Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil expressed his disapproval for what he calls “the slave revolt in morals” as represented in Judeo-Christian morality that created the eponymous binary. If morality condemns natural impulses and represses human freedom what is the proper alternative? What is the way that we can, socially or individually achieve “a good and healthy aristocracy… that…experiences itself not as a function … but as their meaning and highest justification” (sec. 258)? This section Nietzsche’s project is where his strain of perspectivism most shines through. That is not to imply that this means he engages in a sort of reductionist “everything is permitted” egalitarianism, far from it. Those who self-efface, self-destroy will always to Nietzsche be an inferior multitude and those who stand up, command, embrace being will form a community of the noble.
The problem arises in the fact that the great majority conform to mediocrity and slave morality: “The mediocre alone have the prospect of continuing, of having descendants – they are the people of the future, the only survivors. ‘Be like them! Become mediocre!’ will henceforth be the only moral code that still makes sense.’ (sec. 262) The very thing that will perpetuate our civilization as it is will homogenize us to a point of robot-like boredom.
The characteristics that defy this are explicitly laid out: “Signs of nobility: never to think of reducing our duties into duties for everyone; not to want to share or transfer our own responsibility; to count our privileges and their exercise among our duties.” (sec. 272) That last point, to count privileges and their exercise among our duties, is the area most difficult to realize because it is the most removed from our current state of morality.
The noble person in setting himself apart as singular, superlative he necessarily dominates without having to act but rather by being. That also means that the multitudes, trapped in oppressive herd culture, are not necessarily looked down upon. For Nietzsche the aristocrat is to busy looking around and up to bother considering what is beneath them: “Up here the view is clear, the spirit is exalted.’ But there is an opposite kind of person who is likewise at the top and likewise has a clear view—but looks down.’ (sec. 286) This is how Nietzsche distinguishes his ideas from social Darwinism and tyranny. The first type is the noble individual, self-realized and enjoying life. The second we must imagine as someone looking down on those above him—from below.
This sort of person can be pictured as the height of authorized power of the life-denying world. A king or better yet high-priest who demands others deny themselves everything and glorifies himself only in the pleasure of being obeyed without actually being superior. This is who Nietzsche speaks of in a particularly illustrative quote from his unpublished notes:
“But I have found strength where one does not look for it: in simple, mild, and pleasant people, without the least desire to rule—and, conversely, the desire to rule has often appeared to me a sign of inward weakness: they fear their own slave soul and shroud it in a royal cloak (in the end, they still become the slaves of their followers, their fame, etc.). The powerful natures dominate, it is a necessity, they need not lift one finger. Even if, during their lifetime, they bury themselves in a garden house!” (Nachlass, 206)
