D. Society (Primarily from The Will to Power)Middle class values, Christianity, democracy, socialism all exhibit the leveling that he abhors. Equality is a “poisonous doctrine” that commands us to treat unequals equally and thereby destroys the truer notion of justice based upon merit. Within society, there must be an order of rank so that inferior people, the herd, do not think of themselves as equal to their superiors. “Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody else’s equal. ‘At bottom we are all herd and mob.’” The parliament government and freedom of press, upon which democracy prides itself, “are the means whereby cattle become masters.”
Socialism, “the tyranny of the meanest and most brainless,” denies life itself by cutting off growth-either (1) by preventing needed decay or (2) by attacking the desire for more possessions. Regarding needed decay, in The Will to Power, Nietzsche argues that “Decay, decline, and waste, are per se in no way open to objection: they are the natural consequences of life and vital growth. The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to life as advance or progress is: we are not in a position, which enables us to suppress it. On the contrary, reason would have it retain its rights.” It is disgraceful for socialist thinkers to envision a future society that would eliminate vice, disease, prostitution, crime, and poverty. “Failure and deformities” are a normal accompaniment of bold and energetic social advancement. Any socialist attempt to restructure society by restructuring its institutions so as to create a better life for all is as impossible as it is life denying. Institutions lack the power to create a utopia; and even the attempt stunts the growth of life.
Regarding the desire for more possessions, he says, “There will always be too many people of property for socialism ever to signify anything more than an attack of illness: and these people of property are like one man with one faith, ‘one must possess something in order to be some one.’” This however is the oldest and most wholesome of all instincts; I should add: ‘one must desire more than one has in order to become more’ since this is the teaching which life itself preaches to al living things: the morality of Development.”
