The oldest moral judgments.
What really are our reactions
to the behavior of someone in our presence?

First of all,
we see what there is in it for us
we regard it only from this point of view.

We take this effect as the intention behind the behavior

and finally we ascribe the harboring of such intentions
as a permanent quality of the person
whose behavior we are observing
and thenceforth call him, for instance, ‘a harmful person’.

Threefold error! Threefold primeval blunder.
Perhaps inherited from the animals
and their power of judgment!

Is the origin of all morality
not to be sought in the detestable petty conclusions:

‘what harms me is something evil (harmful in itself);
what is useful to me is something good
(beneficent and advantageous in itself);

what harms me once or several times
is the inimical as such and in itself;

what is useful to me once or several times
is the friendly as such and in itself’.

Opudenda origo!

Daybreak by Friedrich Nietzsche trans. by R. G. Collingdale, aphorism 102

The obscene…  If I think of a thing or an act felt obscene, what is that in my mind-space of ideas?  Perhaps I point to something exceptionally inimical, verging upon the unmentionable. What do you think?

Last night Laura and I participated with five other adults in discussion. Our assigned topic: the Devil.  Satan, his majesty the devil is a figure in folklore, and of rock n’ roll lyrics. Naturally we took note of Sympathy for the Devil a widely known blues standard by The Rolling Stones.

Our group began the exchange of ideas with quick poll which revealed that no one believed “the devil” to be a physically existent being. The question remained for exploration.  What purpose(s) does the term serve in our view of reality, of good and evil? What about the opposing idea, the-ground-of-all-being, God? If the devil is a metaphor, a figure of speech, that we’d prefer to keep using, — then what about “God”?

Nietzsche offers thoughts about the origin of our moral sensibility, the polarity of good and evil. He proposes the basic sorting of experience as “good” or “evil” is primal, as old as our first beginnings. We react, involuntarily respond to another’s entré to us, to their tone of voice, to body language, to the cut and style of clothing, in terms of — “what’s in it for me.” This is visceral, a triggered response: friend or foe, ally or opponent. What follows — the assumption that our binary projection is also what he/she has in mind, a revelation of their intention. Third and finally comes the leap of imagination that such ‘good’ or ‘evil’ purposes are existing in themselves, as real as all other reals. He/she is a good or evil individual.

Nietzsche recoils, is repulsed by the domino-effect error, the “threefold primeval blunder.” He writes that this ancient, self-reinforcing error is the ultimate obscenity, a shameful origin of all morality. Morality, that basic foundation of our civilized life together…

The Italian phrase, Opudenda origo!, English translation ‘shameful origin’ is also used as a extremely vulgar euphemism in Italian. This term-of-obscenity, difficult to say out loud is at once, Nietzsche’s repudiation of our proclivity and also an example of absurdity. (look it up!) This bent to conclude an origin of substance, this imagined what’s “in it for me”, — the good and the evil is groundless.

If that’s so for evil, what ought we to suppose concerning our ultimate symbol of ‘the good’?

Shall we begin here and now to relax?  Chill in our approach to one another. This process, requires time and intent. A tune will help! Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones.

I’ve got it, I’ve got it!  The nothingness behind the mask of the exemplars of evil and of good make these symbols of the absolute indispensable, perfect!  Superb receptacles of mystery!