Nietzsche: On the Origins of the “Good”

“But people tell me that these men are simply old, cold, boring frogs, which creep and hop around people as if they were in their own proper element, that is, in a swamp.” ~ Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morals. He was criticizing the English psychologists (the utilitarians) who were preaching that the word “good” was first applied to altruistic actions since such actions are socially useful. Nietzsche believed that the word “good” was first used in Ancient Greece by the noble, mighty, higher-ranking and higher-thinking people whose way of living was in stark contrast to the plebeian, low-minded, weak, common, and vulgar type of life. Nietzsche was right.