Twilight of the Idols: The “Improvers” of Mankind Summary & Analysis

1. Nietzsche thinks philosophers should be “beyond good and evil.” This is in keeping with a formula he created: “that there are no moral facts whatever.” Like religion, moral judgment believes in a version of reality that doesn’t exist. Both moral and religious judgment mistake interpretation with fact. 

2. Throughout history, society has wanted to “improve” human behavior. But the notion of “improvement” often conceals more nefarious intentions. Nietzsche argues that “taming” or “breeding” are more suitable terms; if one referred to the act of “taming” an animal (which only serves to make it weak and sickly) as “improvement,” people would laugh.

Taming an animal is no different than what priests did to humans in the Middle Ages. Nietzsche relates how the Church hunted down the Teutons to improve them. When an improved Teuton was presented at the monastery, he was “like a caricature of a human being,” made into a “‘sinner’” and placed in a cage, imprisoned literally and by “terrifying concepts.” The Church taught the Teuton to hate himself and life—in other words, they made him a Christian.

3. Nietzsche considers the second aspect of morality: “the breeding of a definite race and species.” The best example of this comes from Indian morality, specifically the “Law of Manu,” which calls for the breeding of no more than four races: a priestly race, a warrior race, a trading and farming race, and a menial race (the Sudras). The Law of Manu also identifies a non-bred human, the Chandala. The Avadana-Shastra I holds that these people may receive only garlic and onions to eat (holy scripture forbids them corn, seed-bearing fruits, water, and fire). They can only drink water that comes from swamps or holes made by animals’ feet. They’re not allowed to wash their clothes or their own bodies, and Sudra women can’t help Chandala women with childbirth.

4. The regulations imposed by the Law of Manu show us that “pure blood” is a destructive concept.  He sees this concept repeated in other religions’ texts, too, such as an ancient Hebrew text called the Law of Enoch. Nietzsche thinks that Christianity is a clear rejection of the caste system put forth in the Law of Manu—a ““revaluation of all Aryan values,” and embrace the Chandala “religion of love.”

5. Creating morality requires a person to have “the unconditional will to the contrary.” This idea represents the core of Nietzsche’s intellectual pursuits. Nietzsche considers the idea of “pia fraus,” or pious fraud, noting how many religious teachers and philosophers haven’t “ever doubted their right to tell lies.” This shows how immorality has in fact supported society’s quest to moralize humanity.