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Thus Spake ZarathustraIdeasLibrary
criticism · Christianity

A race of proud, strong dionysians

Mencken states that for Nietzsche abandoning self-sacrifice would produce a race of supermen, dionysians who say yes to the world.

Nietzsche thus showed, first, that Christianity (and all other ethical systems having self-sacrifice as their basis) tended to oppose the law of natural selection and so made the race weaker; and secondly, that the majority of men, consciously or unconsciously, were aware of this, and so made no effort to be absolute Christians. If Christianity were to become universal, he said, and every man in the world were to follow Christ's precepts to the letter in all the relations of daily life, the race would die out in a generation. This being true--and it may be observed in passing that no one has ever successfully controverted it--there follows the converse: that the human race had best abandon the idea of self-sacrifice altogether and submit itself to the law of natural selection. If this is done, says Nietzsche, the result will be a race of supermen--of proud, strong dionysians--of men who will say "yes" to the world and will be ideally capable of meeting the conditions under which life must exist on earth.