Classics and the Western Canon discussion
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Beyond Good and Evil
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
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Part 9, What is Noble -- and the book as a whole
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Christopher wrote: "Thomas, as you willing to assert, here and now, that Aristotle's "nature," Aristotle's "world as it already is," WAS in fact, nature itself, and the actual world as it actually was (let alone the world as it is now)."Of course not, but I'll go out on a limb and assert that Aristotle believed in the existence of a nature that could be explored through observation and reason. He didn't "create" nature any more than Euclid "created" the properties of geometry.
Lia wrote: So, yes, I think Nietzsche did change after Dawn, (other than the part where he says change is the only thing that is eternal...) AND that we ourselves are the contemplatives.Not pure contemplatives, but BOTH contemplatives AND actors. Not disinterested nature with value exiled, but the creator of value, through holding two previously opposing impulses (contemplation vs action) in tension.
Pt. 1
I will begin this message by saying I acknowledge you finding that quote and it was a good one.
I do feel like we have gotten our meanings crossed a couple of times in our conversation. The first time was about my use of the word self-certain and yours of indecisive. I acknowledge my own fault in not being clear.
If you look up at my message 19 (I will paste the relevant part at the end of this response), I did make the exception for when Nietzsche appreciated the philosopher, but I am sure that I am at fault for giving the impression that I thought he had no respect for the philosopher type because of my use of the quotes from Daybreak. Despite you bringing that very relevant quote from Gay Science, I still stand by what I was saying before and I don't think that Nietzsche had a complete reversal, because if it were so that he did have such reversals, his writing in Ecce Homo at the end would have been the final reversal, but I don't think it changes the quote from Gay Science which you pasted.
The contemplative life is a danger, because it entails a degree of distance from reality, but Nietzsche was certaintly not adverse to danger. The point I was making, and I made this in the message 19 which I will paste below, is that the contemplative life entails the risk that ones thoughts will not shape the world. Also, insofar as the contemplative type is not active they are subject to the world. These conditions bring the possibility of resentment. That doesn't automatically mean the contemplative nature will be filled with resentment, nor that the contemplative nature's acts are doomed to futility.
But it is also this vulnerability of contemplative types which made them call the active types evil in order to overpower them. This is the inversion of values he talks about.
When I asked if you thought there was hope for the contemplative life, I tried to be clear (but failed and I suppose with good reason) because I asked if you thought there was hope for the contemplative life "as a way of life" - of course one could ask what the hell that means. It was a poor piece of writing, but I meant contemplation for its own sake. In the quote from Gay Science you provided, Nietzsche makes the end of contemplation the creation of the world which actors play out, not contemplation for its own sake. That is the way that contemplation becomes an act of power, but it is not every thinker who will achieve that act.
Here is the part of the messsage I consider relevant from my post 19 above:
"Though he acknowledges that there is a kind of power in the contemplator, if one is left merely to musing without realizing any ideals then one is merely self-deluded in thinking himself great.
The strength of the philosopher(Beyond Good and Evil, section 211): "THE REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: "Thus SHALL it be!" They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all subjugators of the past—they grasp at the future with a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is CREATING, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is—WILL TO POWER.""
Pt. 2Nietzsche was not of a different opinion in the Daybreak stage than he later came to be. The note about the weakness of the contemplative types was meant as a warning, but he was always aware of the beneficial philosophers.
This is the preceding section of Daybreak (41) particularly the last sentence of the first paragraph expresses his approbation for some thinkers:
"To Determine the Value of the Vita Contemplativa.—Let us not forget, as men leading a contemplative life, what kind of evil and misfortunes have overtaken the men of the vita activa as the result of contemplation—in short, what sort of contra-account the vita activa has to offer us, if we exhibit too much boastfulness before it with respect to our good deeds. It would show us, in the first place, those so-called religious natures, who predominate among the lovers of contemplation and consequently represent their commonest type. They have at all times acted in such a manner as to render life difficult to practical men, and tried to make them disgusted with it, if possible: to darken the sky, to obliterate the sun, to cast suspicion upon joy, to depreciate hope, to paralyse the active hand—all this they knew how to do, just as, for miserable times and feelings, they had their consolations, alms, blessings, and benedictions. In the second place, it can show us the artists, a species of men leading the vita contemplativa, rarer than the religious element, but still often to be met with. As beings, these people are usually intolerable, capricious, jealous, violent, quarrelsome: this, however, must be deduced from the joyous and exalting effects of their works.
Thirdly, we have the philosophers, men who unite religious and artistic qualities, combined, however, with a third element, namely, dialectics and the love of controversy. They are the authors of evil in the same sense as the religious men and artists, in addition to which they have wearied many of their fellow-men with their passion for dialectics, though their number has always been very small. Fourthly, the thinkers and scientific workers. They but rarely strove after effects, and contented themselves with silently sticking to their own groove. Thus they brought about little envy and discomfort, and often, as objects of mockery and derision, they served, without wishing to do so, to make life easier for the men of the vita activa. Lastly, science ended by becoming of much advantage to all; and if, on account of this utility, many of the men who were destined for the vita activa are now slowly making their way along the road to science in the sweat of their brow, and not without brain-racking and maledictions, this is not the fault of the crowd of thinkers and scientific workers: it is “self-wrought pain.”"
This is all of key importance because it certaintly shows a different valuation of the philosopher than expressed by Aristotle and Plato, and in much of the western tradition. If the philosopher's role is forming the world in this way, his key focus is forming the roles of active individuals. That doesn't mean he's beneath them, and it does signify power over them, but more than previously the philosopher's focus is the affairs of humanity, and life, rather than pure knowledge - and in this I would include science or contemplation for the sake of knowledge (ie. not for the sake of life).
So while yes there is still a significant place for philosophers in Nietzsche's scheme, the goal is to have them grow up from a foundation of active individuals. By that I don't mean shallow individuals, but ones who can engage in the world in all its facets.
Indicating the weakness of the contemplative type is meant to be a lesson which shows what has separated philosophers, and priests, from the warrior types and caused the inversion of morals spoken of in On the Genealogy of Morals, and to avoid it in the future by uniting the types and unifying their values.
Sorry to offer a lazy excuse, but I’m on mobile and the interface is a pain to work with, the cursor is also not visible in the comment text box, making it a pain to edit, or scroll up, or look at what’s been said. (This is my excuse for mostly failing to follow who said what about which passage or which text etc, I admit I’m thoroughly confused at this point.). I’m going to look through the thread again, I will try to respond to your points in shorter messages.
Still trying to iron out a few things, but to clarify the easy stuff: when I say Nietzsche changed after Dawn, I mean he went from holding action-type and contemplative-type as distinct and in opposition (common theme in pre-GS), to seeing them as two halves of a single whole, and the distinction as mere delusion: he can never shake off a delusion ... he calls his own nature contemplative and overlooks that he himself is really the poet who keeps creating this life.
Those who identify themselves as living the contemplative life “as a way of life” are merely exercising false-dichotomy, they are inevitably also actors. In various text, Nietzsche said self-overcoming is an activity, creativity in the realm of ideas is an action, thinking well is an action. (I’ll go quote-hunt if you want to see them.) Point being, contemplative-life ≡ contemplation-for-its-own-sake used to be taken at face value, but I want to argue that post-GS Nietzsche no longer holds that view, he sees it as a mere abstraction.
Existential's quote from Dawn is interesting, because N. says the same thing, in a pithier way, at the beginning of "What is the meaning of ascetic ideals?"- the third essay in Genealogy of Morals:
What is the meaning of ascetic ideals?—In the case of artists they mean nothing or too many things; in the case of philosophers and scholars something like a sense and instinct for the most favorable preconditions of higher spirituality; in the case of women at best one more seductive charm, a touch of morbidezza in fair flesh, the angelic look of a plump pretty animal; in the case of the physiologically deformed and deranged (the majority of mortals) an attempt to see themselves as “too good” for this world, a saintly form of debauch, their chief weapon in the struggle against slow pain and boredom; in the case of priests the distinctive priestly faith, their best instrument of power, also the “supreme” license for power; in the case of saints, finally, a pretext for hibernation, their novissima gloriae cupido, their repose in nothingness (“God”), their form of madness. That the ascetic ideal has meant so many things to man, however, is an expression of the basic fact of the human will, its horror vacui. it needs a goal—and it will rather will nothingness than not will.—Am I understood? … Have I been understood? … “Not at all, my dear sir!”—Then let us start again, from the beginning.
And further down:
Ascetic ideals reveal so many bridges to independence that a philosopher is bound to rejoice and clap his hands when he hears the story of all those resolute men who one day said No to all servitude and went into some desert: even supposing they were merely strong asses and quite the reverse of a strong spirit. What, then, is the meaning of the ascetic ideal in the case of a philosopher? My answer is—you will have guessed it long ago: the philosopher sees in it an optimum condition for the highest and boldest spirituality and smiles—he does not deny “existence,” he rather affirms his existence and only his existence, and this perhaps to the point at which he is not far from harboring the impious wish: pereat mundus, fiat philosophia, fiat philosophus, fiam!
8 As you see, they are not unbiased witnesses and judges of the value of the ascetic ideal, these philosophers! They think of themselves—what is “the saint” to them! They think of what they can least do without: freedom from compulsion, disturbance, noise, from tasks, duties, worries; clear heads; the dance, leap, and flight of ideas; good air, thin, clear, open, dry, like the air of the heights through which all animal being becomes more spiritual and acquires wings; repose in all cellar regions; all dogs nicely chained up; no barking of hostility and shaggy-haired rancor; no gnawing worm of injured ambition; undemanding and obedient intestines, busy as windmills but distant; the heart remote, beyond, heavy with future, posthumous—all in all, they think of the ascetic ideal as the cheerful asceticism of an animal become fledged and divine, floating above life rather than in repose.
I do not think Nietzsche's thought changed MUCH from Dawn to the breakdown. He says repeatedly that he is always trying to get his ideas across in different ways.
Existential wrote: “So while yes there is still a significant place for philosophers in Nietzsche's scheme, the goal is to have them grow up from a foundation of active individuals. By that I don't mean shallow individuals, but ones who can engage in the world in all its facets.Indicating the weakness of the contemplative type is meant to be a lesson which shows what has separated philosophers, and priests, from the warrior types and caused the inversion of morals spoken of in On the Genealogy of Morals, and to avoid it in the future by uniting the types and unifying their values. ”
I actually read this as Nietzsche contesting Plato’s subversion of Homeric ideal with “philosopher hero.” I think we’re basically in agreement, except I think Plato is his target, not Aristotle.
Again, my defense of “Aristotelian Nietzsche” is primarily based on my impression that Aristotle is not conclusive about contemplative way of life as highest good for human. Earlier in the treatise, he also implied political life is the best life proper for human (I paraphrase. Can find quote if asked.) Like Nietzsche, Aristotle also evaluates or critiques a list of past philosophers and their contributions, and (re)considers their merits, just because he examined the proposition of contemplation as the most final, most self-sufficient highest good, doesn’t mean he actually recommends it. The end of NE reads like an ad for his next treatise, Politics. It reads to me like NE is written to prepare well brought up young men for political life, not asceticism and contemplation.
TL;DR: I agree Nietzsche identified local and specific issues of the contemplative type, but I don’t think he’s overall against them. In fact, I like to think of BGE as a way of rehabilitating them, to make contemplation possible in this noisy modern world full of newspapers and shiny gadgets. I submit this passage from Will to Power for your consideration:
|464 (1885)| I have named those who were unknowingly my workers and precursors. But where may I look with any kind of hope for my kind of philosopher himself, at the least for my need of new philosophers?165 In that direction alone where a noble mode of thought is dominant, such as believes in slavery and in many degrees of bondage as the precondition of every higher culture; where a creative mode of thought dominates that does not posit the happiness of repose, the “Sabbath of Sabbaths” as a goal for the world, and honors even in peace the means to new wars;166 a mode of thought that prescribes laws for the future, that for the sake of the future is harsh and tyrannical towards itself and all things of the present; a reckless, “immoral” mode of thought, which wants to develop both the good and the bad qualities in man to their fullest extent, because it feels it has the strength to put both in their right place—in the place where each needs the other. But he who thus looks for philosophers today, what prospect has he of finding what he is looking for? Is it not likely that, even with the best Diogenes lantern, he will search about in vain all day and all night? The age possesses the reverse instincts; it wants, first and above all, comfort; it wants, in the second place, publicity and that great actors’ hubbub, that great drum banging that appeals to its funfair tastes; it wants, thirdly, that everyone should fall on his face in the profoundest subjection before the greatest of all lies—it is called “equality of men”—and honor exclusively those virtues that level and equalize. But the rise of the philosopher, as I understand him, is therewith rendered altogether impossible, notwithstanding that it is thought in all innocence to be favorable to him. Indeed, all the world bewails today the evil situation of the philosopher in earlier times, hemmed in between the stake, bad conscience, and the arrogant wisdom of the Church Fathers: the truth, however, is that precisely this was a much more favorable condition for the education of a powerful, comprehensive, cunning and audaciously daring spirituality than the conditions of life at present. Today, another kind of spirit, namely the spirit of the demagogue, the spirit of the actor, perhaps also the scholarly beaver- and ant-like spirit, finds conditions favorable. But things are so much the worse even for superior artists: for are they not, almost all of them, perishing from a lack of inner discipline? They are no longer tyrannized over from without by a church’s tables of absolute values or those of a court; thus they also no longer learn to develop their “inner tyrants,” their will. And what is true of artists is true in a higher and more fateful sense of philosophers. For where are there free spirits today? Show me a free spirit today!—
Lia wrote: "I agree Nietzsche identified local and specific issues of the contemplative type, but I don’t think he’s overall against them. In fact, I like to think of BGE as a way of rehabilitating them, to make contemplation possible in this noisy modern world full of newspapers and shiny gadgets. ..."Exactly, Lia.
Also, Equality > Comfort > Publicity ... doesn’t that sound like yet another rehash of Aristotle’s endoxa list? (Wealth, comfort, honor)I’m trying to find the quote, but I remember Nietzsche saying Luther’s Reformation was a reactionary hatred against the contemplative types, their suppresion and rejection resulting in the modern situation in which contemplation is made impossible. (Probably from Dawn or pre-Dawn writings.)
Lia wrote: I actually read this as Nietzsche contesting Plato’s subversion of Homeric ideal with “philosopher hero.” I think we’re basically in agreement, except I think Plato is his target, not Aristotle.Again, my defense of “Aristotelian Nietzsche” is primarily based on my impression that Aristotle is not conclusive about contemplative way of life as highest good for human. Earlier in the treatise, he also implied political life is the best life proper for human (I paraphrase. Can find quote if asked.) Like Nietzsche, Aristotle also evaluates or critiques a list of past philosophers and their contributions, and (re)considers their merits, just because he examined the proposition of contemplation as the most final, most self-sufficient highest good, doesn’t mean he actually recommends it. The end of NE reads like an ad for his next treatise, Politics. It reads to me like NE is written to prepare well brought up young men for political life, not asceticism and contemplation.
Plato was certainly Nietzsche's target and Aristotle was not. In my first message on this thread I agreed that Nietzsche and Aristotle have significant similarities. I don't think Aristotle was Nietzsche's target, but I do think there is a distance over the contemplative type.
Nichomachean Ethics did not advocate Politics as the highest way of life for humans (Nichomachean Ethics, Book VI, 7):
"Therefore wisdom must be intuitive reason combined with scientific knowledge-scientific knowledge of the highest objects which has received as it were its proper completion.
Of the highest objects, we say; for it would be strange to think that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best knowledge, since man is not the best thing in the world."
I am not saying that Nietzsche considered Aristotle a decadent for this reason. But the criticism is that Aristotle was already influenced by Plato in this regard, his optimism towards knowledge. Consider the books Aristotle wrote. While his treatises on ethics and the Politics are his most frequently read, he wrote several works on scientific topics. Compare this with the topics Nietzsche chose to write on. If you would like to find the quote where you think he implies Politics is better for humans you can.
Lia wrote:TL;DR: I agree Nietzsche identified local and specific issues of the contemplative type, but I don’t think he’s overall against them.
But I didn't say that Nietzsche was against the contemplative type. I said that he recognized that there was weakness in them and wrote repeatedly to caution against that and teach how it led to the inversion of values. And that he didn't speak of knowledge for the sake of knowledge in the same way that Aristotle did. I'm not saying that Aristotle was his target, the target was more likely related to the trajectory of modern science. Consider that he wrote in the time of positivism which would more or less start to push philosophy completely out of the picture.
Well, I think Aristotle’s method is to entertain the extreme opposites and then come up with the middle way, which, I think, is also Nietzsche’s method in many ways — between actions and contemplations (Nobility and Contemplation for Aristotle,) like between cowardice and rashness. And especially in BGE, between will to truth and will to value, which I see as the substance of his engagement with the faith in oppositions of values. I don’t read Aristotle as treating contemplation as his singular, final endorsement, just one of the many things he considered. There are many essays addressing the apparent disnunity of Aristotle’s “good,” I don’t think scholars have ironed out all the contradictions either.
I also don’t read Aristotle as treating knowledge for knowledge’s sake, again, it’s just another one of those things that he entertained as one component of the (intellectual part of) the soul, all the components work together, the proper ordering is eudaimonia, proper human life.
Also, as regards to your searching for the quote about Luther, I'm not completely sure I know which one you mean. There is a quote on Luther in Daybreak, section 68, but it doesn't strike me as what you mean. You can check it out though. The one that I always remember is from Antichrist, 61, here:Here it becomes necessary to call up a memory that must be a hundred times more painful to Germans. The Germans have destroyed for Europe the last great harvest of civilization that Europe was ever to reap—the Renaissance. Is it understood at last, will it ever be understood, what the Renaissance was? The transvaluation of Christian values,—an attempt with all available means, all instincts and all the resources of genius to bring about a triumph of the opposite values, the more noble values.... This has been the one great war of the past; there has never been a more critical question than that of the Renaissance—it is my question too—; there has never been a form of attack more fundamental, more direct, or more violently delivered by a whole front upon the center of the enemy! To attack at the critical place, at the very seat of Christianity, and there enthrone the more noble values—that is to say, to insinuate them into the instincts, into the most fundamental needs and appetites of those sitting there.... I see before me the possibility of a perfectly heavenly enchantment and spectacle:—it seems to me to scintillate with all the vibrations of a fine and delicate beauty, and within it there is an art so divine, so infernally divine, that one might search in vain for thousands of years for another such possibility; I see a spectacle so rich in significance and at the same time so wonderfully full of paradox that it should arouse all the gods on Olympus to immortal laughter—Cæsar Borgia as pope!... Am I understood?... Well then, that would have been the sort of triumph that I alone am longing for today—: by it Christianity would have been swept away!—What happened? A German monk, Luther, came to Rome. This monk, with all the vengeful instincts of an unsuccessful priest in him, raised a rebellion against the Renaissance in Rome.... Instead of grasping, with profound thanksgiving, the miracle that had taken place: the conquest of Christianity at its capital—instead of this, his hatred was stimulated by the spectacle. A religious man thinks only of himself.—Luther saw only the depravity of the papacy at the very moment when the opposite was becoming apparent: the old corruption, the peccatum originale, Christianity itself, no longer occupied the papal chair! Instead there was life! Instead there was the triumph of life! Instead there was a great yea to all lofty, beautiful and daring things!... And Luther restored the church: he attacked it.... The Renaissance—an event without meaning, a great futility!—Ah, these Germans, what they have not cost us! Futility—that has always been the work of the Germans.—The Reformation; Leibnitz; Kant and so-called German philosophy; the war of “liberation”; the empire—every time a futile substitute for something that once existed, for something irrecoverable.... These Germans, I confess, are my enemies: I despise all their uncleanliness in concept and valuation, their cowardice before every honest yea and nay. For nearly a thousand years they have tangled and confused everything their fingers have touched; they have on their conscience all the half-way measures, all the three-eighths-way measures, that Europe is sick of,—they also have on their conscience the uncleanest variety of Christianity that exists, and the most incurable and indestructible—Protestantism.... If man kind never manages to get rid of Christianity the Germans will be to blame....".
Thanks! I’ll take a look. I’m going to have to check out a bunch of books from the library, taking screenshots from google play book is killing me.I also didn’t read very closely when I read it on my own, so I could have misinterpreted or misremembered. It’s not like I was expecting to have to defend my interpretation — I’m pretty sure Nietzsche also said something about how your friends should also be your best enemy or something, so thanks for fighting !
Section 88 from The Dawn of Day is also about Luther:88. Luther, the Great Benefactor. —Luther's most important result is the suspicion which he awakened against the saints and the entire Christian vita contemplativa ; only since his day has an un-Christian vita contemplativa again become possible in Europe, only since then has contempt for laymen and worldly activity ceased. Luther continued to be an honest miner's son even after he had been shut up in a monastery, and there, for lack of other depths and “borings,” he descended into himself, and bored terrifying and dark passages through his own depths—finally coming to recognise that an introspective and saintly life was impossible to him, and that his innate “activity” in body and soul would end by being his ruin. For a long time, too long, indeed, he endeavoured to find the way to holiness through castigations; but at length he made up his mind, and said to himself: “There is no real vita contemplativa ! We have been deceived. The saints were no better than the rest of us.” This was truly a rustic way of gaining one's case; but for the Germans of that period it was the only proper way. How edified they felt when they could read in their Lutheran catechism: “Apart from the Ten Commandments there is no work which could find favour in the eyes of God—these much-boasted spiritual works of the saints are purely imaginary!”
That sounds more like it might be the quote Lia was looking for than the one I referenced to. I think it accords with the interpretation of Nietzsche's thought given here so far.
A lot of the material in this chapter was familiar and a intermittently tiresome, but his description of Dionysius in 295 is gorgeous. "To lie still as a mirror, that the deep sky may mirror itself in [the soul]." Strangely contemplative language. The whole passage is reminiscent (to me) of that wonderful painting of Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian. I may like Nietzsche best in his Greek moods.
I've heard that Nietzsche was voted one of the most underrated philosophers of the last 200 years, and also one of the most overrated. I have inclined towards the latter camp, and I looked forward to reading BGE because I wanted to see if I could better understand the former. Many people see a lot in Nietzsche, even people whose judgment I normally respect. What do they see in this narcissistic pasty-faced academic ranting about Uebermenschen, giving us this semi-organized collection of blog posts? He says it is meant for the Free Minds only, but published it so that everyone could read it and know that he is not talking about them? How can people tolerate his haughty disdain for the hard-won advances of Christian morality--brotherhood of Man, universal compassion, value of the individual soul, equality, the virtue of humility? Nietzsche plainly thinks that because he is smarter than others he is worth more than them. He explains away his philosophical predecessors as victims of their prejudices, but freely indulges his own prejudices. Why pay him any mind at all?None of the answers I can come up with are really satisfying, but here they are:
1) Nietzsche firmly grasps the nettle of justifying morality without any appeal to a divine origin. Some people long for that.
2) If you've been reading Kant and Hegel, Nietzsche's prose is surely a delightful relief.
3) His lack of organization or system,, and his self-contradictions, enable one to read into his works almost any meaning one pleases.
4) His claim that only an elite set of Free Minds will truly understand him entices one to believe one is a superhuman member of this elite, and everyone else is herd. How flattering!
I enjoyed the discussion of the book very much. I doubt very strongly that I would have tackled this on my own, being far too intimidated by my lack of experience with this author and philosophy in general. I appreciated reading everyone's input and thanks to Thomas for leading the discussion.
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
The Dawn of Day (other topics)The Glass Bead Game (other topics)
The Dawn of Day (other topics)
Mansfield Park (other topics)
I agree, but I think this is how "science" works. The fact that he doesn't arrive at a precise and final conclusion is just an indication that the process isn't complete, and in reality it never will be. For Aristotle no one is ever "perfectly" knowledgeable or happy or good -- this perfection is a divine state that is unattainable but which still stands as a goal.
My point about happiness comes from BGE 260 where Nietzsche notes that "the longing for freedom, the instinct for happiness and the subleties of the feeling of freedom belong just as necessarily to slave morality and morals as artful and enthusiastic reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an aristocratic way of thinking and evaluating."
It isn't that a noble human cannot be happy, but that it isn't a goal. Happiness may certainly be a byproduct of power, but without power it is insufficient.
I don’t think Nietzsche’s orientation is toward the self, I think he’s working towards a new public that is not founded on Platonic metaphysics, a reordering of the soul (psyche, psychology) so that we moderns (herd included)...
I think it's both (though I'm not so sure about a "new public."). With regard to self-orientation, see BGE 265:
"...egoism belongs to the nature of a noble soul -- I mean that unshakeable faith that to a being such as "we are" other beings must be subordinate by nature and have to sacrifice themselves..."
...and so on. I think this springs naturally from his opinions about the subjectivity of truth.