The Dawn of Day · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
183.
THE OLD AND THE YOUNG.—“There is something immoral about Parliaments,”—so many people still think,—“for in them views even against the Government may be expressed.”—“We should always adopt that view of a subject which our gracious Lord commands,”—this is the eleventh commandment in many an honest old head, especially in Northern Germany. We laugh at it as an out-of-date fashion, but in former times it was the moral law itself. Perhaps we shall again some day laugh at that which is now considered as moral by a generation brought up under a parliamentary régime, namely, the policy of placing one’s party before one’s own wisdom, and of answering every question concerning the public welfare in such a way as to fill the sails of the party with a favourable gust of wind. “We must take that view of a subject which the position of our party calls for”—such would be the canon. In the service of such morals we may now behold every kind of sacrifice, even martyrdom and conquest over one’s self. THE STATE AS A PRODUCTION OF ANARCHISTS.—In countries inhabited by tractable men there are always a few backsliders and intractable people. For the present the latter have joined the Socialists more than any other party. If it should happen that these people once come to have the making of the laws, they may be relied upon to impose iron chains upon themselves, and to practise a dreadful discipline,—they know themselves! and they will endure these harsh laws with the knowledge that they themselves have imposed them—the feeling of power and of this particular power will be too recent among them and too attractive for them not to suffer anything for its sake. BEGGARS.—Beggars ought to be suppressed; because we get angry both when we help them and when we do not. BUSINESS MEN.—Your business is your greatest prejudice, it binds you to your locality, your society and your tastes. Diligent in business but lazy in thought, satisfied with your paltriness and with the cloak of duty concealing this contentment: thus you live, and thus you like your children to be.
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