Deleuze, Active Nihilism, & Revolt

by Lucrezia L.

16 pages, ebook

Reviews

[0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Deleuze makes it clear that affirmation cannot take place without the negative, as that which both drives us to affirm and as a force destruction which opens the way for creation. Affirmation can only occur through the transformative power of an active nihilism, a desire for 'overcoming'. In order to establish the will to power as a will to affirm, we must first pass through the passive negativity of ressentiment; to know what it is that makes us suffer in order to seek the destruction of these forces, but not destruction as an end in itself but rather as necessary for affirmation.

[...]

Of the demon who follows Zarathustra on his travels on earth, Deleuze writes that he represents the purely negative form of nihilism, 'because he denies everything, despises everything, he also believes he is taking negation to its supreme degree'. In the character of this demon we are given a warning against 'living off of negation as an independent power' as 'having no other quality but the negative [...] a creature of ressentiment, hate and revenge.' Similarly, we can draw a difference between a fatalist and total nihilism which arms itself solely with forces of negation, and an active nihilism which is capable of both affirmation and negation; which sets upon the negation of the existent through affirmative destruction."