Summary
Section 13 is very complicated, very deep, and very important in understanding
Nietzsche. The focus is on a contrast between lambs and birds of prey, in order
to understand the origin of the concept of "good" as born from
ressentiment. It is quite natural that lambs
may consider birds of prey to be evil, since they kill and carry off
lambs. And from this, it may also be understandable that lambs consider
everything unlike birds of prey--themselves, for instance--to be good.
While Nietzsche accepts these conclusions as understandable, he denies
that they can be used to reproach or condemn birds of prey for killing
lambs. It would be as absurd to ask a bird of prey not to kill
as it would be to ask a lamb to kill. Killing is an expression of
strength, and it is only through a misunderstanding caused by language
that we manage to see the bird of prey as somehow distinct from its
expression of strength.
To illustrate his point, Nietzsche takes as an example the sentence
"lightning flashes." Grammar would lead us to conclude that there is a
subject--"lightning"--and a predicate--"flashes." But what is the
lightning if not the flash? Nietzsche argues that grammar, and only
grammar, has led us to think of actions in terms of subjects and
predicates. In reality, he suggests, "'the doer' is merely a fiction
added to the deed--the deed is everything."
Grammar has thus led us to think of a bird of prey as somehow separate
from its expressions of strength, and thereby free either to kill or not
to kill. On the contrary, Nietzsche suggests, the bird of prey is the
strength is the killing. The lamb's morality is in no position to hold
the bird of prey accountable for killing: that would be equivalent to
blaming it for existing.
When slave morality lauds its conception of "good," praising all those
who do not kill, hurt, or offend, it is essentially praising all those
who are too powerless to cause any harm for not causing any harm. It
interprets the inaction resulting from impotence as a positive,
meritorious deed, as enduring ills and leaving revenge to God. Slave
morality depends on the belief in a subject (or a "soul") which is
independent of its deeds, so that it can interpret its weakness as
freedom, and its inaction as praiseworthy.
Section 14 is a rather over-the-top depiction of slave morality being
forged in a sweaty, smelly hole full of hatred and muttering. It
culminates with the claim that "justice" is an invention of slave
morality made out as an ideal that masters brazenly disregard. Slave
morality does not seek revenge, but waits for the "Judgment of God" that
will restore justice.
