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Single Idea 23200

[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 2. Leaders / d. Elites ]

Full Idea

The foundation of all aristocracies …is to resemble the ancestors as much as possible, which serves as the controlling morality: mourning at the thought of change and variation.

Gist of Idea

The controlling morality of aristocracy is the desire to resemble their ancestors

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86 [1886], 35[22])

Book Ref

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Fragments from 1885-86 (v 16)', ed/tr. Del Caro,Adrian [Stanford 2020], p.87

A Reaction

This makes sense of the permanent residence of the family, full of portraits and family trees. Aristocrats preserve records of their predecessors, in a way that most of us don't, going back before grandparents.

The 32 ideas from 'Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86'

23208 Caesar and Napoleon point to the future, when they pursue their task regardless of human sacrifice [Nietzsche]
23209 Each of our personal drives has its own perspective [Nietzsche]
23210 That all events are necessary does not mean they are compelled [Nietzsche]
23211 Events are just interpretations of groups of appearances [Nietzsche]
23212 A text has many interpretations, but no 'correct' one [Nietzsche]
23213 The greatest drive of life is to discharge strength, rather than preservation [Nietzsche]
23214 For the strongest people, nihilism gives you wings! [Nietzsche]
23183 Different abilities are needed for living in an incomplete and undogmatic system [Nietzsche]
23184 The mind is a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche]
23186 Numbers enable us to manage the world - to the limits of counting [Nietzsche]
23187 Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful [Nietzsche]
23188 Bad writers use shapeless floating splotches of concepts [Nietzsche]
23189 Concepts are rough groups of simultaneous sensations [Nietzsche]
23190 Consciousness is our awareness of our own mental life [Nietzsche]
23191 Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche]
23192 Concepts don’t match one thing, but many things a little bit [Nietzsche]
23193 Napoleon was very focused, and rightly ignored compassion [Nietzsche]
23194 People feel united as a nation by one language, but then want a common ancestry and history [Nietzsche]
23195 Laws of nature are actually formulas of power relations [Nietzsche]
23197 Memory is essential, and is only possible by means of abbreviation signs [Nietzsche]
23196 Logic is a fiction, which invents the view that one thought causes another [Nietzsche]
23185 In chemistry every substance pushes, and thus creates new substances [Nietzsche]
23198 Aesthetics can be more basic than morality, in our pleasure in certain patterns of experience [Nietzsche]
23199 What is the search for truth if it isn't moral? [Nietzsche]
23200 The controlling morality of aristocracy is the desire to resemble their ancestors [Nietzsche]
23201 The 'I' does not think; it is a construction of thinking, like other useful abstractions [Nietzsche]
23202 Like all philosophers, I love truth [Nietzsche]
23203 The great question is approaching, of how to govern the earth as a whole [Nietzsche]
23204 To be someone you need property, and wanting more is healthy [Nietzsche]
23205 Thought starts as ambiguity, in need of interpretation and narrowing [Nietzsche]
23206 Schematic minds think thoughts are truer if they slot into a scheme [Nietzsche]
23207 Appearance is the sole reality of things, to which all predicates refer [Nietzsche]