief criticism of Nietzsche's analysis. Perhaps he
gives in a bit too much to his weakness for polemic, but the dichotomy between
master morality and slave morality seems a bit simplistic. If slave morality is
based on a ressentiment felt toward the masters, and now the whole world
has succumbed to slave morality, who are the masters that we all resent? While
masters and slaves make up a convenient opposing pair, it seems highly unlikely
that the world is divided quite so cleanly, as if there were nothing between
masters and slaves. We find Nietzsche being more careful in Beyond Good and
Evil, section 200, where he characterizes both the dominant slave morality
and the praiseworthy exceptions of the modern world as arising from a complex
mixture of drives and values.
