Immoralists: Honour in affirming.

“We others, we immoralists, have on the contrary opened wide our hearts to every kind of understanding, comprehension, approval. We do not readily deny, we seek our honour in affirming.” (56).

In Twighlight of the Idols Nietzsche makes this very bold statement as part of his argument of morality as anti-nature. The passage is a conclusion to his arguments against Christianity and morals where he portrays them as oppressors of the “instinct of Life” (55). His affirmation of opposition and acceptance of bodily instinct and passion culminate in this statement and embody his attitude toward life.

The 'contrary' persons Nietzsche refers to in this passage are moralists who, “wanted man to be different, namely virtuous,...that of a bigot: to that end they denied the world!” (56). They are deniers in that by asking one to change themselves is to demand that the history of that person, and of the world surrounding that person. This kind of change is one which is clearly viewed as a ludicrous impossibility to Nietzsche. In demanding that change in a person, morality is not satisfied with the countless types of persons and instead demands that they ought to be different. He attributes this behavior of morality and Christianity as a, “symptom of a certain kind of life...of [a] declining, debilitated, weary, condemned life” (55) or “a denial of the will to life” (56). The position of morality to relegate the actual (or apparent) world to falsity and instead regard the 'real world' (the higher realm of the divine or rational or true) as reality “is only a suggestion of decadence” (49).

Instead, his approach to being is, “the individual is, in his future and in his past, a piece of fate, one law more, one necessity more for everything that is and everything that will be” (56). He suggests that by living according to the instincts, passions, and desires we are born with we are good and deniers of bodily instincts, “are too weak-willed, too degenerate to impose moderation upon it” (53) and are evil. Yet these 'degenerates' are needed in order for immoralists be become necessary. He calls the spiritualization of sensuality, a desire labeled as evil according to Christianity, love. And just as sensuality can be 'refined' so to speak to become spiritual, so can the concept of enmity where, “it consists in profoundly grasping the value of having enemies: in brief, in acting and thinking in the reverse of the way in which one formerly acted and thought” (53). Here immoralism becomes necessary only because it is in combat with an opposing ideology: moralism. This is in accordance with his opposition to morals in that temporality is an intrinsic characteristic of the apparent world and is denied in various fashions in the Kantian notions of the rational or even in Plato's forms. For Niietzsche, “one if fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions; one remains young only on condition the soul does not relax, does not long for peace” (54). This suggests that peace is part of the immoral infinite realm which does not exists according to Nieszche. To find peace would be to cede to decadence.

When Nietzsche speaks of immoralists as open and always affirming, he speaks of people who do not deny the material reality of existence, who accept temporality in all its forms, and who embrace instinct, desire and passion. It is implied, however, that desire must be kept in check (53) for those who cannot are evil. So far Nietzsche has provided arguments refuting morality and Christianity but very little to support immorality apart from it being necessary by being the opposite of morals. This leads me to wonder if immoralists are infact promoting total chaos as Nietzsche does not provide a working definition or moderation nor does he explain a bit more on how exactly one achieve moderation in accordance with the immoralists.