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Comment by BTCOG | Hacker News Reader

It's so odd to me that since the dawn of time, humans find this innate need to live in slave morality. Living a life of moral slavery based on stories and tales previous humans made with their own minds. It's a definition of insanity, from my own perspective.

To contribute to the discussion: I practice nothing, no religion, no meditations. Nothing. I find peace enough knowing that I'm not morally enslaved and that I trust in natural workings of this possibly created planet. It's not that I do not believe there's some God or force out there, potentially, but I fully trust in living a natural life, the way I was born and in a somewhat Stoic fashion. When I die, I just am. I will become nature once more. So be it.

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I'm far from a philosopher so I wasn't familiar with master/slave morality before your comment so bear with me. It is odd to me that you say that this is the definition of insanity to find this need to live in slave morality; yet many of the Stoic and Christian teachings are very similar which is easy to see comparing biblical teaching to the Enchiridion. I mention this since you identify somewhat with the Stoics, maybe I misinterpreted the sentence completely though.

While many of the teachings are very similar, the Christian finds ultimate freedom from sin by turning his/her life to God. While you acknowledge there may be a God, Christians proclaim that there is a God that commands men to repent of their sin and follow Him. The apostle Paul's explanation is much better than mine:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+17%3A16-34...

Moral slavery as you put it is one of those things that's bad for you but good for everybody else, unless you're bad at getting away with things in which case it's also good for you.

Another kind of slavery is doing whatever you want, because you don't decide what you want. What you want is determined by the often self-contradictory brain circuits that sprouted in your head without your intent or permission. That's something from the bible, by the way.

God is nature itself. I am happy toiling in soils, studying plants, etc. I could just as easily 100% drop computers and engineering next week and live on my own farm toiling the soils, raising farm animals and be as happy as I have ever been in my life.

I recently heard an experienced psychologist claim that in 30+ years of clinical practice he had never seen anyone "get away with" anything. I was surprised by the statement. This would be Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment universally applied. The psychological consequences of actions we take may be so deeply embedded within our DNA that they become almost impossible to escape.

You know, I think you can interpret Nietzsche's slave morality as the process to master morality. For example, the enlightenment was supposed to free society up from faith-thinking and introduce rational thinking, but (and he right criticizes it) it did not. I think the movement instead brought society out of older slave morality institutions into master morality and which are now considered slave morality again.

You also might enjoy this: http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/nietzsche1313/4-13/

EDIT: it's worth pointing out that Nietzsche also criticizing master morality too.

Interesting concept, and thank you for the link.

I am not Nietzsche expert, but from the little reading I have done it appears that in many context resource poor people have "slave morality" and resource rich people have "master morality". For example, in partner dances, people who are not very popular dance partners argue that "everybody should dance with everybody", whereas people who are very popular dance partners argue that "i did not train 10 years to dance with beginners". And you can see this in almost any human endeavour.

    It's so odd to me that since the dawn of time, humans 
    find this innate need to live in slave morality

Is this really true, though?

Or does it simply look that way to us, as we look back through history -- which was of course largely written by those who benefitted from this sort of slave morality?

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