On the Genealogy of Morality (Chap. 4.18)

Against this condition of depression, a different and certainly easier training is tried far more often than such a hypnotic collective deadening of the sensibilities, of the ability to experience pain, for the method requires rare powers, above all, courage, contempt for opinion, and “intellectual stoicism.” This different training is mechanical activity. There’s no doubt whatsoever that this can alleviate a suffering existence to a degree which is not insignificant. Today we call this fact, somewhat dishonestly, “the blessings of work.” The relief comes about because the interest of the suffering person is basically diverted from his suffering—because some action and then another action are always entering his consciousness, thus leaving little space there for suffering. For it’s narrow, this room of human consciousness! Mechanical activity and what’s associated with it—like absolute regularity, meticulous and mindless obedience, a style of life set once and for all, filling in time, a certain allowance for, indeed, training in, “impersonality,” in forgetting oneself, in “incuria sui” [no care for oneself]—how fundamentally, how delicately the ascetic priest knew how to use them in the struggle with suffering! Especially when it involved the suffering people of the lower classes, working slaves, or prisoners (or women, most of whom are, in fact, simultaneously both working slaves and prisoners) what was needed was little more than the minor art of changing names and re-christening, so as to make those people in future see a favour, some relative good fortune, in things they hated—the slave’s discontent with his lot, in any case, was not invented by the priests. An even more valuable tool in the battle against depression is prescribing a small pleasure which is readily accessible and can be made habitual. People frequently use this medication in combination with the one just mentioned. The most common form in which pleasure is prescribed in this way as a cure is the pleasure in creating pleasure (as in showing kindness, giving presents, providing relief, helping, encouraging, trusting, praising, honouring). The ascetic priest orders “love of one’s neighbour”; in so doing, he is basically prescribing an arousal of the strongest, most life-affirming drive, even if only in the most cautious doses—the will to power. The happiness which comes from “the smallest feeling of superiority,” which all doing good, being useful, helping, and honouring bring with them, is the most plentiful way of providing consolation, which the physiologically impaired habitually use, provided that they have been well advised. In a different situation, they harm each other, doing so, of course, in obedience to the same basic instinct. If we look for the beginnings of Christianity in the Roman world, we find organizations growing up for mutual support, combinations of the poor and sick, for burial, on the lowest levels of society at the time, in which that major way of combatting depression, the minor joys which habitually develop out of mutual demonstrations of kindness, were consciously employed—perhaps at the time this was something new, a real discovery? “The will to mutual assistance,” to the formation of the herd, to “a community,” to “a congregation,” summoned in this manner, must call up again, if only in the smallest way, that aroused will to power and come to a new and much greater outburst. In the fight against depression, the development of the herd is an essential step and a victory. By growing, the community also reinforces in the individual a new interest, which often enough raises him up over the most personal features of his bad disposition, his dislike of himself (Geulincx’s despectio sui [contempt for oneself]).* All sick pathological people, in their desire to shake off a stifling lack of enthusiasm and a feeling of weakness, instinctively strive for the organization of a herd. The ascetic priest senses this instinct and promotes it. Where there is a herd, it’s the instinct of weakness which has willed the herd and the cleverness of the priest which has organized it. For we should not overlook the following point: through natural necessity strong people strive to separate from each other, just as much as weak people strive to be with each other. When the former unite, that happens only at the prospect of an aggressive combined action and a collective satisfaction of their will to power, with considerable resistance from the individual conscience. By contrast, the latter organize themselves collectively, taking pleasure precisely in this collective—their instinct is satisfied by this in the same way that the instinct of those born “Masters” (i.e., the solitary man of the predatory species of human being) is basically irritated and upset by organization. Under every oligarchy—all history teaches us—is always concealed the craving for tyranny. Every oligarchy is constantly trembling with the tension which every individual in it necessarily has in order to remain master of this craving. (That was the case, for example, with the Greeks. Plato provides evidence of this in a hundred passages—Plato, who understood his peers—and himself . . .).

Geulincx: Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669), a Flemish philosopher.