Beyond Good and Evil #6: Self-Denial as Power (III.47-III.62)

The Nietzsche Podcast

Apologies on the late upload! There were technical difficulties that have since been resolved. We’re back on track and next week’s release will be on Tuesday again. The ascetic values of the saint are premised on self-denial. It was this self-denial that caused the saint to become a great mystery, who stood in judgment of the powerful people of the world. They suspected that the saint knew something they didn’t, as this miraculous being who transformed from evil to good. Good became synonymous with the otherworldly and the unsensual, and this image became most powerful in the hands of the extraordinary person who has turned out a failure in life. The person with great creative potential who is taken over by the power of self-denial becomes the most dangerous among the ascetics, and over centuries of this religious neurosis dominating the European mind, the result has been the modern man.