Nietzsche’s “Live, Laugh, Love”
The related roles of laugher, style, and health in Nietzsche’s works
PREFATORY NOTE: This is an essay I wrote a couple years ago during my MPhil, which attempted to provide an answer to the question “What is the role played by laughter in Nietzsche’s style?”. Important to note is the specificity of the question, which concerns Nietzsche’s style rather than his thought, strictly speaking, since the essay does not attempt to provide a general overview of laughter as a conceptual trope in Nietzsche’s thought but how it relates more specifically to the question of reading Nietzsche. While the scope of the essay is obviously limited, I find nonetheless that this aspect of Nietzsche’s writings is undervalued.
SIDE NOTE: I’ve longed to write a counter-text to Freud’s Civilisation and its Discontents by comparing it to Nietzsche’s diagnosis of social decline as a consequence of contentment.
What is the role played by laughter in Nietzsche’s style?
This essay begins by understanding Nietzsche’s use of laughter in his later works (particularly The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra) by tracing its problematic back to his first publication The Birth of Tragedy and its confrontation with the question of ‘Greek Cheerfulness’. I will then move on to show how in Zarathustra’s prologue the problem of cheerfulness is reframed as a contestation between contented happiness and laughter, before finally highlighting the difficulty both Nietzsche and Zarathustra face with respect to being understood, such that the problem of being or not being understood informs whether laughter is possible.
Despite Nietzsche’s ‘hostile silence’ to Christianity, one of the fundamental concerns behind BoT involves the problem of theodicy. If God is dead, as Nietzsche will later say, who or what justifies the existence of evil and suffering in the world? Nietzsche will answer against the idea that suffering is not justified whatsoever — leaving the question as to how suffering can be abolished altogether — for the idea that suffering is justified so long as it is considered an aesthetic phenomenon. Developing from Schopenhauer’s thought, Nietzsche contends with the question: if existence is metaphysically pessimistic (that is, fundamentally tragic), how is affirmation and cheerfulness possible within tragic existence without, as Schopenhauer did, falling into resignation? As much as BoT is a critique of Socratism and rationalism for putting an end to Greek tragedy, it’s also an attempt to overcome Schopenhauer’s ‘weak pessimism’. With that, Nietzsche’s answer involves returning to that ‘Greek Cheerfulness’ which can be found in Democritus’ notion of euthymia and Epicurus’ notion of ataraxia which sought to affirm something higher out of the tragedy of existence. “How alien to me at that time was precisely this whole philosophy of resignation!” (BoT 10).
In his foreword to Wagner, Nietzsche presents BoT as a grave problem for the German people for the idea that ‘serious consideration [is] being given to any aesthetic problem at all, particularly if they are incapable of thinking of art as anything more than an amusing sideshow, a readily dispensable jingling of fool’s bells in the face of the ‘gravity of existence.’ There are a few things to note about Nietzsche’s worries. First, there is a seriousness given to aesthetic problems. Nietzsche opposes the antithesis between seriousness and play set by Christian doctrine which has morality as its only and absolute criteria that ‘banishes art, all art, to the realm of lies, and thus negates, damns and condemns it.’ Nietzsche insists that art can teach us something about existence, that art is not only a matter of delight. In fact, we can say that art teaches and has claim to existence precisely because it properly represents the tragedy of existence. In this sense, Tragedy is a true Schein [semblance, appearance] of existence as such (BoT 9). Second, Nietzsche marks a distinction between the amusement of jingling fools to the seriousness of cheerfulness [heiterkeit] or laughter. What Nietzsche opposes is the idea that entertainment is used to justify the ‘gravity of existence’ through recourse to a resigned contentment. It is precisely because Nietzsche understands the ‘gravity of existence’ that he opposes the idea that art is not serious. Nietzsche’s contempt for the antithesis between seriousness and laughter is repeated in his criticism of Hobbes, for whom had the desire to do away with or overcome the need for laughter among the seriousness of ‘thinking men’ (BGE 218). When we look at Nietzsche’s later works, however, this emphasis on art as the only transmission of cheerfulness and the Dionysian is minimised. What is important for our purposes is how Nietzsche retains the role of the aesthetic taken in the form of Dionysian melody, which is carried over into his aphoristic style. Then difference is that it is no longer (necessarily) art which carries over this ‘permanent trace’ of the Dionysian. In On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche also criticises the lack of seriousness given to the aphorism (GoM 7).
Cheerfulness remains a problem throughout Nietzsche’s work for it was a struggle not only against its absence but against the false idea of cheerfulness humanity had adopted. In another letter (1871) to Wagner, Nietzsche delights in their similarity with respect to the distinction between a true and false concept of ‘Greek serenity [griechischen Heiterkeit]’. The false concept of serenity (cheerfulness) involves the condition of safety and comfort, which makes it ‘impossible’ to arrive at an understanding of the nature of tragedy (EW 11:1). The difference between serenity and happiness is that the former can affirm the tragedy of existence through the sublimation and transfiguration (what Nietzsche will also call convalescence) of pain and suffering while the latter is a condition of ‘unendangered ease and comfort’ (46-7). The importance of serenity has to do with this capacity for affirmation, transfiguration, and creativity made possible by the necessary existence of tragedy. It is by recognising the world as tragic that self-overcoming is possible. Such a means for recognising and knowing tragedy is what Nietzsche names his joyous science [Die Fröliche Wissenschaft]. Nietzsche’s concern for a true cheerfulness is drawn from the premise that despair is a natural product of being human. Nietzsche’s affirmation of tragedy and rejection of Socratism are equally based on this insight. Tragedy teaches us to ‘tolerate’ or live with the knowledge that life is not worth living (xi). Nietzsche’s rejection of Socratism regards the possibility that the tragic fate could be overcome. Instead of striving for wisdom in the face of tragic fate, Socratic rationalism aims to use knowledge to get control of their fate (xii). Yet such rationalism, for Nietzsche, always involves invoking another transcendent other-world (hinterwelt) which aims to soothe. Such soothing is antithetical to a kind of affirmation we seek to overcome the weakness of life. Not only is this other-world a false illusion, it neither overcomes nor palliates the suffering of existence. Affirmation means we only have this world to negate or affirm.
“Perhaps I know why man alone laughs: he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter” (eKGWB/NF-1885,36[49]).
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche carries forward his concern distilled in that distinction between two concepts of ‘serenity’ but with a change, no longer is Nietzsche talking about heiterkeit but laughter, where both are opposed to a common problem, namely contentment [behagen] and happiness [Glück]. In many ways, TSZ is a parable about the possibility for genuine happiness or joy and begins by describing the enjoyment Zarathustra had felt living alone in the mountains. Arising at dawn he spoke to the sun: “you great star! What would your happiness [dein Glück] be if you had not those for whom you shine?” (TSZ 3). These are the first words we hear Zarathustra speak and they invoke this question of happiness. While Zarathustra had been content in solitude, he did not have the happiness of the sun, for whom did have those to shine on, to give its gift. We see the premise of Zarathustra’s journey set up. Zarathustra must descend from the mountains to teach humanity about the possibility for ‘true’ happiness (joy). Happiness is not achieved as a direct result of teaching (Zarathustra is not happy in teaching), but in teaching what’s to come: der Übermensch. Zarathustra’s gift comes in two parts. In taking away what humanity thought they had (God) by giving them what they can have (den Übermenschen). Further on we understand that the premise of TSZ repeats BoT: if God is dead, how is joy possible? Zarathustra climbed down the mountains and into the woods, where he met an old saint. The saint could not believe Zarathustra loved humanity let alone wanted to bring them a gift. The saint, however, does not love humanity, for they are imperfect. Instead, he loves God. When Zarathustra asks the saint what he does with his time, the saint replies: “I praise God.” Zarathustra took his leave knowing he could not give the saint what he wants to give humanity, namely the news that God is dead. After leaving the woods Zarathustra entered a marketplace hoping to bring his gift: “I teach you the overman.” Mankind is something to be overcome, but the presence of God inhibits this. But when Zarathustra finished speaking to the people of the market they responded in mocking laughter. “There they stand”, Zarathustra said to himself, “they laugh, they do not understand me, I am not the mouth for these ears” (9). Zarathustra continues: “must one first smash their ears so that they learn to hear with their eyes?” What prevented the people from understanding? And how does Zarathustra proceed with his task? The people could not hear because they were content with existence, with their false idols and their illusions. In order to break these illusions and this contentment, Zarathustra must become the ‘most contemptible person’, the last human being. Zarathustra’s task consists in setting humanity a goal beyond themselves. This also means beyond what they take to be happiness, which turns out to be a ‘pitiful contentment’ expressed as mocking. Zarathustra’s vorrede was interrupted by the jeering crowd, who understood him only as another jester. “And now they look at me and laugh, and in laughing they hate me too” (11).
In BoT as in TSZ, Nietzsche was concerned with not wanting to be misidentified as that which he sought to overcome: the romantics and the jester. Zarathustra was misidentified precisely because the crowd could not understand the difference between a true and false idea of happiness, since happiness exists for humanity as a palliative against life. They could not understand that pain had to be transfigured in order to affirm life. After witnessing the tragic death of a tightrope walker caused by the jester leaping over him, causing the walker to fall, Zarathustra will later say: “uncanny is human existence and still without meaning: a jester can spell its doom” (12). The importance Zarathustra places on being understood can be read in terms of this incident, for the task of overcoming humanity can lead either to a higher existence or death. The jesters' mocking overcoming, in the form of a leap, leads to both death and the preservation of an all-too-human humanity. Zarathustra criticises these ‘preachers of death’ for they “cling to their straw of life and mock the fact they cling to a straw” (32). Afterwards, the jester told Zarathustra to leave saying “it was your good fortune [Glück] that they laughed at you: and really, you spoke like a jester.”
It is interesting to compare this idea of laughter as a means for self-overcoming with the image of the jester whose duty and role is to make people laugh, and who tried to jump over a tightrope walker which caused the tightrope walker to fall to his death. The difference between the jester jumping over the tightrope walker and Zarathustra’s call for overcoming oneself can be compared with respect to the role of laughter, in that the goal is not (only) to produce laughter for an audience, as is the case with the jester, but to be transformed. As Zarathustra says, only a jester thinks human beings can also be leaped over. But a jester does not know how to leap over himself, that is to overcome himself. The jester can only invoke laughter, he does not laugh at himself. Zarathustra questions those who mock existence saying: “who among you can laugh and be elevated at the same time?” (28). This is what Zarathustra means by a ‘laughter of the heights.’ Those who make jest of existence do not intend to transform either themselves or existence. In fact, mocking precludes them from understanding tragic existence as tragic. They are satisfied with their ‘happiness’, a happiness born from not wanting to know the truth. “Learn to laugh at yourselves as one must laugh!” (238). “How much is still possible! So learn to laugh over and past yourselves! Lift up your hearts, you good dancers, high! Higher! And don’t forget good laughter either!” and “I pronounced laughter holy: you higher men, learn – to laugh!” (240). Laughter, then, is distinguished by a mocking contentment on the one hand, and a laughter of contempt on the other hand. Including a laughter of self-contempt and, finally, a ‘golden laughter’ capable by those to come: the overman.
Now we move onto the question of style. How does laughter relate to how Nietzsche would like to be heard, that is, read? What does Nietzsche’s style say about the importance of laughter? Although Nietzsche’s style is not reducible to the aphorism, this essay will focus on the aphoristic works of his ‘middle period’ because it is here where the question of laughter, cheerfulness, and health is intimately related.
In his preface to BoT, Nietzsche criticises himself because it was a book for the initiated, “’music’ for those who were baptised in the name of music”, which shuts itself from the profanum vulgus of the ‘educated’ and the ‘common people’ (BoT 6). It was an ‘arrogant’ book which spoke to the already converted. If, as Nietzsche hoped, he is to extend his voice beyond the inner circle, finding those who have the ear to hear, then he needs to create both a new language and a way of reading readily for those uninitiated who will take up the task to understand him. The cause for the closeted nature of the book was due to being stuck in ‘old man problems’ exemplified by Kant and Schopenhauer. It was a book that was not yet Nietzsche’s language, and he expresses his regret: “it ought to have sung, this ‘new soul’, and not talked! What a pity it is that I did not say what I had to say at that time as a poet: perhaps I could have done it!” (5-6) If philosophers have tended to make a distinction between the saying and the said, Nietzsche adds a third term: the sung.
Nietzsche’s intent on ‘singing’ refers to the attempt to keep alive the ‘permanent trace’ of the Dionysian through generations of poetry and song which, by their nature, are bound to the realm of representation and individuation. The Dionysian is creative because it dissolves individuation and prompts creation, but such dissolution is also cause for tragedy and suffering. Tragic myth is a spur, to use Derrida’s term, because it has the double function of hiding and revealing the Dionysian drive. Apolline symbolism makes explicit (brings to light) the Dionysian while at the same time protecting us from direct contact with it. (46) The Dionysian represents the drive towards the dissolution of individuation. But, in order for there to be the possibility to live, one cannot remain content with a ‘pure Dionysism’ [sic] which would be impossible. And yet, the Dionysian is what gives life its creative drive. Without that destructive element internal to individuation, there would be no life to affirm since, for Nietzsche, to affirm life is to be creative. (EW 3:32) It is art which keeps us from unnecessarily suffering and perishing. Importantly, the Dionysian is viewed as melodic which is the primary condition for the possibility of creation which gives birth to poetry, where language strains to the limits to imitate music (BoT 33-34). From this we come to the idea that what Nietzsche aims for is to create a style which exhibits this permanent trace of Dionysian melody, such that it becomes necessary to read beyond the words themselves. TSZ is perhaps Nietzsche’s most explicit attempt to create a worldview inspired by a Dionysian melody which aims to seduce and inspire a “drunken enthusiasm” within the people. (34) It is why Zarathustra repeats the lament that those who don’t listen do not have the ‘ears to hear’, that they are too focused on the contents of the words themselves without feeling the weight or gravity of the situation. Words alone do not convince. Like the dwarf in TSZ, while he may know the answer, he remains riddled by the question. When Nietzsche cries out “have I been understood?”, we hear an exasperation towards those who are all-too-bookish, those ‘scholarly’ who focus too closely on the words and not the rhythm. Misunderstanding results from standing too close to Nietzsche. “[Y]et it is precisely in Germany that this book [Human, All Too Human] has been read most carelessly and heard most badly.” (HH 8) Carelessly and, perhaps, too carefully, too faithful to the text. Relatedly, in our inability to understand Zarathustra, we remain incapable of laughing. This is where the connection between melody and laughter is to be made, since the possibility of laughter rests on the possibility of interpreting.
Nietzsche was always concerned with not being understood and one of those concerns involves the difficulty of the aphoristic form. Its difficulty lies in the assumption that we are more likely to understand what is said because of its brevity. But Nietzsche knew the case was the opposite. As he says, an aphorism has not been deciphered because it has been read; rather, an art of interpretation is needed. In Antichrist, Nietzsche refers to philology as “ephexis in interpretation” (AC 181). We see this term repeated in GoM where Epekhein (ephexis) is included among a list of virtues Nietzsche names as pertaining to the philosopher and the ascetic ideal, including their doubting drive, negating drive, analytical drive, etc., (79). Ephectic stems from the Greek word epekhein which connotes ‘to hold back, to reserve (judgement) (GoM 154; 164). It is precisely this quality of reserving judgement that we see later repeated, albeit transformed, in his insistence on lento as that noble practice of reserving immediate judgement. As a philosopher deeply influenced by pre-Platonic thought, it is no surprise that Nietzsche would rely in part on that method characteristic of Hellenistic scepticism, where epekhein becomes the source of the Pyrrhonian concept epoche (131, Nietzsche and ancient tradition). Furthermore, Nietzsche refers to himself in GoM on several occasions and elsewhere as a sceptic. Doubt is already a sin. (AC 181) Zarathustra is a sceptic (AC 184) Scepticism is so characteristic of Nietzsche that “I almost have the right to call it my “a priori” (GS 2). Further, Nietzsche is recalling those ancient thinkers such as Pyrrho, Democritus, and Epicurus for whom the sceptical method of suspending judgement related also to that ethics-therapeutic practice of euthymia and ataraxia. While these ideas are not to be conflated, they each respectively concern the problems of conformity, comfort, affirming the existence of freedom within a deterministic world, freedom from fear of death and God, and the moderation of health, happiness, and pleasure.
Nietzsche wrote his first book of aphorisms, Human, All Too Human, after a “pause”, a slowing down, due to illness. It was a book, he remarks, of liberation and recovery. In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche alludes to both his health and his thought in terms of a slowing down in tempo. “Sickness liberated me slowly.” “Sickness [. . .] bestowed on me the compulsion to lie still, to be idle, to wait and be patient . . . But to do that means to think!” One of Nietzsche’s symptoms involved a deterioration in his eyesight, which prompts him to attack the antiquarian thoughts of scholars: “My eyes alone put an end to all bookwormishness, in plain terms philology: I was redeemed from the ‘book’ (EH 62). Nietzsche’s promotion of convalescence can be seen as a testament to his own battle with poor health. Arthur Egidi recalls Nietzsche explaining his aphoristic style with reference to his illness, saying how he was pressed to write what he had carried around for years for he was ‘close to death’, how his illness compelled him to be brief, and how ‘systematic realisation was out of the question.’ (CN 129) If we keep in mind the aphorism's pre-history as medical practice going back to Hippocrates, we can see how Nietzsche’s own style was dictated by the illness he tries to cure through the aphorism as such. Aphorisms not only cure, but their existence is already dictated by an illness which is in need of curing. Lou Salome likewise mentions Nietzsche’s preference for the ‘aphoristic mode of thought’ was forced upon him due to his consistent struggle with bad health. (118)
As previously mentioned, lento is like epekhein in that it is a slowing down. Lento is a term used to refer to musical tempo, with reference to a therapeutic practice of becoming healthier which remains a slow process and as a means for understanding. Nietzsche says there is practical wisdom for ‘prescribing even health for oneself only in small doses. —‘ (HH 9).
One must make note of the melody, the rhythm, and the gestures of Nietzsche’s style in order to understand him and his gay science. Even at the level of the sentence itself, there the question of health remains. “All movements are to be taken as gestures, as a kind of language through which the forces understand each other” (LN 56). “We must learn to feel everything, length brevity of sentences, punctuation, choice of words, pauses, the order of arguments - as gestures [gebärden].” The important word to highlight in both these comments is the term gestures, for it returns the question of knowledge back to the body, as gestures of the body. One must ‘learn to feel’ the rhythm and tempo of the aphorism considered as a unique conducting of bodily movements and forces. Gebärden variously means to act, to behave, to dance. As well as to the pantomime conducted in a sign-language without words. Reading Nietzsche, then, ought to involve being moved by his words in body as in mind. It is the syntactical and punctual composition of the sentence that also contributes to its understanding, and not only the words between. One can think of punctuation in terms of musical notation. “[T]hinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned, as a form of dancing. . . .” Being able to dance with the feet, with concepts, with words: ‘do I still have to say that one has to be able to dance with the pen — that writing has to be learned?’ (TI 77).
“He who writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read, he wants to be learned by heart.” (TSZ 27-28). Here Nietzsche is carrying forth that tradition of aphorisms from Hippocrates where their brevity plays a practical importance as a mnemonic device for both practitioner and patient. Traditionally, the mnemonic played the role of easily remembering prescriptions for life and, elsewhere, was a popular technique for memorising poetry and mythic stories as it existed only in oral tradition, including song. This leads to the question of whether Nietzsche actually wanted to be read at all. And not only to be ‘learnt by heart’ but to put his ideas to song, to ‘read’ him as if to read sheet music. Lento is Nietzsche’s prescribed ‘art of reading’ for those who want to live a healthier life full of laughter. To learn by heart is to incorporate ideas within the body.
Abbreviations:
BoT = Birth of Tragedy
TSZ = Thus Spoke Zarathustra
GS = The Gay Science
HH = Human, all too Human
BGE = Beyond Good and Evil
EH = Ecce Homo
TI = Twilight of the Idols
AC = The Anti-Christ
EW = Early Writings
LW = Late Writings
CN = Conversations with Nietzsche
Bibliography:
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy, ed. Raymond Geuss and Ronald Spiers, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017)
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ed. Adrian Del Caro and Robert Pippin, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
— The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, ed. Bernard Williams, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)
— Human, all too Human, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
— Beyond Good and Evil, (London: Penguin Books, 2003)
— Ecce Homo, (London, Penguin Books, 2004)
— Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, (London: Penguin Books, 2003)
— On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen, (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1998)
— Writings from the Early Notebooks, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
— Writings from the Late Notebooks, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
— The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche vol 15, (California: Stanford University Press, 2022)
Gilman, Sander L. Conversations with Nietzsche, trans. David J. Parent, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987)