Part 6/9:
The common criticism that Nietzsche is arguing for a return to a morality of selfishness, ambition, and cruelty misunderstands his point. Nietzsche does not believe we have a simple choice between cruelty and compassion, or between selfishness and selflessness. True selflessness, he argues, does not exist - it is simply a refined, subtle version of selfishness.
The problem with slave morality is not that it is actually selfless, but that it is rooted in resentment, the frustrated feeling of being unable to stop those who do you harm. Slave morality results in the creation of doctrines of sin, hell, and the last judgment. Christianity does not excise cruelty, but exalts it, redirecting one's natural cruelty back towards oneself in the form of guilt and the "bad conscience."