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S. Afr. J. Philos. 2007, 26(1)
absence of a persuasive sense of axiological teleology) in The Will to Power (55;
1968: 35): ‘Let us think this thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is, without
meaning or aim, yet recurring inevitably without any finale of nothingness: “the eter-
nal recurrence”’. This clearly emphasizes the contingency, as opposed to the teleologi-
cally orchestrated necessity of existence. And the axiological - but also the ethical and
existential - problem that this poses is that of possibly inescapable, radical nihilism,
that is, the realization of the utter contingency, as well as the meaninglessness of ev-
erything (see Nietzsche 1968 [I; 3]: 9) At the same time this very realization poses the
ethical or existential task facing every individual, the acceptance (affirmation) or nega-
tion of which determines whether one is finally capable of ‘creating oneself’ as a true,
axiologically active individual. That it is an extremely difficult affirmation to make
leaves no doubt, as Zarathustra's difficulty demonstrates (see for example Nietzsche,
1984: 250-253). And yet to be able to transform the utter contingency of one's per-
sonal existence into something ‘necessary’ (in a non-teleological sense), and to redeem
such contingency ethically and axiologically, one has to embrace it in all its varie-
gatedness - affirming it unconditionally, willing its endless repetition or recurrence12 -
and, moreover, learn to love it (Nietzsche 1979: 68): ‘My formula for greatness in a
human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the fu-
ture, not in the past, not in all eternity’. But then he adds something ostensibly contra-
dictory: ‘Not merely to endure that which happens of necessity, still less to dissemble
it... but to love it...’
This - enduring, even loving, what occurs ‘of necessity’ - would indeed be prob-
lematical if one understands Nietzsche's use of the term, ‘necessity’, as being incom-
patible with him as someone who, in his work, affirms the earth, this inescapably tem-
poral or historical human life with all its sometimes unbearable contingency, which
one has to learn to embrace,13 thus becoming ‘overhumans’ (to coin a term). And yet,
it is precisely here that his contribution to a ‘modern’ notion of ‘immortality’ may be
discerned. Deleuze helps one to understand this where he remarks, a propos of chance
or contingency in Nietzsche's thought (1983: 26):
... just as unity does not suppress or deny multiplicity, necessity does not sup-
press or abolish chance. Nietzsche identifies chance with multiplicity, with
fragments, with parts, with chaos: the chaos of the dice that are shaken and then
thrown. Nietzsche turns chance into an affirmation... What Nietzsche calls ne-
cessity (destiny) is... never the abolition but rather the combination of chance it-
self. Necessity is affirmed of chance in as much as chance itself [is?] affirmed.
[Sic.]
It is no accident that, as Deleuze (1983: 26) points out, the idea of chance is pervasive
in Zarathustra's narrative. After all, it is in this text (1984: 278) that Nietzsche attempts
(via Zarathustra) to ‘release’ everything under the sun from the servitude to an over-
arching teleology, because things (and this would include humans) ‘...would rather
12 It should be clear from what I have said about the connection between affirmation and the ‘eternal re-
currence’, that I disagree strongly with Allan Megill (1985: 83-84), who believes that it is virtually im-
possible to arrive at a cogent interpretation of the doctrine (the ‘eternal recurrence’ or ‘eternal return’).
13 An exemplary Nietzschean (‘actively nihilistic’) cinematic celebration of the value of contingency in
human earthly life is encountered in Wim Wenders's exhilarating film, Wings of Desire (Himmel uber
Berlin), where Wenders uses the figure of an angel who, despite the apparent advantages of his own
timeless angelic ‘existence’, chooses to ‘fall into’ human time and history, to be able to experience the
pleasure of contingent events such as drinking a cup of coffee. See Olivier (1992) in this regard.