The suspicion of ressentiment
Revolt against death may be nothing but a revenge against life itself, disguised as love of life.
Objects to
Nietzsche · Thus Spoke Zarathustra; The Gay Science
- saw in the revolt against time and the irreversible the "spirit of revenge": the rancorous refusal of what was and of what must end. To revolt against death would be to hold existence against its very condition.
- But mortality cannot be detached from the rest: it is the same finitude that bounds our days and gives them their savor, their urgency, their weight. To say no to death is to say no to life as it is, the only one there is.
- The refusal then takes on the face of what it fought: no longer a love of life, but a grudge against it. Strength, says Nietzsche, is not to curse what ends, but to love it enough to will it eternally: this is .
Therefore So your revolt calls for self-examination: is it the height of the love of living, or a against life that, in refusing death, also refuses the worth death gives to our days?
Deepenings
Would you want this life an infinity of times?
- offers a test: a demon tells you that you will live this life again, down to the smallest detail, an infinite number of times. Would you curse him, or would it be "the most divine" thing you ever heard?
- Whoever could will the eternal return has nothing left to refuse, death included: he has made finitude not a scandal, but the very form of his consent to living.
Possible resolutions of the objection
Challenges
Problem