Power, Parent, Child

Indirectly implied in the concept of Genealogy is a hierarchical relation that is more concretely fundamental than that of Master-Slave--Parent-Child, which plainly contrasts strength and weakness, independence and dependence.  Indications of the pervasive cultural influence of this relation include phrases such as 'God the father' and 'Mother Earth', as well as concepts such as Patriarchy and Matriarchy.  Now, by not recognizing this most basic of natural power relations, Nietzsche fails to decisively distinguish the hierarchies that he does endorse from those of the philosophies of the past.  More specifically crucial, that inattention undercuts his image of the "child", from the 'Of the Three Metamorphoses', in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a metaphor that sentimentally abstracts 'innocent creativity' from the actuality of powerless dependence.