CHRISTMAS ESSAY
(Not because you have to read it, but because you want to read it.)
(Not because you have to read it, but because you want to read it.)
AMOR FATI.
The love of fate.
The term is best known from the work of Friedrich Nietzsche.
"Embracing everything that happens in one's life—including suffering, loss, and hardship—not just accepting it, but actively loving it as necessary and essential for one's existence and growth, wanting nothing to be different in all eternity", according to artificial intelligence.
The child starving under a scorching sun.
"Love your fate."
The woman brutally raped.
"Love your fate."
The slave mercilessly beaten.
"Love your fate."
Really?
"Amor fati" is mentioned only ten times in Nietzsche's collected works.
The first mention dates from the autumn of 1881.
The term is best known from the work of Friedrich Nietzsche.
"Embracing everything that happens in one's life—including suffering, loss, and hardship—not just accepting it, but actively loving it as necessary and essential for one's existence and growth, wanting nothing to be different in all eternity", according to artificial intelligence.
The child starving under a scorching sun.
"Love your fate."
The woman brutally raped.
"Love your fate."
The slave mercilessly beaten.
"Love your fate."
Really?
"Amor fati" is mentioned only ten times in Nietzsche's collected works.
The first mention dates from the autumn of 1881.
"Zuerst das Nöthige — und dies so schön und vollkommen als du kannst! „Liebe das, was nothwendig ist“ — amor fati dies wäre meine Moral, thue ihm alles Gute an und hebe es über seine schreckliche Herkunft hinauf zu dir."
"First of all, the necessary—and this as beautifully and perfectly as you can! "Love what is necessary"—amor fati, that would be my moral; do everything good to it and elevate it above its terrible origins to yourself."
"First of all, the necessary—and this as beautifully and perfectly as you can! "Love what is necessary"—amor fati, that would be my moral; do everything good to it and elevate it above its terrible origins to yourself."
Nietzsche offers his translation of "amor fati": "Love what is necessary"
This is not the same as "love your fate."
What "the necessary" is, is not specified.
It is assumed that you know that.
This is also evident from a passage in "Ecce homo."
"Meine Formel für die Grösse am Menschen
ist amor fati : dass man Nichts anders haben will,
vorwärts nicht, rückwärts nicht, in alle Ewigkeit nicht. Das Nothwendige
nicht bloss ertragen, noch weniger verhehlen — aller Idealismus ist
Verlogenheit vor dem Nothwendigen —, sondern es lieben … "
The reference to amor fati is a self-reference.
"My formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one should want nothing other than amor fati."
Nowhere in Nietzsche's texts does it appear that amor fati refers to "fate."
Isn't it striking: in none of the ten quotations in which amor fati is mentioned, is the word "Schicksal" (fate) found.
Only the literal translation of amor fati reveals a connection to fate.
The interpretation of amor fati as the love of fate is enlarged in the translation by professor philosophy Walter Kaufmann. His translation of the quoted passage:
"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it."
"That one wants nothing to be different" clearly emphasizes the "fati" of "amor fati."
The sticking point in my plea for an alternative interpretation, of course, remains that darn literal translation of "amor fati."
I want to change the emphasis on "fati" to "amor."
That's possible.
"Fati" is the genitive of "fatum", fate.
There is such a thing as an object genitive and a subject genitive.
"Amor matris," for example, can be translated in two ways.
In "the love of the mother," "matris" is a subject genitive.
In "the love 'for' the mother," "matris" is an object genitive.
Comparing "fati" with "matris" clearly shows that "fati" is always interpreted as the object genitive.
The love 'for' fate.
But what if "fati" is interpreted as the subject genitive?
"Amor matris", "the love of the mother", "mother's love," can be read as "maternal love."
By analogy, "amor fati" would then be something like "necessary love," "inevitable love".
"L'amour inévitable" in French.
"For the New Year. I still live, I still think; I
must still live, for I must still think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo
sum. Today everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his
favourite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for
myself today, and what thought first crossed my mind this year, a
thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of
all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary
characters in things as the beautiful: I shall thus be one of those who
beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not
want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want
even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole
negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter
only a yea-sayer!"
For the New Year: Say "yes" only to love.
"My formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one should want nothing else, neither forward nor backward, not for all eternity. Not merely to endure what is necessary, let alone to hide it—all idealism is hypocrisy in the face of necessity—but to love it…"
The reference to amor fati is a self-reference.
"My formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one should want nothing other than amor fati."
Nowhere in Nietzsche's texts does it appear that amor fati refers to "fate."
Isn't it striking: in none of the ten quotations in which amor fati is mentioned, is the word "Schicksal" (fate) found.
Only the literal translation of amor fati reveals a connection to fate.
The interpretation of amor fati as the love of fate is enlarged in the translation by professor philosophy Walter Kaufmann. His translation of the quoted passage:
"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it."
"That one wants nothing to be different" clearly emphasizes the "fati" of "amor fati."
The sticking point in my plea for an alternative interpretation, of course, remains that darn literal translation of "amor fati."
I want to change the emphasis on "fati" to "amor."
That's possible.
"Fati" is the genitive of "fatum", fate.
There is such a thing as an object genitive and a subject genitive.
"Amor matris," for example, can be translated in two ways.
In "the love of the mother," "matris" is a subject genitive.
In "the love 'for' the mother," "matris" is an object genitive.
Comparing "fati" with "matris" clearly shows that "fati" is always interpreted as the object genitive.
The love 'for' fate.
But what if "fati" is interpreted as the subject genitive?
"Amor matris", "the love of the mother", "mother's love," can be read as "maternal love."
By analogy, "amor fati" would then be something like "necessary love," "inevitable love".
"L'amour inévitable" in French.
That's also Albert Camus's interpretation.
Camus was a great admirer of Nietzsche; he even had a photo of the philosopher hanging in his office.
"Si j'avais à écrire ici un livre de morale, il aurait cent pages et 99 seraient blanches. Sur la dernière j'écrirais: "Je ne connais qu'un seul devoir et c'est celui d'aimer." Et, pour le reste, je dis non. Je dis non de toutes mes forces."
Camus, carnets, septembre 1937
"If I were to write a book of morals here, it would have one hundred pages, and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last one, I would write: 'I know only one duty, and that is to love.' And, for the rest, I say no. I say no with all my might."
Camus, notebooks, September 1937
A similar quote to "I know only one duty and it's love" can be found in "Le premier homme."
That is actually a collection of notes from preparation for a new work that Camus himself never completed due to his death in a car accident. It was only published posthumously in 1994.
"L'amour véritable n'est pas un choix ni une liberté. Le coeur, le coeur surtout n'est pas libre. Il est l'inévitable et la reconnaissance de l'inévitable."
"True love is neither a choice nor a freedom. The heart, the heart above all, is not free. It is the inevitable and the recognition of the inevitable."
"Zum neuen Jahre. — Noch lebe ich, noch denke
ich: ich muss noch leben, denn ich muss noch denken. Sum, ergo cogito:
cogito, ergo sum. Heute erlaubt sich Jedermann seinen Wunsch und
liebsten Gedanken auszusprechen: nun, so will auch ich sagen, was ich
mir heute von mir selber wünschte und welcher Gedanke mir dieses Jahr
zuerst über das Herz lief, — welcher Gedanke mir Grund, Bürgschaft und
Süssigkeit alles weiteren Lebens sein soll! Ich will immer mehr lernen,
das Nothwendige an den Dingen als das Schöne sehen: — so werde ich Einer
von Denen sein, welche die Dinge schön machen. Amor fati:
das sei von nun an meine Liebe! Ich will keinen Krieg gegen das
Hässliche führen. Ich will nicht anklagen, ich will nicht einmal die
Ankläger anklagen. Wegsehen sei meine einzige Verneinung! Und, Alles in Allem und Grossen: ich will irgendwann einmal nur noch ein Ja-sagender sein!"
Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft 276
Nietzsche and Camus are writing about the same subject.
I can't see it any other way.
I can't see it any other way.
"Si j'avais à écrire ici un livre de morale, il aurait cent pages et 99 seraient blanches. Sur la dernière j'écrirais: "Je ne connais qu'un seul devoir et c'est celui d'aimer." Et, pour le reste, je dis non. Je dis non de toutes mes forces."
Camus, carnets, septembre 1937
"If I were to write a book of morals here, it would have one hundred pages, and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last one, I would write: 'I know only one duty, and that is to love.' And, for the rest, I say no. I say no with all my might."
Camus, notebooks, September 1937
A similar quote to "I know only one duty and it's love" can be found in "Le premier homme."
That is actually a collection of notes from preparation for a new work that Camus himself never completed due to his death in a car accident. It was only published posthumously in 1994.
"L'amour véritable n'est pas un choix ni une liberté. Le coeur, le coeur surtout n'est pas libre. Il est l'inévitable et la reconnaissance de l'inévitable."
"True love is neither a choice nor a freedom. The heart, the heart above all, is not free. It is the inevitable and the recognition of the inevitable."
I can't see it as anything other than a manifestation of the same subject: "amor fati."
I don't even hope to ever see it differently.
"Amor fati" first appeared in a published work by Nietzsche in "The Gay Science."
I don't even hope to ever see it differently.
"Amor fati" first appeared in a published work by Nietzsche in "The Gay Science."
Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft 276
For the New Year: Say "yes" only to love.
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