Jefferson S. Backong Nietzsche’s Critique of the Nihilism and the Possibility of the Eternal Recurrence as Moral ImperativeFriedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical works has been, as stressed out before, misinterpreted or misconstrued by many of its readers and even other philosophers. Because ofNietzsche’s critique of nihilism, he has been misconstrued as a nihilistic philosopher. As claimed by Richard Schacht and by the evaluations of the author of the work entitled Nietzsche’s Critique of the Nihilism, Nietzsche’s assessment or evaluation of the nihilism is a philosophy thatpresupposes an affirmative philosophy. How did we come to the understanding that Nietzsche’s critique of the nihilism is an affirmative philosophy?For Nietzsche, nihilism is a quandary of the modern times that needs to be face in order to transform and overcome it. Nihilism or the denial of life is a stage wherein human beings need to overcome it in order to transition into a more affirmative outlook in life: the acceptanceof the reality of life wherein one must enjoy and celebrate life and not deny it or disparages it inorder to ascend into the afterlife. The death of God for Nietzsche is not something that must be taken into a literal context that produces negativity. The death of God as presupposes by Nietzsche is the collapse of traditional values on morality. We have been taught through the teachings of religion and Christianity that in order to live in the afterlife and ascend into heaven and live among the angels and God, we need to abandon our earthly form and save our souls for it is our souls that matters the most to God. It is our souls that will ascend into a world that is beyond us and live eternally there. For Nietzsche, the teachings of Christianity that was initiated by Plato, that is the idea of a world or a being that is beyond us, is a form of negating life itself and therefore hating the body which is our earthly form. This conception for Nietzsche is an outlandish misconstruction of the human being. Privileging or putting the soul higher than the body has lead man to hate his body and hate life for in believing that the soul is over the body, man was lead to believe that by destroying his earthly form and negating his own existence, his own life, will he only be able to live in the afterlife, in a world beyond. It is because of this religious nihilism, this denial of life that Nietzsche come up with the Übermensch or the “overman”, a symbol or an image which defy the Christian traditions and its teachings. The “overman” is the symbol of a man who renounces the heavenly rewards by 1This study source was downloaded by 100000820816648 from CourseHero.com on 04-25-2022 13:05:35 GMT -05:00https://www.coursehero.com/file/103494800/Nietzsches-Critique-of-Nihilismdoc/Jefferson S. Backong embracing instead the meaning of the earth. The “overman” is the man who overcomes the religious nihilism that was imposed to human beings ever since the advent of Christianity, he is the man who accepted life with all its joys and sufferings, embrace it and instead of negating it, celebrated it. When man starts to realize the conditions and the wrong notions that he have been put into, the revelation of the mistaken notion about his humanity, his “hour of great contempt” shall come to pass.For Nietzsche, the “hour of the great contempt” is man’s greatest experience because it is in this moment that the mistaken notion of life is revealed upon them. It is in this moment that man will learn to despise his contentment of life as being inundated with symbols that accompanies happiness, reason and virtue. It is in this moment that man will realize that as a man, one must transform himself and constantly overcome himself in order for him to reach thehighest heights of self-meaning and principle: that he is a man that is free and is endowed with superabundance of life and power and that it should inspire him to create new values for constant transformation of the self.Nietzsche in his writings and works is willing man to bring back the genuineness of man’sexistence; the acceptance of the true meaning of the earth. Nietzsche teaches us that man should accept life as it is, meaning, we should accept life here on earth, a life that is accompanied with constant joys and pains and a body and perspective that must continuously transform and grow. Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal recurrence is for him the highest formula of affirmation that can possibly be attained by man. For Nietzsche, life is the highest expression of all values that is beyond good or evil. The realization of the eternal recurrence for a man is a realization that life as the highest expression of all values also comes with human suffering. Human suffering is an ingredient of life that cannot be removed or destroyed. Human life is accompanied by human suffering and if life is eternal, so is suffering. Nietzsche challenges us to overcome our pity for life and for man, the pity for human suffering. When man decides to overcome himself and valiantly bears the artifices of the eternal recurrence, that is, the repetition of life accompanied with suffering, then man will be able to achieve the highest affirmation of the temporal and transient nature of life: the affirmation of life’s innocence and 2This study source was downloaded by 100000820816648 from CourseHero.com on 04-25-2022 13:05:35 GMT -05:00https://www.coursehero.com/file/103494800/Nietzsches-Critique-of-Nihilismdoc/Jefferson S. Backong becoming. The individual affirms the innocence of becoming and no longer seeks to revenge or retaliate against life by hating life itself and renouncing the body in order to go to an afterworld or live in an afterlife. Man must understand that loving one’s own self is to love’s one’s own destiny: to love life as it is: that life is accompanied with joys and sufferings and this will recur again and again. The man who overcomes nihilism or the negation of life is the “overman,” the man with a fresh perspective on life, the man who will continue to respond to life, who will continue to affirm life,who will continue to improve his