thus-spoke-nietzsche:

The Absurd, also known as the doctrine of absurdism, is the philosophical stance depicted by Albert Camus in novels, and philosophical essays, authored throughout his lifetime, and has left a significant impact on existential philosophy ever since. The main precept of absurdism, expressed by Camus, is the divorce between man’s yearning for meaning and the inherent meaninglessness of the world, or the inability for man to ascertain meaning from this world with it existing, if it does at all, beyond the human apparatus. In essence, absurdism is the view that it is impossible for man to have any meaning in life, and thus the world is irrational, nonsensical and well, absurd.

From this view, one may derive the necessary termination of a life characterised by nonsense with no hope of anything more than absurdity, ending eventually in death.”What’s the point in living a temporal existence characterised by suffering that’ll end eventually in death, with no justification or meaning?” is the question, and the answer, given by Camus, is “…the fact you exist spits in the face of this absurdity, and so carry on existing you must.” To exist is to spite the Absurd.

Now, for those familiar with Nietzsche, the ubermensch, or Overman, is known natural telos of his philosophy, which is a philosophy characterised by reputing the majority of philosophy pre-Nietzsche and substituting nothing in return, but seeing the beauty and art in this irrational existence and willing nothing but progress in this face of this irrationality. The man who revels and is elevated by this total lack of meaning is the Overman — the main attitude being “amor fati,” literally a love of one’s fate, including love of all negative experiences, positive experience, neutral experience. The death, suffering, absurdity, boredom, etc, one experiences in one’s life must be revered for it is the only life you’ll lead, and you must love it above all else.

You must venerate it so much that you will it again, and again, for eternity in fact. The Overman wills the eternal recurrence of himself — he shouts “Da Capo!” (From the Top!) and laughs and celebrates in all experience because of the beauty of temporality and suffering and strife.

Is the Overman, then, not the antidote to Camus’s Absurd? The man who, not only gets on with life despite the inherent pointlessness of life, but wills this pointlessness and suffering an infinite number of times over; the man who idolises life above all, and has no hope but the momentary hope of only more life, whatever it brings.

I’m supposed to be writing a paper right now, but I’m a sucker for Camus, so I’ll offer a quick response. Plus, I’m in no danger of misinterpreting Nietzsche this time, so I feel safer :)

Is the Overman, then, not the antidote to Camus’ Absurd? In short: no, I do not think that he is. I think Nietzsche ends up, to use Camus’ phrase, committing philosophical suicide in a way similar to Kierkegaard.

The first thing to spell out is that there are two components of the Absurd: man’s “will to meaning” (that’s Frankl’s term, but Camus holds the same idea) and the inherent meaninglessness of the world. Man demands meaning/sense/value/rationality (Camus uses these as more or less synonymous) from life almost as much as he demands food and water. Yet the world by itself is just big senseless, meaningless, irrational mess. The Absurd is the conflict between man’s intrinsic need for meaning and the world’s intrinsic lack of meaning.

Philosophical suicide is denying one of the terms of the absurd, i.e., either, like Husserl, claiming that the world really does have some underlying rational structure, or, like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, claiming that man doesn’t really need meaning. But that’s like denying that we need water; claim it all you like, but you still gotta get hydrated!

The problem, as I see it, is that “amor fati” is an elaborate, self-deceptive method of trying to find meaning in the world. It “escapes the antinomy of the human condition.” That antinomy is precisely the need for meaning in a meaningless world. To will meaninglessness is, I think, a way to find or create meaning out of meaninglessness. It amounts to saying, “the meaninglessness of the world is supremely meaningful to me.” Otherwise, there would be no sense in willing it. As a meaning-demanding being, there’s no particular reason to love my fate unless I see doing so as meaningful/rational/sensible/valuable.

This does not invalidate “amor fati” and the Overman, but I think it thoroughly dilutes them. One may love their fate, but there is no particular reason to do so; one may just as easily hate one’s fate. The Overman ends up accomplishing very little - he certainly doesn’t provide an antidote to the Absurd. All we can say is that he commits philosophical suicide. (Note that this is a descriptive term, not a value judgment. It’s not bad to deny the human condition, it’s just a little self-deceptive and dishonest.)