Page 110 - beyond-good-and-evil
P. 110

control of the needy as a property, just as in general they
       are charitable and helpful out of a desire for property. One
       finds them jealous when they are crossed or forestalled in
       their  charity.  Parents  involuntarily  make  something  like
       themselves out of their children—they call that ‘education”;
       no mother doubts at the bottom of her heart that the child
       she has borne is thereby her property, no father hesitates
       about his right to HIS OWN ideas and notions of worth.
       Indeed, in former times fathers deemed it right to use their
       discretion concerning the life or death of the newly born (as
       among the ancient Germans). And like the father, so also
       do the teacher, the class, the priest, and the prince still see
       in every new individual an unobjectionable opportunity for
       a new possession. The consequence is …

       195. The Jews—a people ‘born for slavery,’ as Tacitus and the
       whole ancient world say of them; ‘the chosen people among
       the nations,’ as they themselves say and believe—the Jews
       performed  the  miracle  of  the  inversion  of  valuations,  by
       means of which life on earth obtained a new and dangerous
       charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets fused
       into one the expressions ‘rich,’ ‘godless,’ ‘wicked,’ ‘violent,’
       ‘sensual,’ and for the first time coined the word ‘world’ as a
       term of reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which
       is also included the use of the word ‘poor’ as synonymous
       with  ‘saint’  and  ‘friend’)  the  significance  of  the  Jewish
       people is to be found; it is with THEM that the SLAVE-IN-
       SURRECTION IN MORALS commences.


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