# The Self-Dissolution of the Ascetic Ideal explained — The Genealogy of Morals

> Chapter companion for The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche.

## What happens

Nietzsche argues that the ascetic ideal's only true enemies are its own 'comedians' who awaken mistrust. He contends that modern atheism is not opposed to the ascetic ideal but is its final logical phase—the culmination of a two-thousand-year training in truth that forbids the lie of belief in God. Christianity, he claims, is destroying itself through its own morality, and the will to truth has turned against morality itself, leading to a great and terrible drama for the next two centuries.

## Themes in this chapter

### The Ascetic Ideal and Its Meaning

Nietzsche examines how the ascetic ideal has evolved and is now undergoing self-dissolution through the will to truth.

### Will to Power

The law of necessary 'self-mastery' in life is invoked to explain how great things, including Christianity, go to ruin by an act of self-dissolution.

## Character check-ins

### Nietzsche

The author who reflects on the ascetic ideal and the self-dissolution of Christian morality.

### the ascetic priest

The embodiment of the ascetic ideal, whose 'comedians' are its only real enemies.

## Key lines

> All great things go to ruin by reason of themselves, by reason of an act of self-dissolution: so wills the law of life, the law of necessary 'self-mastery' even in the essence of life

Everything great destroys itself through its own internal logic, as life itself demands a kind of necessary self-overcoming.

_Nietzsche applies this principle to Christianity's self-destruction through its own morality._

> After Christian truthfulness has drawn one conclusion after the other, it finally draws its strongest conclusion, its conclusion against itself; this, however, happens, when it puts the question, 'what is the meaning of every will for truth?'

Christianity's commitment to truthfulness eventually turns against itself when it questions the very value of the will to truth.

_This marks the moment when morality begins to collapse, leading to a new era._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/chapters/27
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- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/chapters