On Admitting Defeat

One of the great lessons that Nietzsche has to teach is that the strong appreciate what happens to them. When something happens to those operating from a position of strength, they are able to enjoy it because they understand it to work to their benefit. Maybe it’s some windfall - a chance to take the money and run. Or it could be a chance to show magnanimity and dignity in the face of loss; they may be hurt, but they’re strong enough to heal and move on with their lives. In either case the important thing is to somehow interpret what has befallen as good.

It’s this reaction that differentiates the strong from the weak for Nietzsche. The strong can take it and roar with laughter, but the weak have to nurse their wounds. For them sorrow isn’t bittersweet. But even then, for Nietzsche, the will to power still operates. They still, unconsciously, try to get the better of others. This is the spirit of revenge, of ressentiment, at work. It prevents them from moving on because the pain endures.

Nietzsche’s model was a Classical idea: the agon, a competition with a determinate winner or loser. For him a win or a loss is fine, so long as one wins or loses well. But what happens when one loses and then loses again? What about when one keeps on losing? Can’t that wear a person down? Even the strongest are only so strong. How does one stop oneself from becoming a sore loser?

At this point Nietzsche advocates a “great contempt.” In the Prologue to Thus Spoke Zarathustra he writes:

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under.

I love those that know not how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over.

The rest of the text gives similarly metaphoric accounts of this: the people who are strong and live well are willing to admit when things aren’t working and that they need to change, and then change. They become different from how they were before, studying what it was that so frustrated them and how they played a role in that, then they change that about themselves. This is the famed “revaluation of values.” The strong can sacrifice what was important to them before but lead to failure and frustration. Once they do that, they “create new values” that allow them to act from a position of strength.

Nietzsche believes that this is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Only those who do this achieve the status of becoming “the Overman.” And that status isn’t permanent. One can again become all-too-human. Doing it once, let alone many times, is a veritable event. But, for him, it can happen at any time in one’s life. All one needs to do to feel this contempt is to contemplate the “eternal return of the same.” If one imagines that one will live their life again and again, over and over exactly the same, it can trigger a revaluation of values.

Nietzsche’s version of the Eternal Return is meant to lead one to reflection upon the life lived so far. The most famous exposition of this thought experiment asks if, upon imagining repeating one’s life indefinitely, that person would feel joy or would weep with sorrow. If they’re joyous, then great! Keep on keepin’ on. But if it’s the other then now’s a chance to make a change and start living a life that one would gratefully lead again.

Fortunately, Nietzsche seems to think that this thought can happen at any time. And I hope he’s right. Because right now I’m feeling incredibly frustrated with some things in my life, and I guess I’m writing about this to bring it all out and perhaps to trigger a change that I so desperately want. I hope it works.