Nietzsche’s Down Going

Martin Heidegger makes the claim in the essay “Word of Nietzsche: God is Dead” that Nietzsche’s thought is nihilistic. Heidegger understands Nietzsche’s idea of will to power as essentially the same as the Being of Western metaphysics. Both Nietzsche and Heidegger see Occidental thought as fundamentally nihilistic in that it has posited a non-sensuous, other world which is the transcendental basis for existence. I wish to defend Nietzsche by showing that while certain aspects of Nietzsche’s early thought was nihilistic, his later thought overcomes this nihilism through a process called “down going”. First, I explore nihilism’s essence and its relation to history. Next, I examine Heidegger’s analysis of Nietzsche . I will then look at the nihilistic aspects of the Nietzsche’s early thought, including Nietzsche’s own self critique. Next, I will view how Nietzsche in fact moves away sharply from nihilistic thinking with the will to power and the eternal recurrence of the same. Finally, a look at Nietzsche’s thought on perspectivism will show that not only must nihilism be overcome, but humanity as well.

Since antiquity, humanity has been in nihilism, has been nihilistic, has believed in nothing. To believe in nothing is to believe in another world, a transcendental reality which is hidden from what is actually manifested to humanity from existence. Nietzsche views existence as pure chaos constantly overcoming itself. All concepts have come from appearances out of the chaos. Nietzsche’s thoughts on appearance and man’s relation to appearance focus on the German word “Schein” which is related to the word “Scheinen”; Schienen means to shine, to radiate light as the sun does. Appearance is what is manifested to humanity from the chaos, the abyss. However, the word Scheinen also means false show, sham, or something that is not what it seems. Appearances also only show humanity a partial description of this chaos; they conceal the chaos as well. The problem of believing in the concepts derived from appearance is the eternalization of the concept, which is to say that the concept is viewed as a true reminder of what an appearance should be now, before, and afterward. Nietzsche takes issue with this, because he views existence as a constant becoming, a constant flux. “It is time and becoming that the best parables should speak: let them be a praise and a justification for all impermanence” (Thus Spake Zarathustra 86- 87). Nietzsche describes existence, which is a constant becoming, as a play of forces; this play of forces is known as the will to power. “The world viewed from inside, the world defined and determined according to its ‘intelligible character’ – it would be ‘will to power’ and nothing else” (BGE a 36). To believe in empty concepts (God, noumena, Ego) is to flee from the chaos of existence towards a mummified “other” world that never changes. Since existence is a becoming and flux, to posit an other world is a contradiction, a will to nothingness.

To will nothingness is to negate existence, to react against it instead of acting with it. Now, all forces are either active or reactive. Nihilism is the reactive force against existence. Nihilism was created through the use of memory. Nietzsche defines memory as “an active [as opposed to passive] no-longer-wanting-to-get-rid-of, a willing on and on of something one has once willed” (GM II a 1). With memory, appearances are eternalized into concepts and ideals used to straight-jacket humanity and make it “truly calculable” and to give a necessity to one’s existence (GM II a 2). However, if existence is just a chaos of force, than there is no necessity to existence; to will necessity is to be reactive to existence and therefore nihilistic.

The reason for nihilism’s continued existence is because of what Nietzsche refers to as the ascetic priest and his/her propagation of the feelings of ressentiment and bad conscience. The ascetic priests are those whose wish is for a different existence, an existence opposed to life; life against life: this is the ideal of the ascetic priest. The ascetic priests uses the ascetic ideal to interpret existence. The interpretation states that “there is no instance of power on earth that does not first have to receive from it a meaning, a right to existence, a value, as a tool in its work, as a way and means to its goal, to one goal” (GM III a 23). But there is no goal to existence (will) except to overcome itself, to become. The ascetic ideal shackles the ascetic priest and his/her herd in a reactive existence of memories. The ascetic ideal creates a two-fold effect: ressentiment and bad conscience. Now, the chaos causes an enormous amount of suffering, and ressentiment is the reactive anesthetization to existence. It is a denial of existence, it “designates a type in which reactive forces prevail over active forces … by ceasing to be acted” (Deleuze 111). In ressentiment, humanity does not act with existence, but reacts against it externally. The ascetic ideal also posits a meaning, a goal to existence. A burden is hereby put on humanity’s shoulder, a responsibility to live up to the goal of the ascetic ideal. Nietzsche describes this responsibility as humanity’s conscience (GM II a 2). The ascetic ideal is a promise made by the ascetic priest that the memory he/she has of existence is not only true but eternal, and that all humanity should experience existence as this memory. If one does not experience this ideal, one is considered untrue and therefore evil. What follows is that humanity feels guilt not only for not achieving the ideal, but also for experiencing a different “reality” than the one presupposed by the ideal. The feeling of guilt manifests the feeling of bad conscience. Bad conscience means “the will to self-maltreatment” because of guilt (GM II a 18). Bad conscience is the internalized reaction against existence. This dialectic of external and internal reactions – ressentiment and bad conscience – form practical nihilism, i.e., the will to nothingness.

Practical nihilism has created the reactive undercurrent which is the history of humanity; Nietzsche calls this history theoretical nihilism. Theoretical nihilism is “that the highest values devaluate themselves” (WP a 2). With ressentiment humanity flees existence in search of an other world. Through bad conscience, guilt at not being able to live up to the idealized world is built up in humanity. Guilt eventually overwhelms humanity which causes ressentiment against the idealized world. Ressentiment causes a devaluation of the other world and revaluates it as another world causing the cycle to continue. This double negation against existence is the fundamental driving force in Western history; a history constituted by Platonic metaphysics whose shadow continues to loom large over Western society. Heidegger is quite correct in describing nihilism when he says, “nihilism, thought in its essence, is, rather, the fundamental movement of the history of the West” as well as, “nihilism is the world-historical movement of the peoples of earth” (Word of Nietzsche 62-63). Nietzsche best describes theoretical nihilism in his story of the ‘Death of God.’

The death of god is described as the killing of God by humanity (GS a 125). Nietzsche describes God generally as “the name for the realm of Ideas and ideals” (Heidegger 61) and specifically as “the last, thinnest, emptiest [concept] … placed as the first, as cause in itself, as ens realissimum” (TI 47). The first death of God is the death of the old gods with the proposition that there is only one God and only He should be worshiped which was created by Socrates and Platonic metaphysics (Z 182). Platonism separates truth from appearance and places truth among the realm of the pure Forms: completely non-sensuous, eternal, universal. The Socratic value is “only the knowing one is virtuous” (BT 50). Only the knowing one can be in agreement with the Forms. However, the Forms are reactive values against existence; values created by the will to truth, which is will to nothingness. Values are a necessary consequence of will to power; Nietzsche defines “value” as “the point-of-view constituting the preservation-enhancement with respect to complex forms of relative duration of life within the flux of becoming” (WP a 715). Recall that, will to power is constituted by both active and reactive forces, and the values passed down by nihilism (Platonic metaphysics) are values created through ressentiment. However, the highest values are already devalued as soon as it is realized that the ideal world can never be actualized in existence. Therefore, theoretical nihilism has been the intrinsic law of Western history through nihilism’s continuous overthrowing of itself for a new set of values created by ressentiment.

Nietzsche sees his thought as an overcoming of nihilism through the transvaluation of the will to power. Heidegger argues Nietzsche is in fact still too entrenched in the metaphysics of Western history and does not overcome nihilism. Heidegger says, “The grounding principle of the metaphysics of the will to power is a value-principle” (86). Heidegger sees that theoretical nihilism as the history of Western metaphysics has been a constant overcoming of a system of value-principles. Heidegger sees the will to power as the metaphysical Being of entities; Being as that which is in all entities but is not itself an entity (i.e., the Forms, God, the Absolute):

The will to power, in that it posits the preservation, i.e., the securing, of its own constancy and stability as a necessary value, at the same time justifies the necessity of such securing in everything that is which, as something that by virtue of its very essence represents – sets in place before – is something that also holds-to-be-true. The making secure that constitutes this holding-to-be-true is called certainty. (WN 83)

Because Nietzsche was at the end of the modern period, Heidegger sees Nietzsche’s definition of truth to be similar to Descartes’ (truth is certainty; certainty is that which necessarily is). Since will to power is fundamentally value-positing – as the preservation-enhancement of a point-of-view – and is the necessary value that never changes, Heidegger considers this as a representation of Being as invented by Western metaphysics, therefore nihilistic.

The question is whether Nietzsche’s thought overcomes nihilism or remains nihilistic. It has already been admitted that Nietzsche’s thought was nihilistic in its early stages. For something to overcome itself must have something from which to overcome. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche analyzes Greek tragedy (which he sees as the purest expression of existence) as a combination of two opposing forces: the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The former is the dream, the plastic, the static, the ideal, and the principium individuationis, while the latter is drunkenness, temporal, self-oblivion, and that which returns things to the Primal Unity. Nietzsche views all life as tragic, i.e., suffering. The Apollonian flees from the suffering of life into appearances; the Dionysian breaks down these appearances back into the Primal Unity. With the introduction of Socrates and his influence on Euripides, tragedy dies and metaphysics becomes the predominant tool in explaining existence.

The Birth of Tragedy was written in the same style as Kant and Schopenhauer, as a scientific investigation. Nietzsche will later come to view the science of these figures as nihilistic in that it only analyzes existence from its reactive forces and ignores the active ones. Nietzsche is correct in critiquing himself later that art cannot be viewed through the eyes of science because the former is an affirmation of life, while the latter is a negation of life (BT Attempt at Self-Criticism). The Primal Unity is also viewed as an end or goal which the Apollonian reaches through the redemptive, self-oblivion of the Dionysian (BT 13). Nietzsche’s concept of the Primal Unity is very metaphysical and is why he will later says in Ecce Homo that the book “smelled offensively Hegelian” and the “’idea’ – the Dionysian/Apollonian opposition – translated into metaphysics, history itself as the development of this ‘idea’; in tragedy the opposition sublated to become a unity” (45).

Nietzsche overcomes his nihilistic thought through a process called “down going.” Nietzsche’s thought is not just about his own personal down going, but also the manifestation of a philosophy which will inspire humanity as a whole’s down going. The word “down going” in German is Untergang which means “a going under” and “perishing.” Nietzsche has in mind both senses of this word. Zarathustra describes humanity as “a rope, tied between beast and Ubermensch – a rope hanging over an abyss” (Z 14). Humanity’s down going is a transformation from beast to Ubermensch across the rope that is man. Humanity is high above the abyss, stretched thinly between two solid, earthly foundations. Humanity is, therefore, a wavering existence in the empty clouds; clouds being incorporeal and representative of nihilism. In order for humanity to become Ubermenschen, its inherent nihilism must perish. This is the understanding behind Zarathustra’s words, “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” (Z 15). Existence does not end with humanity; existence continues to overcome itself, but in order for humanity to overcome itself, its nihilism must perish.

Nietzsche overcomes his nihilism with the will to power, which is the most important principal in all of Nietzsche’s philosophy. But will to power is not a will to an end, an object upon which it can then use. Will is a willing more, over and beyond itself. This is the problem of nihilism; it is only a will to an end, but if will is ended then death has arrived. Will to power only seeks more power. Once a will has achieved power, it then seeks more power. In the willing process power is discharged in order to push forward and more power is needed. It is both a from and a towards. From will, comes will in-order-to will more. In fact, will does not seek power as an end, but just seeks to will more. “Power says nothing else than the actuality of will” (Heidegger I 63). Will to power means will to will.

Will to power is not fundamentally value-positing but is as Deleuze describes “the principle of the synthesis of forces” (50). Nietzsche claims that will only affects will and that this play of forces which make up existence produce a continuously changing series of appearances (BGE a 36). Nietzsche understands force in the Greek sense of dynamis as the capacity to be gathered in itself and prepared to work effects, to be in position to do something. Now, forces come in two qualities: active and reactive. Zarathustra says, “wherever I found the living, there I heard … the speech on obedience. Whatever lives, obeys” and “he who cannot obey himself is commanded” [italics added](114). All life is an obeying of forces; all will wills and all life obeys. The command is the overcoming process of the will to power. All commanding is henceforth an obeying since the force which commands, the active force, also obeys its own command of the will to power. Since willing is both an obeying and a commanding, there is a double will. The double will is grounded around the principles of affirmation and negation. Nihilism is the double negation of the will; the negation through ressentiment, and the negation through bad conscience. Zarathustra says that in order to overcome nihilism, humanity must rise up into the heights in order to the see the abyss of existence below (Z 142). Humanity must constantly overcome itself in climbing higher, i.e., the affirmation of the will to power as the principle of the synthesis of forces, and from the height affirm existence for what it is, a chaotic, continuous becoming. We see that Nietzsche’s thought goes under in that will to power retains the imagery of the Primal Unity in that it is the chaos of existence but loses the ambiguity of a vague static Being, and will to power becomes a continuous, overcoming of forces; will to power is the principal of Becoming. Becoming manifests itself as the eternal recurrence of the same.

Nietzsche first describes the eternal recurrence of the same in The Gay Science (a 341). However, Zarathustra gives the best description of it. Zarathustra describes himself walking up a mountain with a dwarf, the spirit of gravity, on his back. Zarathustra overcomes the dwarf and climbs higher and higher on the mountain (Z 156). From the heights Zarathustra can see the abyss of existence, and he has the thought of the eternal recurrence. Zarathustra here describes a gateway entitled “Moment” which stands in the clashing of two eternal paths, i.e., past and future (Z 157-158). In the moment one sees the eternity of existence, the eternal Becoming, will to power as the play of forces. The eternal recurrence of the same says that “whatever can walk – in this long lane out there too, it must walk once more” (Z 158). The eternal recurrence is not describing the same sequence of events repeated eternally. It is describing Becoming as a constant chaos made up of a play of forces acting out will to power.

The darkness of the abyss is where the moment occurs. The eternity of possibilities is seen here. In the moment the rabble of humanity or the memories of humanity become quiet. The darkness can only be seen when one has risen to the highest level of will to power: double affirmation. Only within the silence of the darkness can the language of the “soul” be heard. The language is the love, the outpouring of will. The language of the soul (will) is the light that pierces the darkness revealing it for what it is, a play of forces, will to power. The light of the soul returns even to itself from out of the abyss. The highest sphere of willing occurs in the moment, but to stand there too long (i.e., to make a memory of the moment) is to be swept away into the eternal. This is the danger that leads one out of the down going; the lack of double affirmation, which leads to nihilism. Therefore, one must dance, must leap, must forget from one moment to the other with active, affirmative force. For Nietzsche, forgetting is “an active and in the strictest sense positive faculty of suppression”, and he describes it as “a little stillness, a little tabula rasa of consciousness so that there is again space for new things” (GM III a 1). In order for force to be active it must constantly become anew, be a creator, and forget that which no longer exists to make way for the new. The one who lives in the darkness of the abyss, the one who constantly forgets and affirms will to power, is the one who shines.

To conclude, we will look at Nietzsche’s thought concerning perspectivism and how he sees this as the overcoming of nihilism. Perspectival seeing is the continuous overcoming of moments through forgetting. When one forgets (i.e., is in the moment) one affirms the eternity of the chaos. Forgetting is the affirmation of will to power. While one of the effects of the will to power is value-positing, Western history’s values have been reactionary and a negation of will to power. Nietzsche see his method, not as a devaluing and revaluing of values, but as a transvaluation of all values. Nihilism has been reactionary value-positing. Through transvaluation, values are created through affirmation of will to power. Since existence is an eternally recurring play of forces, perspectivism is the only way to exist affirmatively as will to power. We see here that through the process of transvaluation, Nietzsche’s thought overcomes nihilism in favor of an affirmation of existence, and Nietzsche defines this existence as a continuous chaos of forces. Nietzsche sees existence not as a permanently enduring structure (Being) as Platonism does, but as the Becoming of will to power. Nietzsche’s down going is completed when his earlier thought of ends perishes, and the thought of an eternally recurring chaos is revealed. Through perspectival thinking, Nietzsche banishes his own ascetic ideals for affirmative ideals only visible in the moment. The point may be raised that if Nietzsche is still believing in ideals, then isn’t he still a nihilist? Ideals are not necessarily “bad” things and are probably unavoidable. Anything that is “life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-cultivating” is affirmation to Nietzsche (BGE a. 4). Nietzsche is looking not for ideals of Being (i.e., ascetic ideals) but of Becoming. If humanity can incorporate active ideals (i.e., active forces) into its history, then humanity can overcome itself and overcome nihilism.

Work Cited:

Deleuze, Gilles. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson, Columbia University Press, 1986.

Heidegger, Martin. “The Word of Nietzsche: ‘God Is Dead.’” The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, by Martin Heidegger, Harper Torchbooks, 2004, pp. 53–114.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic. Translated by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J Swensen, Hackett Pub. Co, 2009.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Gay Science. Translated by Thomas Common, Barnes & Noble, 2008.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Walter Kaufmann, The Viking Press, 1954.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, and William A Haussmann. The Birth of Tragedy. Edited by Oscar Levy, Barnes & Noble, 2006.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good & Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. Translated by Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Vintage Books, 1966.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. Edited by Walter Kaufmann. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R J Hollingdale, Random House, 1968.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin Books, 1990.