um. well, I think we have to keep in mind, that Nietzsche is a literary and aesthetic philosopher, not a mathematical, legal, or political one.
He is trying to restore our civilization’s aesthetic from its debasement by christianity. But he holds no appreciation for (or from what I gather, understanding of) math, law, economics, and politics – all of which are forms of measurement.
And so, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And he seems to think that it’s the literature that causes the culture, rather than the group evolutionary strategy, and the institutions the group puts in place, and that literature JUSTIFIES that strategy and institution – it does not CREATE it unless we forcibly indoctrinate people into it.
The Persians were WEALTHIER than the greeks. Of course there will be aspects of the wealthier people to admire.
But the evidence is that the greeks were militarily, economically, and institutionally, and culturally,and intellectual superior to the Persians.
The question we have to ask is why were the greeks superior to the Persians, and the romans superior to the greeks and to the carthaginians?
If one views the supernatural writings of the Persians and semites, the platonic writings of the greeks, and the legal, political, and stoic writings of the romans, we obtain a clue.
If we view the economy of the Persians, the greeks, and the romans we obtain another clue.
If we view the political order of the Persians, the greeks, the carthaginians, and the romans, we get another clue.
Now, christianity was successful in most part because (a) the plagues, (b) the slave economy, (c) the barbarian invasions, (d) the comparative wealth of the fertile crescent vs the european territories, (e) the dependence of rome upon maintaining control of trade routes and food supplies in remote areas (f) the conquest of decimated western rome by the greek romans (byzantines), (g) and the conquest of the byzantines by the muslims just as the barbarians had defeated rome. Lying is cheap and christianity is lying.
The only way that small poorer numbers in the west can compete is the way Aryans always competed: using advanced technology, professional warriors, and agility ( ooda-loops) to out-maneuver (decide FASTER) to defeat enemies dependent upon slave soldiers, large numbers, and central rule.
The only people to develop truth, reason, and pre-science were the greeks. And the only people to develop natural law were the romans. The only people to create the scientific revolution were the europeans. And the only thing that seems to have been an impediment is the lies created by zoroaster, spread by the persians to the semites then to the europeans.
So unlike Nietzche, I see the greeks as rebels against persian mysticism, I see the romans rebels against greek platonism, and I see the church as existing only because it was a government imposed by conquest on a people exhausted from immigration of barbarians, invasion by barbarians, and decimated by plague.
THere are indeed people who are moved by the occult, by the divine/supernatural, by myth, by literature, by history. But they can choose what they are moved by. Law is not a choice, it is required, and it doesn’t require belief in anything.
Economics do not require belief, or agreement. They merely exist by force of law. And law by force of violence.
Nietzche, good christian, and good german, as he was – informed by literature, trying to escape its prison, saw only literature as cause – not as justification for incentives. Not as justification of priors. Not as the heroism of institutions whose origins and strategy are long forgotten.