Marx, Nietzsche, Freud: Master Thinkers of the 19 th Century. The Battle between Master and Slave: Master Morality and Slave Morality

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1 Yoon (Chelsea) Park Professor Daub Marx, Nietzsche, Freud: Master Thinkers of the 19 th Century The Battle between Master and Slave: Master Morality and Slave Morality in the Syrian Refugee Crisis The Syrian Refugee Crisis has shed light on the need for worldwide support for the refugees. However, many countries, especially those in the European Union, debate the extent of the humanitarian support given to the refugees. Countries neighboring Syria have taken a toll, as the number of incoming refugees continues to grow. This paper will delve into how the need to support struggling refugees in the Syrian Refugee Crisis brings together components of F. Nietzsche s master morality and slave morality and will question which of the two is more applicable to the crisis. 1. Master Morality In On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche begins to define master morality by criticizing the contemporary British ideology of good and bad. He states that this view that good is everything helpful and bad is everything 1

2 harmful is based on a habitually accepted belief; that is, we have always called useful things good and equated usefulness to value. Nietzsche then comes to the conclusion that noble and aristocratic, in social terms, is the underlying concept from which, necessarily, good developed. In this context, good refers to a condition of being spiritually noble and spiritually privileged. On the other hand, the conditions underlying common, plebian, and low ultimately transfers to bad. [1] Master morality s concept of good and bad identifies a social hierarchy, which places the noble masters or aristocracy above the common people. The noble people see themselves as the origin of value, and they determine what is good and what is not. Here, good comes from selfaffirmation, an acclamation of one s own power. The noble people revere themselves and, therefore, do not need others to say they are good. However, this should not be seen as a sign of self-indulgence, as noble masters despise any sign of weakness and respect harshness and severity. [2] The noble masters only acknowledge moral duties towards people in their class and do not think that how they treat people in lower classes is a matter of morality. The masters possess a superabundance of faith and pride in themselves as well as a feeling of radical enmity and irony towards selflessness. The overflowing of these noble qualities and not a sense of pity drives the noble to help others. Nietzsche believes that pity is bad: Observe children, who 2

3 cry and scream in order to be pitied, and therefore wait for the moment when they will be noticed; live in intercourse with the sick and mentally oppressed, and ask yourself whether that ready complaining and whimpering, that making a show of misfortune, does not, at bottom, aim at making the spectators miserable; the pity which the spectators then exhibit is in so far a consolation for the weak and suffering in that the latter recognize therein that they possess still one power, in spite of their weakness: the power of giving pain. [3] The weak are able to manipulate pity to give people pain, and this is their only power. 2. Slave Morality Whereas all noble morality grows out of triumphantly saying yes to itself, slave morality says no on principle to everything that is outside, other, nonself. In order to exist, slave morality must have an external stimuli its action is a reaction. [4] Slave morality is based on ressentiment, a reactive feeling to a repeated condition of powerlessness of the lower priestly class to the more powerful noble class; it devalues what the master values and what the slaves do not possess. Another distinction between master morality and slave morality is that the latter deals with good and evil. The nobles traits are evil and their absence is good. Nietzsche identifies the Jews as the finest example of the priestly caste by stating that the Romans were the strong and noble, stronger and nobler than 3

4 anybody hitherto who had lived or been dreamt of on earth; their every relic and inscription brings delight, provided one can guess what it is that is doing the writing there. By contrast, the Jews were a priestly nation of ressentiment par excellence, possessing an unparalleled genius for popular morality. [5] The Jews managed to effect a complete reversal in moral valuations, associating themselves with good and the lustful, noble and powerful with evil. Slave morality values traits such as sympathy, kindness, patience, diligence, and humility as these are considered the most useful qualities and almost the only means of supporting the burden of existence. Nietzsche dislikes sympathy, and this becomes evident when he states that whoever thinks about the problem of the value of compassion and of the morality of compassion will find that a vast new panorama opens up for him, a possibility makes him giddy, mistrust, suspicion and fear of every kind spring up, belief in morality, all morality, wavers, - finally, a new demand becomes articulate. [6] Slave morality is the morality of utility and is regarded by Nietzsche as herd morality. [7] Herd morality is a development of slave morality and it inherits most of its principles including its interpretation of certain traits: impotence becomes goodness of heart, cowardly fear becomes humility, and submission becomes obedience. Similarly, the inability to take revenge becomes 4

5 forgiveness, the desire for revenge becomes a desire for justice, and hatred of one s enemy becomes a hatred of injustice. 3. The Syrian Refugee Crisis Since the outbreak of the civil war in March 2011, more than 11 million Syrians have fled their homes. Now in 2016, 13.5 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance. The majority of these people have sought refuge in neighboring countries or within Syria. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 4.8 million refugees have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, and 6.6 million have been internally displaced in Syria. About one million people have requested asylum to Europe. [5] Germany received the highest number of new asylum applications in 2015, a number totaling more than 476,000. Although the number of people seeking asylum is huge, the number of people being given asylum is much lower. In 2015, more than a million refugees applied for asylum and only 292,540 of them were offered asylum by EU countries. [8] The movement of refugees into countries has not always been welcomed due to its socioeconomic impact on host countries. By June 2015, there were 628,427 Syrian refugees registered in Jordan. A report by the World Bank in 2016 showed that the Syrian refugee inflow cost Jordan more than $2.5 billion a year approximately 6% of Jordan s GDP and one fourth of the governmental 5

6 and annual revenues. As a result, Jordan s public debt increased to become 90% of its GDP in 2016 and its economy s rate of growth was held back. [9] The massive displacement of the Syrian refugees has also led to a strain in limited resources such as shelter, water, and jobs and thus threatens to destabilize the region that the refugees are moving to. However, individuals have been and are giving aid to the Syrian refugees. Ty Walrod, co-founder and chief executive of Bright Funds, is helping people who want to donate to charities giving aid to the refugee crisis. Walrod s project allows companies and individuals to set up funds. Since 2012, 30 companies and 30,000 individuals have started or contributed to the establishment of 75 funds. Matt Dalio set up a project called Endless. This project has donated more than 400 computers to refugee centers in Jordan. [10] Not only are individuals providing aid to the Syrian refugees, but countries are also giving support. Since 2011, the Syrian refugees have been fleeing to countries in the European Union and have claimed asylum. Germany had the most asylum applications in 2015 and Hungary had the highest in proportion to its population. Almost 1,800 refugees per 100,000 of Hungary s local population claimed asylum in [11] 6

7 4. Master Morality and Slave Morality in the Syrian Refugee Crisis Slave morality can be seen in the Syrian Refugee Crisis as the humanitarian support for the Syrian refugees emphasizes sympathy and kindness. According to slave morality, nations and individuals willingness to give aid to the Syrian refugees all derive from pity towards the refugees. However, if this were the case, why would some entities hesitate to give help? In 2015, 31 U.S. states declared that Syrian refugees were not welcome. In announcing that his state would not accept any Syrian refugees, the Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted on 16 November 2015, I demand the U.S. act similarly. Security comes first. The Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson also posted on his Twitter account that he would oppose Syrian refugees being relocated to Arkansas. [12] States other than Texas and Arkansas that rejected the entrance of Syrian refugees were Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and 25 more. Although the authority over admitting refugees to the country rests with the federal government, the opposition of individual states made the acceptance process much more difficult. Not only were refugees declined in the U.S. but they were also declined in the United Kingdom. In 2016, the East Surrey members of parliament rejected a plan to take in 3,000 unaccompanied Syrian child refugees who arrived in Europe. [13] The U.S. and the UK are two of the most prosperous nations in the 7

8 world; in 2015, the U.S. Gross Domestic product (GDP) was 17,947 USD Billion and the UK s GDP was 2, USD Billion. [14] If slave morality had been the trigger to countries actions of aid, pity would have been the basis of these actions. With pity as the sole factor causing nations to take action, the two nations would not have stopped the Syrian refugees from entering as long as pity remained in them. Master morality can be incorporated into the Syrian Refugee Crisis by recognizing the cause of the noble masters actions of aid. As stated prior, the noble masters do not think that how they treat people in lower classes is a matter of morality. It is not pity but the overflowing of their noble qualities that makes them help others. As aforementioned, these noble qualities encompass a superabundance of faith and pride in themselves as well as a feeling of radical enmity and irony towards selflessness. The noble masters hostility towards selflessness can be seen in the U.S. reaction to the Syrian Refugee Crisis. When expressing his view that the refugees should be kept out of the U.S., the Alabama Governor Robert Bentley posted on his Twitter account: I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm's way. We refuse Syrian refugees. [15] Here, it was the governor s self interest for his state s safety that caused him to reject the entry of 8

9 Syrian refugees. For others who supported giving aid to the refugees, one reason for this was to defeat ISIS. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said, "Defeating ISIS involves projecting American ideals to the world. Governors who reject those fleeing war and persecution abandon our ideals and instead project our fears to the world." [16] In both of these cases, the stimulus for people s different stances on the acceptance of Syrian refugees was their own wellbeing. Here, the noble masters negative view of selflessness is apparent. The abundance of the masters noble qualities, in this case the abundance of self-interest, determined their stance on helping the refugees. It was shown to be true that individual and national selfinterest overrode the pity entities had. Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that refugees in the Syrian Refugee Crisis have gained support from various entities only on the basis of the principles of master morality. 9

10 5. References 1 Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.13 2 Lacewing, Michael. Nietzsche on Master and Slave Morality. /A2/Nietzsche/NietzscheMasterSlave.pdf 3 Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, All-Too-Human, Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.20 5 Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.32 6 Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.7 7 Nietzsche, Friedrich. Slave and Master Morality, 8 Migrant Crisis: Migration to Europe Explained in Seven Charts. BBC, March 4, Malkawi, Khetam. "Syrian refugees cost Kingdom $2.5 billion a year report." The Jordan News (The Jordan Times), February 6, billion-year-%e2%80%94-report. 10

11 10 Quittner, Jeremy. What 5 Entrepreneurs Are Doing to Aid the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Inc, 11 Migrant Crisis: Migration to Europe Explained in Seven Charts. BBC, March 4, Fantz, Ashley and Brumfield, Ben. More Than Half the Nation s Governors Say Syrian Refugees Not Welcome. CNN, November 19, Webb, Caitlin. Syrian Refugee Crisis: East Surrey MPs Reject Plan to Accept 3,000 Child Refugees from Europe. Survey Mirror, April 27, United States GDP, Trading Economics, 15 Fantz, Ashley and Brumfield, Ben. More Than Half the Nation s Governors Say Syrian Refugees Not Welcome. CNN, November 19, Fantz, Ashley and Brumfield, Ben. More Than Half the Nation s Governors Say Syrian Refugees Not Welcome. CNN, November 19,