Are you the monster you want to be?

[vulcanlogician]

Some of what you say concerning Nietzsche is on point. But it isn't quite correct to associate him with fascism. Nietzsche believed that the best ruling system was an aristocracy ("rule of the better"). The societies he hold up as exemplars of this way of rule are are the Greeks (before they implemented democracy) and the Romans (before their empire began its decline). What interested Nietzsche considering these two societies was their respective value systems before and after each one entered into decadence. In their primes, Greece and Rome favored the proud over the humble, the brave and powerful over the merciful, men over women... in short, these cultures valued the strong over the weak or (if you will) the master over the slave.

Nietzsche's focus wasn't so much on which morality system (slave or master) is ideal to enact in society. Looking at any culture from the outside, Nietzsche thought you could gauge the health of that society according to which value system was on top. If a society has a strong master morality in it, it is probably a healthy and thriving culture which will create things in its future. If the culture has come to be dominated by slave values, that indicates that the culture is finished creating and is simply "waiting to die." To Nietzsche, things like democracy and Platonism appearing in ancient Greece indicated that Greece was finishing up its creative period and starting to die. Christianity taking hold of Rome indicated much the same thing. The soft, peace-loving hippies appearing in Western culture would indicate decline to Nietzsche. They wanted peace, equality among the sexes, and a society of coexistence. Ironically (considering what happened in Rome) the "Christian society" of the 1960s who fought the waxing influence of hippie culture would be interpreted by Nietzsche as the last defenders of the master morality in America. You see, in Rome, the Christians were the "hippies" trying to circumvent the old master morality of Rome (by elevating the weak to the moral equal of the strong etc.) In 1960s America, the Christians took the role of "the old masters" preventing decline and weakness in their society.

In short, Nietzsche was no nihilist. He wanted societies that valued strength, perseverance, and overcoming-- so that they could create. He saw philosophy as being a tool that the weak used to confuse the strong (same thing with Christianity and democracy). To him, once the weak overcome the strong, there are no values. So in the end, he saw himself as an opponent of nihilism. Because Christianity valued weakness, it ultimately unraveled itself. To Nietzsche, things like Marxism are nothing more than the next inevitable metamorphosis of Christianity. Christianity can't help but become Marxism because "Christianity leads out of itself"... as does Marxism. Thus, to Nietzsche, all slave morality systems are ultimately nihilistic because they eventually end up undermining their own values. Anything that undermines its own values it necessarily nihilistic. The value system which refuses to be toppled... the value system that stands under its own strength... that, to Nietzsche, is the antithesis to nihilism.

Do you have a source for this?  Some of the claims seem questionable, so I'm curious about who came to these conclusions.  Not saying it's a wrong synopsis of the person's view, but still would like to know the origin of it. Thanks in advance.

Slave/master morality system is articulated in Beyond Good and Evil. The stuff about decline is mentioned throughout his works, but the most clear description of the phenomenon is outlined in a chapter of Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols. I'm taking stuff from a bunch of sources (all books by Nietzsche) put together with a few years of reflection.

If a particular item seems questionable, quote it from my last post, and I will dig up the corresponding work by Nietzsche and quote the passage if you'd like. It would be fun for me, actually. Been steeped in Plato a bit too much lately.

edit: here's my last point touched upon in The Will to Power

1. Nihilism stands at the door: whence comes this uncanniest of all guests? Point of departure: it is an error to consider "social distress" or "physiological degeneration" or, worse, corruption, as the cause of nihilism. Ours is the most decent and compassionate age. Distress, whether of the soul, body, or intellect, cannot of itself give birth to nihilism (i.e., the radical repudiation of value, meaning, and desirability). Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations. Rather: it is in one particular interpretation, the Christian-moral one, that nihilism is rooted.

2. The end of Christianity--at the hands of its own morality (which cannot be replaced), which turns against the Christian God (the sense of truthfulness, developed highly by Christianity, is nauseated by the falseness and mendaciousness of all Christian interpretations of the world and of history; rebound from "God is truth" to the fanatical faith "All is false"...

http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_th...book_I.htm
(see the bold)