46 beyond wishful thinkinganticipation of the unity of mankind, asserted against the shallow and
transient divisions within humanity.
Th e result was a radical reversal of values: more than a rejection of
the ethic of the class/caste of rulers and warriors, a turning upside down
of it. Th at this inversion might be tainted, as Nietz sche would come to
argue, by the resentment of the weak against the strong, did not annul
one of its central promises: to turn self- sacrifi ce into self- empowerment,
and to make it part of a response to the irremediable defects in our
existence.
Th ere was in this turn, as in all the others, an ambiguity. Was this
love to be a fl eshless benevolence handed down from on high and from
a distance, by the enlightened or the saved to the unenlightened and
the unredeemed, with sacrifi ce but without inner risk? Or was it a love
that required from the lover that he unprotect himself and accept a
heightened vulnerability? To the extent that it was the former, it might
represent the continuation of the power impulse in the ethic of valor
and vengeance, in even more potent and more twisted form, as Nietz-
sche saw: the practice of altruism confi rming the superiority of the be-
nevolent will without ever placing the agent in intimate jeopardy or
acknowledging his need for the supposed benefi ciary of his self- sacrifi ce.
If, however, it was the latter, it required from the lover much more than
altruism: the imagination of the other person, the unprotection of the
self and the recognition of its need for the other, the ac cep tance of
the risk of rebuff or failure.
It may not be immediately apparent how this ambiguity related to
the ambiguities besetting the other shared features of these religious
revolutions, but it did. As a substitute for the ethic of honor and valor,
benevolence given from a distance and from on high represented a turn-
ing upside down rather than a reinvention. As the will to power per-
sisted, under the disguise of this inversion, little radical transformation
of the self was required. Th e old impulses took new form, as the weak
turned their weakness to advantage against the strong. However, the
substitution of this guarded altruism by a risky love among equals was
a wholly diff erent project. It did require a radical transformation of the
self. In so doing, it raised the question of the changes in the arrange-
ments of society and culture that might help strengthen the conditions
for such a self- transformation.