Beyond Good and Evil · Chapter
Chapter 58 explained
The chapter examines how modern industriousness and laboriousness cultivate religious indifference and unbelief, particularly among the German middle class and scholars.
What happens
The chapter examines how modern industriousness and laboriousness cultivate religious indifference and unbelief, particularly among the German middle class and scholars. It contrasts this with the aristocratic, leisurely idleness historically conducive to religious life and self-examination, arguing that the modern work ethic breeds a sense of superiority and naive tolerance that looks down upon the religious type.
Themes in this chapter
Critique of Modernity
Direct attack on modern 'noisy, time-engrossing, conceited, foolishly proud laboriousness' as destructive to religious instincts and fostering a shallow, arrogant unbelief.
Psychology as the Fundamental Science
Uses psychological analysis to explain the origins of religious indifference and the scholar's 'good conscience of tolerance,' treating belief and unbelief as types shaped by life conditions.
Characters to notice
- The Germans
Described as largely indifferent to religion due to generational laboriousness, especially the Protestant middle class in commercial centers and laborious scholars.
- Europeans
Implied through the critique of modern, time-engrossing laboriousness as a European phenomenon preparing for widespread 'unbelief'.
- The Narrator
Observes and analyzes the psychological and social conditions leading to religious indifference, positioning himself as a critical psychologist of modern types.
Key passages
“outward idleness, or semi-idleness, is necessary to a real religious life”
Genuine religious devotion requires leisure and freedom from constant labor.
Contrasts aristocratic, contemplative idleness with modern busyness.
“the modern, noisy, time-engrossing, conceited, foolishly proud laboriousness educates and prepares for 'unbelief' more than anything else”
The relentless work ethic of the modern age is the primary teacher of atheism and religious indifference.
Posits a causal link between industrial/work culture and secularization.
“he, the little arrogant dwarf and mob-man, the sedulously alert, head-and-hand drudge of 'ideas,' of 'modern ideas'!”
The modern scholar, for all his supposed tolerance, is a petty, arrogant slave to contemporary fashions of thought.
Scathing critique of the scholar's unconscious pride and metaphysical superficiality.