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of combinations’ that, together, comprise the ‘world’ as a ‘quantity of force’.4 And as
such they comprise part of the (intermittently) uniquely actualized ‘texture’ of the fab-
ric of the ‘world’ that supposedly repeats itself in infinite time. It remains to be shown
that, in addition to this ‘weak’ sense of ‘immortality’ on the part of morally acting in-
dividuals, there is another, strong sense to be found in Nietzsche's work, however -
one relating to singularity of a more salient kind.
What I wish to argue is that Nietzsche, no less than other representatives of a dis-
tinctly ‘modern’ ethos (such as Blumenberg, Lefort, or, in poststructuralist terms,
Lacan), articulates the conditions for ‘immortality’ in his own, inimitable manner. He
does so in relation to (a different aspect of) the doctrine of eternal recurrence and of
the singularity of an individual, which is a function of the very specific, creative pro-
file of such an individual against the backdrop of the large, mediocre mass of conven-
tion-abiding people in society. To my mind, one possible starting point (among many)
- for unpacking this claim - in Nietzsche's work, is a passage in The Will to Power
(585A; 1968: 318):
Whoever is incapable of laying his will into things, lacking will and strength, at
least lays some meaning into them, i.e., the faith that there is a will in them al-
ready.
It is a measure of the degree of strength of will to what extent one can do with-
out meaning in things, to what extent one can endure to live in a meaningless
world because one organizes a small portion of it oneself.
In Nietzsche's judgement, most people never get beyond the point where they ‘dis-
cover’ ostensibly inherent, ready-made value(s) in the world into which they are born
(Nehamas 1985: 135-136) - they have ‘faith’ that there is already a ‘will’ in things.
Such people, who would passively bear the values with which tradition, convention or
custom burdens them, seem to correspond to the camel or beast of burden in Thus
spoke Zarathustra (1984: 138), who would passively bear the values with which tradi-
tion, convention or custom burdens them.5 The latter (convention) appears to be the
counterpart of the dragon on whose scales is written ‘Thou shalt’, and which has to be
overcome by the freedom-conquering spirit, or lion (1984: 138-139), whose conquer-
ing activity, in turn, must be presupposed by the playfully creative, self-willing child
(1984: 139).6 The latter - not by itself, but in conjunction with the two preceding fig-
ures - corresponds to those rare people, referred to in the extract, above, who find it
tolerable to live in a meaningless world, because they are capable of ‘organizing a
small portion of it’ themselves. It is essentially this kind of person who would exem-
plify someone capable of attaining ‘immortality’ in the (new, ‘modern’) sense, bor-
rowed from Copjec, which I believe one encounters in Nietzsche's thought.
It is important to note that Nietzsche does not advocate a kind of axiological creatio
ex nihilo, or bringing forth by fiat of novel values, on the part of those ‘free spirits’
who manage to prevail creatively in the face of the tremendous force of convention; at
4 For an elaboration on his concept of 'world’ in these terms, see Nietzsche (1968: 549-550).
5 Nietzsche asserts that the primacy of convention or custom is fundamental to civilization as such; in The
dawn (16; 1984a: 76) he speaks of ’... the relentless compulsion to live up to custom’.
6 It is interesting to compare Nietzsche's metaphor of the innocent, game-playing child (as paradigm of
the value-creating person) with Heidegger's (1991: 113) use of the same metaphor to suggest, not the
creative individual, but the creative 'play-activity’ - perhaps rather 'creative process’ - of Being. In so
doing, Heidegger divests the metaphor of the 'child at play’ of what he understands as an unacceptable
anthropocentric (and therefore still metaphysical) dimension.