Video summary
In this discussion regarding Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, a central theme emerges concerning how to find joy in suffering and adversity. The ultimate goal of Nietzsche's philosophical project is identified as *amor fati*, a concept borrowed from Stoicism but reinterpreted by him to mean loving literally everything that happens to one rather than merely accepting it or being content with it. While the philosopher himself never fully achieved this state, evidenced by his chronic pain and personal struggles documented in his letters, he often framed his own suffering as resistance to be overcome. He channeled intense physical ailments, such as splitting headaches lasting for months, into his creative work, viewing the act of overcoming these obstacles not just as a necessity but as something that could be enjoyed or sublimated through an organized will aimed at conquering difficulty. Nietzsche argues that a life devoid of resistance would effectively amount to hell, leading humanity toward decay rather than growth. This fear is encapsulated in his figure of the "last man" from *Thus Spoke Zarathustra*, who seeks mere comfort and avoids all challenges, resulting in passive nihilism. The philosopher holds a deep investment in human potential and believes that avoiding struggle prevents individuals from experiencing the profound fulfillment derived from overcoming obstacles. He contends that if humans simply sit around pursuing ease without facing any friction or pain, they will never achieve their unique selves; instead of feeling pity for those who fail to rise above difficulties, Nietzsche suggests one should recognize that these individuals could have become something greater had they embraced the resistance inherent in life. The conversation also addresses Nietzsche's apparent contempt for what he termed "weak people," a stance often misinterpreted given his own history as a nervous wreck suffering from chronic pain and facing personal rejections regarding women. Critics sometimes point out contradictions between his harsh rhetoric against weakness and his occasional expressions of love for all humanity, but interpreters resolve this by viewing his project as an attempt to make everyone capable of overcoming resistance to avoid nihilism in a godless world. In Nietzsche's view, weakness breeds dishonesty because it involves fleeing from the truth or reality rather than confronting it directly. Furthermore, he believes that an unwillingness to overcome resistance inevitably leads one toward nihilism, making his harsh attitude on this point a form of tough love intended to push people toward self-overcoming rather than offering pity that might hold them back. A significant portion of Nietzsche's philosophy is directed against compassion and pity, which he views as detrimental to the person receiving aid because they effectively prevent that individual from facing their own struggles. The speaker notes that while this anti-compassion stance seems extreme compared to modern sensibilities, there are contexts where such a "tough dad" attitude proves beneficial for fostering independence and resilience. For instance, the speaker reflects on how his father's insistence on overcoming challenges helped him become more self-reliant, contrasting this with softer parenting styles that may not yield similar benefits. Ultimately, Nietzsche's challenge is to transform suffering into creative power rather than succumbing to it or seeking comfort in avoidance, a difficult path he himself walked while advocating for the transmutation of pain into artistic and intellectual achievement.
Read the full video transcript
What would be what would be his advice
to somebody who keeps getting kicked in
the nuts over and over and is and and is
regularly or keeps having a splitting
headache that lasts for months on end.
What would his sort of lay person advice
be to them uh about how to how to deal
with that? So ne's ultimate goal for all
of his philosophy is this concept of
amalati which I think is a is a phrase
that he borrowed from stoic philosophy
but is using it in a very different way.
So his the kind of culmination of um of
his philosophical project is the idea of
loving literally everything that happens
to you and not merely kind of being
content or or kind of accepting it but
but truly loving it. And it's kind of I
mean he definitely never got there
because you know if you read his letters
he's not necessarily a happy bunny a lot
of the time but that's so the advice
that he or he when he's writing about
how he deals with his own pay he largely
talks about it as as as a kind of
resistance to overcome. So something
that he's in some twisted way enjoying
overcoming. He uses and he kind of
channels it into his writing. So he has
these splitting headaches and he has
this I can't remember the exact metaphor
but he talks about how it was so painful
that it kind of focused his mind in a
strange sense and so he channeled that
pain into his writing or into his work.
And although that's not a kind of bit of
his formal philosophy, it is nonetheless
kind of reminiscent of some of the stuff
he does say in his formal philosophy
where he talks about kind of sublimating
pain or suffering or supplimating your
drives towards this kind of organized
will that whose aim is fundamentally to
overcome resistance and as a result must
will resistance for themselves.
Would that mean that a life without
resistance would be kind of like a hell?
Yeah, essentially he he's very worried
about human potential. So one of the
images from nature's philosophy that
really sticks out to a lot of people is
the figure of the last man which is a
character in thus zarustra where the
last man is sort of a kind of passive
nihilist but the thing that they're
hankering after um is contentment so not
contentment in the kind of
I don't know like Buddhist sense I
suppose of kind of reaching nana
although nature also has a problem with
that this sort of all right I'm going to
avoid challenge and resistance as much
as I possibly
And there are two reasons why nature is
opposed to this. The first is that he's
got this sort of I don't want to call it
sentimental but he's got this real
investment in the idea of humans
achieving their potential. you see this
um kind of again all through his works
even he has an essay called Schopenhau
as educator where he's kind of
reflecting on the work of Arthur
Schopenhau and in that he has this kind
of like almost mini rant in the middle
of the essay which is like really
fascinating about how he just like
absolutely cannot stand it when people
don't in his words kind of embrace what
they could uniquely be as that and
instead allow these other pressures to
interfere with again to to kind of
invoke his terms to be to interfere with
them becoming who they are. If
resistance isn't there, he's worried
that humanity will just kind of decay
into this like sludge that doesn't do
anything. Um he's, you know, he's
worried that all we'll do is kind of
we'll sit around on our sofas um
pursuing comfort, avoiding pain, and as
a result, we will also never
feel for him the kind of joys of
actually ending up overcoming
resistance. So, I mean, again, it all
sounds very abstract when you put it
like this. It's actually quite a quite
an intuitive thought where you know
imagine that imagine that you'd
literally never struggled in life like I
you know I'm sure that nature wouldn't
like actually wish his headache upon
himself but we can imagine a a person
who literally never encounters any
struggle. Well, if we all recognize that
there's a a real feeling of achievement
um in overcoming some kind of struggle
or resistance, even if it's just a small
one, um then for nature, this person
will never experience that sort of they
will never experience the the kind of
fulfillment that comes with having
overcome something.
>> Does that mean that he hates weak
people? Was he not a fan of sort of
cowardly weak people? Yeah, it's it's
interesting because I mean in a lot of
ways arguably nature wasn't like a
massively strong person. You know, he
was a a nervous wreck for much of his
life. Again, he suffered from a from a a
terrible chronic pain condition. And so
there's this um sort of back and forth
that goes uh goes on in a lot of kind of
popular discussions on nature where
people sort of quite understandably pose
the question of does nature really live
up to his own ideal here. And again, if
we if we perceive of power as overcoming
resistance, then arguably he he gets he
gets some of the way there. But, you
know, I think that um it is perfectly
plausible to turn ner's challenge back
on him and say, "Well, hang on a second,
Matt. You got rejected by by a couple of
girls and then you decided you hated
like women as a whole." And and you
know, you spend you kind of ran from
basically any criticism that you got and
you kind of retreated to your your cabin
and went on walks in the Alps. And that
doesn't sound like it's overcoming
resistance all that much. So to bring it
back to NE's view on weak people. Yeah,
he has a real he has a real contempt for
them like in a way that I think um
it's very easy to run from when you're
reading nature because you know we've
had 70 years of you know so well was it
yeah since the end of World War II so 80
years now of people going okay the Nazis
were a real fan of nature. this seems a
bit we have they misinterpreted him what
what what's been going on here and
basically everyone agrees that yeah okay
they have misinterpreted him in some key
ways this does sometimes lead to the
creation of what I call fluffy bunny
nature which is where you sort of you
sort of imbue nature with whatever you
personally think is a really good thing
and pretend that he said it which is
kind of relatively easy to do on the
basis that nature himself says an awful
lot of things a lot of which contradict
one another it let you he actually you
can kind of pick and choose little bits
and create your own sort of model nature
that says everything that you want him
to say. But nonetheless, nature does
have a have a real um contempt for what
he sees as weakness. And I kind of I
often wonder to what extent he turned
that contempt on himself. I think that
um he kind of he he has this view for a
number of reasons. The first is that he
sort of thinks that that weakness breeds
dishonesty. So again this coming back to
that kind of sour grapes point. Um but
secondly he thinks that uh in his view a
kind of unwillingness to overcome
resistance which is broadly how he
defines weakness kind of an
unwillingness or an inability to
overcome resistance is going to
eventually lead this person to kind of
become a nihilist. So Nisha has this
very confusing
um way of talking about like weak people
um or quote unquote weak people because
again he has a kind of weird esoteric
definition for it whereby he quite often
says oh yeah man like I hate them I have
scorned for them or something like that
and then at other points he says no no
no I love all people and you sit there
and you think well what these things are
very difficult to go together and a lot
of the And this is resolved by
interpreters by saying something like,
well, if you imagine that nature's
project is for everyone to become
willing and able to overcome resistance
because he truly thinks, whether he's
right or wrong, he truly thinks that
that is the way that you can not become
nihilistic in a world without God and
without any kind of given meaning for
yourself. Then when he's kind of hard on
weak people, uh I think a lot of a lot
of interpreters will kind of try and
reinterpret this and you know I think
that probably this thing is a broadly
sensible interpretation as a kind of
tough dad attitude a sort of no you know
it would be it would be in some way
condescending to extend pity to people
when nature fully knows that they could
become this kind of
>> this this figure of uniquely themselves
and they could overcome resistance they
so That's his one of his broad critiques
of of compassion which is sort of very
difficult to get your head around is
that he thinks compassion is is bad for
the for the person that is the person
that one is being compassionate towards
he thinks that you were in some way
holding them back.
>> Uh which again is is again it's like a
it's a very abstract point when nature
puts it but again we we kind of all
recognize that whether you want to take
it as extreme as nature does that there
are contexts where this attitude is
appropriate. And I'm thinking of of my
own dad, right? And my my my dad was
sort of very you must overcome
challenges type thing. And and in
hindsight, I'm very very grateful for
that. Uh because it was it kind of allow
it kind of taught me how to be more
independent. You know, I think of some
people I know who had maybe much um I
know quote unquote softer uh parents and
actually I don't know they did that did
that benefit them? I don't think it did.
Don't me. I mean, I think that um NZ's
way of putting this is probably far
beyond anything that most people want to
accept now because he is really really
anti-compassion and anti-pity. There are
like a couple of passages where he's
talking about, oh yeah, well, you can be
magnanimous if you want, but on the
whole, he's very, very, very hard on
people that he perceives as weak. This
episode is brought to you by Element.
Summer hits different when you're
actually hydrated. that tired, foggy,
muscle crampy feeling most people chalk
up to heat or exhaustion. It might be
electrolytes and plain water alone won't
fix it, which is why Element is such a
gamecher. It's a zero sugar electrolyte
drink mixed with sodium, potassium, and
magnesium in the exact ratio your body
needs. No sugar, no food dyes, no
artificial junk. And this summer,
they've dropped something new. Lemonade
salt. It's like a lemon popsicle grew
up, got its life together, and started
supporting your adrenal system and your
hydration. And best of all, there's a no
questions asked refund policy. So you
can buy it, try it for as long as you
want, and if you don't like it, they'll
give you your money back, and you don't
even need to return the box. That's how
confident they are that you'll love it.
Plus, they offer free shipping in the
US. Right now, you can get a free sample
pack of all eight flavors with your
first box by going to the link in the
description below or heading to
drinklnt.com/modernwisdom.
That's drinklnt.com/modern
wisdom. Would you look at that clip is
already over, but if you want more,
don't be sad. The full episode is
available right here.
Go on.