Life-affirming

If something is life-affirming it means it has a positive and healthy attitude towards living.^[1]^[2] It is the opposite of being "life-denying". To affirm means to agree or to say something is good.

This is also called "Nietzschean affirmation" after the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche wrote that a person is life-affirming only if they affirm life the way it is. This means to love their life even when it hurts or isn't comfortable.^[2] Nietzsche wrote that the best people will say yes to living, even if they would have to live the exact same life on Earth over and over.^[2] He wrote that if anyone truly affirms even just one moment then they affirm everything in life. If someone "has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed."^[3] According to Nietzsche, Christians are not life-affirming.

Related pages

Optimism

References

↑ "Life-affirming". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Brian, Leiter. "Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
↑ Nietzsche, Friedrich (1906). The Will to Power. Translated by Kaufmann, Walter; Hollingdale, R. J. New York: Random House (published 1967). pp. 532–533.

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[1] "Life-affirming". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved November 14, 2020.

[:1-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Brian, Leiter. "Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved November 14, 2020.

[3] Nietzsche, Friedrich (1906). The Will to Power. Translated by Kaufmann, Walter; Hollingdale, R. J. New York: Random House (published 1967). pp. 532–533.

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