Why Happiness Destroys Our Capacity For Greatness, According to Nietzsche

Exploring Friedrich Nietzsche's views on happiness, including why he believed that it hinders our ability to achieve a sense of purpose, meaning, and greatness.

Friedrich Nietzsche was an interesting dude.

He had quite an eventful life; he was constantly battling various illnesses, was considered a philosophical failure for his entire life (his work took off posthumously), and was known to be extremely eccentric. You might not know this, but his work actually went on to inspire Jerry Siegel, the creator of DC Comics’ Superman. This fact is still heavily debated amongst DC Comics fans, but personally, I think Nietzsche’s work was a direct inspiration. Remember Superman’s “up, up, and away!” catchphrase? Check out the following quote from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

“I long to be up, out, and away to the Superman!” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ch. 43

Nietzsche’s philosophy touched on a variety of subjects, and in this post, we’ll be exploring his views on happiness. His ideas will be in stark contrast to Aristotle’s (which we covered last week), and I wanted to include him within this series so I could offer a varied viewpoint on the topic of happiness.

Let’s dive in.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Before I begin discussing Nietzsche’s ideas, I want to highlight the fact that Nietzsche’s philosophy is quite nuanced and leaves a lot of room for interpretation, hence why the vast majority of his philosophy is heavily debated. Personally, I like to approach his philosophical ideas with an open mind - one that avoids bringing along external assumptions and biases. When you read Nietzsche, it’s probably best to try and forget what your friend may have said about him, or how someone may have critiqued him online. For the brief amount of time that you’ll spend reading his work, try your best to formulate your own opinion.

It’s best to approach his philosophy without bringing in any absolutes, and it’s important to remember that everyone’s personal interpretation of Nietzsche will be different. I’m sure this is probably how he would’ve want his philosophy to be read, as he once famously stated;

“There are no facts, only interpretations.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

Happiness isn’t a topic that is frequently associated with Nietzsche, but I still think his few ideas on the subject are worth mentioning. Nietzsche, in contrast to Aristotle, did not believe that happiness was our sole meaning and ‘purpose’ in life. In fact, he staunchly opposed this viewpoint and found it to be both harmful and dangerous.

“Mankind does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

In the quote above, Nietzsche is indirectly criticizing the philosophy of utilitarianism by poking at its English roots. Utilitarianism is a philosophy that holds happiness above all else, and it promotes the maximization of happiness as being a guiding principle within all decisions. By attacking utilitarianism, Nietzsche makes it clear that he’s not exactly fond of happiness being declared our ‘supreme goal’ in life.

Nietzsche further affirms this view through The Last Man, which is an example that appears within his text Thus Spoke Zarathushtra and attempts to illustrate the dangers of placing an ultimate emphasis on happiness. The ‘last man’, according to Nietzsche, is what happens to humans when all forms of pain are avoided and a sole focus is placed on maximizing pleasure, comfort, and ultimately, happiness. This results in individuals who are bland, dull, and boring, yet at the same time are utterly content. These ‘last men’ may be safe, comfortable, satisfied, and content, but they lack any sort of meaning within their lives and have basically destroyed their potential for greatness. They live a life of intense mediocrity. 

Nietzsche puts forward this example not only to highlight the dangers of solely pursuing happiness, but also to reaffirm the important role that pain and suffering play within any meaningful life. Anything in life that is worth doing, that gives us meaning, and that provides us with an opportunity to achieve greatness, all require pain and suffering. Nietzsche would probably claim that great people do not prioritize happiness, rather, they prioritize greatness and meaning.

For example, think of anyone who you consider to be ‘great’. If they employed a utilitarian philosophy, and solely wanted to maximize happiness, would they have actually set off on the path that they did? If Steve Jobs wanted to live a life of maximized happiness, would he have co-founded Apple? If Socrates wanted to live a life of comfort, safety, and satisfaction, would he have been a philosopher? I’m sure building Apple was an incredibly painful and arduous journey, and Socrates was quite literally executed for his profession, therefore I would probably answer ‘no’ to both of these questions. Nietzsche is basically trying to highlight the following; great people pursue greatness not because they’re prioritizing happiness, but rather, because they are pursuing meaning and greatness itself. Pain and suffering is an inevitable part of pursuing anything of worth in life, and therefore if one wants to live a life of maximized happiness, they will never be able to pursue anything ‘worth doing’.

Now, given his views, Nietzsche never explicitly stated how one should pursue or achieve happiness. However, he did provide us with a few general tips on what may make our lives better.

He placed on emphasis on power, and believed that it played a crucial role within all of our thoughts and actions.

“What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself.

What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness.

What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.

Not contentedness but more power; not peace but war; not virtue but fitness”

- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist

However, it’s been argued that Nietzsche wasn’t necessarily referring to the conquest-based, ‘brute-force’ power that we commonly think of. Rather, it’s been proposed that Nietzsche was referring to a form of power over personal struggle and one’s surroundings, environments, and circumstances. This power is then typically used to attain personal growth and self-actualization. Again, as mentioned at the start of this essay, I encourage everyone to interpret Nietzsche’s ideas how they see fit - I think that’s the most beneficial way to approach his philosophy.

“I have found strength where one does not look for it: in simple, mild, and pleasant people, without the least desire to rule—and, conversely, the desire to rule has often appeared to me a sign of inward weakness: they fear their own slave soul and shroud it in a royal cloak (in the end, they still become the slaves of their followers, their fame, etc.) The powerful natures dominate, it is a necessity, they need not lift one finger.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

Nietzsche also placed an emphasis on individuality and nonconformity.

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn of Day

Nietzsche criticized conformity and anything that destroys our capacity for individuality. He stated that great people are rarely conformists, and are usually individuals who aren’t afraid to be different. They’re people who despise mediocrity, embrace solitude, and don’t really care about what others think.

“the higher man courts opposition, and provokes it” - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

“When the great thinker despises mankind, he despises its laziness: for it is on account of their laziness that men seem like factory products, things of no consequence and unworthy to be associated with or instructed.

The man who does not wish to belong to the mass needs only to cease taking himself easily; let him follow his conscience, which calls to him: ‘Be yourself! All you are now doing, thinking, desiring, is not you yourself.'” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations

Although Nietzsche’s ideas are quite nuanced, I think one thing is clear; he probably wouldn’t have advocated for happiness as being our sole goal or purpose in life, as Aristotle did. As highlighted by his Last Man example, he probably would have disagreed with this ‘happiness-first’ approach by pointing to the fact that greatness and achievement is built upon a foundation of failure, suffering, and pain, rather than happiness.

Next week, we’ll be taking a look at a philosopher who also disagreed with Aristotle, but offered an intriguing thought experiment to illustrate his ideas; Robert Nozick. Nozick’s ideas would go on to have a profound effect on philosophy by challenging the notion that happiness is an ‘end-goal’ in life, and through his famous thought experiment, he effectively challenged both utilitarianism and hedonism at the same time.

As always, it’s been a pleasure to be able to write to all of you, and I hope you found today’s post to be interesting. Stay tuned for next week!

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