The Genealogy of Morals

by Nietzsche, Friedrich (1989)

Key Passage

‘mechanical activity’ is a kind of ‘training’ that ‘alleviates’ an existence of suffering to a not inconsiderable degree: this fact is today called, somewhat dishonestly, ‘the blessing of work’ … Mechanical activity and what goes with it – such an absolute regularity, punctilious and unthinking obedience, a mode of life fixed once and for all, fully occupied time … how thoroughly the ascetic priest has known how to employ them against pain! When he was dealing with sufferers of the lower class, with work-slaves or prisoners … he required hardly more than a little ingenuity in name-changing and re-baptizing to make them see benefits and a relative happiness in things they formerly hated [work]. (p.134)

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