Interlude: Nietzsche on Eliot

While doing some research I came across this passage in Nietzsche's writings:

G. Eliot. -- They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. That is an English consistency; we do not wish to hold it against little moralistic females à la Eliot. In England one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is. That is the penance they pay there. 

We others hold otherwise. When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth--it stands and falls with faith in God. 

When the English actually believe that they know "intuitively" what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion: such that the origin of English morality has been forgotten, such that the very conditional character of its right to existence is no longer felt. For the English, morality is not yet a problem. 

Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols. 

So the question is: Can one keep the Christian system of morality while throwing away the metaphorical dimension of Christianity? Can you have your Christian cake and eat it too?

Nietzsche criticizes Eliot for trying to do so. It reminds me of the assertion in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov: If there is no God, then everything is permitted.

George Eliot has transitioned in her own life from an evangelical Christian perspective to an ethical humanism view of the world. She retains a Christian sense of morality (in a broad sense) while leaving the belief in a personal God behind. I wonder how much Spinoza's writings have shaped her spiritual viewpoint. After all, she had translated Spinoza's works into English.

Chapter 14 – Might, could, would

Characters: Peter Featherstone, his nephew Fred Vincy, Mary Garth

Issues: Whether Fred will inherit Peter’s property; the vocations of Fred and Mary; the relationship of Fred and Mary.

A letter from Bulstrode that affirms Fred’s honesty is given to Peter. Fred is humiliated by Peter, making him grovel over a little money that Peter gives him.

Later Mary criticizes Fred’s lack of ambition for a good job. Fred confesses his love for Mary but she denies any feelings for him.

Fred Vincy is presented as a person with no self-knowledge. Lazy. Non-assertive, or maybe submissive. The narrator says, “When Fred go into debt, it always seemed to him highly probable that something or other…would come to pass enabling him to pay in due time.”

Fred says to Mary,

I thought you looked so sad when you came upstairs. It is a shame you should stay here to be bullied in that way.

Perhaps Fred is projecting onto Mary his own hurt of being bullied by his uncle.

Fred, “….if I had been rich.” Mary responds by alluding to God’s call and our duty.

Mary abhors pretension:

I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.

Fred asks for encouragement from Mary, and she says, “My father would think it a disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt, and would not work!”

Fred is battered in this chapter by both his uncle and the woman he loves. But he isn’t taking responsibility for his life.

Themes: responsibility, duty, initiative, ambition

BOOK TWO – YOUNG AND OLD Chapter 13 – to play bishop and banker everywhere

Two conversations:

(1) Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Lydgate talk about the new hospital. Bulstrode wants Lydgate to back him up when decisions are made about bringing a chaplain to the old infirmary, and that being Mr. Tyke. Lydgate lets it be known that he doesn’t agree with Bulstrode’s enthusiasm for the spiritual dimension of healing. Bulstrode is not a native Middlemarch person, and neither is Lydgate. They both see the need for reform. Behind the scenes strategizing.

(2) Mr. Vincy requests that Bulstrode (brother-in-laws) write a letter to Featherstone certifying that Fred Vincy has not been borrowing money with the expectation of inheriting Featherstone’s property.

New word: Vincy refers to his son as his young scapegrace—meaning a rascal or wayward person.

Bulstrode stubbornly refuses to write on behalf of Vincy’s son. The narrator says, “To point out other people’s errors was a duty that Mr. Bulstrode rarely shrank from.”

There is some banter about “religion.” Bulstrode labels Vincy as given to “worldliness.” Vincy proceeds to make the point that Bulstrode and his peers are worldly too. Vincy says,

The only difference I see is that one worldliness is a little bit honester (sic) than another.

The back-and-forth continues. Vincy says, “I’m content to be no worse than my neighbours.” He challenges Bulstrode’s religiosity, saying,

Such doings may be lined with religion, but outside they have a nasty, dog-in-the-manger look.

He lays it on thicker to Bulstrode:

It’s this sort of thing—this tyrannical spirit, wanting to play bishop and banker everywhere—it’s this sort of thing makes a man’s name stink.

Bulstrode doesn’t like what he sees in the mirror Vincy holds up to him. The conversation ends as Bulstrode asks for a little time to consider the request.

This chapter presents a picture of religion as a cover for manipulating others. Those who practice religion see it as a conventional duty that one carries out. But their faith seems to have no power to shape their character in positive ways. Doctor Lydgate, a man of science, sees no need for religion at all.

Bulstrode’s faith cultivates no sense of humility of service in him. It is covered with a need for power and control.