Willing the Laughing Lion: The Role of Anger in Nietzsche's Zarathustra

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Thought and Philosophy I

Abstract

This paper addresses how Nietzsche conceived of the proper use of anger. While many remember Nietzsche as a theorist concerned with ressentiment and the spirit of revenge, Nietzsche is also one of the canonical authors most comfortable with insults and enemies. The paper takes up the tension between these positions in the context of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and argues that there is a version of private anger that aids in forming and bolstering the healthy self. Exploring what Nietzsche calls the second metamorphosis, the stage of the lion who destroys and refuses outside rule, the paper focuses on two contexts in which hostile frustration helps to define the self: against the opposition of worthy enemies, and against the crowd of political society that opposes something essential to oneself. Carefully read, Nietzsche’s text contends that well-guided anger in both contexts offers clarity about who one is and is not, and in doing so provides psychological security against opposition. Nietzsche suggests that this security paradoxically opposes vengeance and protects peaceful liberality in a civil context which essentially contains both diversity and opposition. While this argument helps Nietzsche’s interpreters make sense of what appear to be contradictory attitudes in his philosophy of emotions, it also offers a normative conception of the purpose of anger in our own conflict-ridden and diverse society.

Author

• Ivy Flessen, Duke University