"that which does not kill me makes me stronger" give a GOOD explanation of it.?

Question

i hear this Neitzschean apothegm quoted all the time, by glib people. but it doesn't seem to mean anything. either it's just plain false, or it's trivial.

FALSE: obviously there are millions of things that don't kill me, but also don't make me stronger. The number 128945634 doesn't kill me, and it doesn't make me any stronger. People from the past don't kill me, and don't make me stronger. Atoms on planets in faraway solar systems, etc. etc.

Some things that won't kill me can make me weaker, in fact: Gout, Ross River Fever, etc.

TRIVIAL: so it looks like Neitzsche means, "that which interacts with me, and tests me, and doesn't make me weaker, makes me stronger", but this just seems like a way of saying "that which makes me stronger makes me stronger", which is trivial.

So PLEASE give a good account, or tell everybody to stop saying this!!!

Answer 1

It's one of those untrue statements you should be glad people believe. Would you rather people go around lamenting that adversity makes them weak? If Americans did that we'd be a nation full of floppers.

This saying is the eigth in an odd list of 44 aphorisms from Nietzsche's book Twilight of the Idols. "Maxims and Arrows," he calls them. Maxims seem to refer to untrue statements that people believe. Arrows are farefetched statements that are true in an ironic or surprising way, the implication of the name being that they will pierce people's complacency. Neitzche intersperses these with snarky but obscure coments.

Here are a couple of his arrows. Number nine: "Help yourself, then everyone will help you. Principle of brotherly love." Number twenty-two is << "Evil men have no songs." How is it, then, that the Russians have songs?>> Here's one I like, number 14: "What? You search? You would multiply yourself by ten, by a hundred? You seek followers? Seek zeros!"

"That which does not kill me" is not meant to encompass the entire class of such things. Rather Nietzsche evokes hardships that are nearly fatal, probably experientially or emotionally rather than literally so.

Of course the statement isn't true. People are usually weakened, not strengthened, by repeated aversity. They become depressed, suicidal, unproductive, brittle, bitter, unreliable.

Funny how a statement coined by a German for its ironic falsity becomes a cherished affirmation here in America. That's what it is, really, an affirmation. Affirmations are always untrue, otherwise why would people need to repeat them? The idea is to say something you know is untrue but that you wish were true enough times that you either begin deceiving yorurself, or you develop enough strength and resolve to achieve it. One or the other. Self-deceptoin, blind strength, cannot separate the two, the American way.

As such its a useful lie. As I said, better people try to be strong than whine and give up.

Neitzche, for his part, thought his role was to destroy his era's convenient lies, like the belief that God exists. Ambitious guy, Neitche. We've just coopted him for our own purposes.

Answer 2

A simple example is when you break your arm. You're definitely weakened in this condition, right? Under a certain age, the healing of the bone which occurs, actually strengthens it, making you stronger than prior to it. That's a physical example. There are emotional and mental examples too. All said "exercises" mental, emotional, and physical, I'd argue fall into this category. You suffer some weakness (think of muscle pain and fatigue) at the time, but then there is an increase in strength.

Answer 3

That expression is not referring to everything in existence, but rather those things that 'attempt to kill you'.

When you get a disease, your immune system fights back. If that disease doesn't kill you, then once your immune system successfully destroys it, it 'builds up' your immune system and for the rest of your life whenever you get that disease again you don't even show symptoms because your body immediately defeats it because your immune system is stronger.

I'm sure this is what was meant by whomever invented that saying. Another example would be a battle with another person. If you survive, the lessons you learn from the experience will make it harder for the next person to kill you.

But the real point, I think, the originator is trying to do, is use this idea, tongue in cheek. The phrase quickly communicates a complicated concept. If you expect everything we say to be literal, than you would be just as guilty in your own communication.

SUCCESS!

Answer 4

I believe the phrase refers to things psychological not necessarily physical. Although the physical is also possible. Think of a vaccine, it gives you a small dosage of the disease to enable your body to become stronger so it can resist the full-blown disease. Or it referes to the dire physical ordeals explorers of that day went through.

Psychologically we are faced with trials in our everyday life that for some people can be devastating. Think of a broken heart etc. If we do not succumb to the temptation of death (by our own hand?) we will emerge stronger and again be better able to deal with a similar situation.

I agree that it is used very trivially today. Like a guy who drinks too much will laugh and say ' haha what doesn't kill you will make you stronger' when in fact he is killing himself and not making himself stonger. We must remember that the phrase was used (initially) out of our time frame and was more applicable in every day happenings, then. I think we simply use it as a casual phrase because there is not that much to attach it to as a true or deeper phrase within our current life situation.
Nowdays It is also used to bolster others perception of ones bavery or ones own within oneself... ''Look at me I'm tough I can do anything 'what doesn't kill me will make me stronger' ''

Answer 5

When you get a cold, your body creates antibodies or other ways of fighting of said sickness, and therefore becomes stronger. Physically you will be able to fight off the sickness the next time you encounter it, and thus you have gained an ability which keeps you alive and healthy. The other examples of mentally and emotionally getting stronger are also good, but I just thought I would throw this one out there. Truthfully I'm surprised someone hasn't already.

Answer 6

I will not say unfortunately, but the fact is that we have lost the science of reading between the lines and words. We look at scriptures, east or west. in a merely materialistic perspective. As you exp-lained, thing seems to mean to you a food item a number and some such. Could you ever realise 'thing' in slightly higher dimension. You are a three dimensional object and your vision totally obstructed by 2-d object like a wall. The vision of a 2-d being is hurdle by a 1-d object. If you increase your dimension of the perceiving capacity you can see several things you thought did not exist. The sentence you quoted is beautiful, if not taken literally and mundanely. Honestly I do not know who the person who said it and why he/she said it. If you are convinced or at least impressed by what I said now and contact me, I can elaborate.
Warning: some 'things' are not realisable till they are experienced.

Answer 7

That question is kind of stupid and I bet a lot of people would have appreciated it if you would have thought about it a bit before posting it here. Of course the number 1287874... doesn't kill you but obviously that is not what the people who say that mean. Experiences for example well I don't know running long distances to build up your stamina. If that doesn't kill you it made you stronger or for example surviving critical situations like being raped and somehow getting over it in the end. Or just something normal like your bf/gf breaking up with you. If you get over it your stronger than before. Not physically but psychically.

Answer 8

Ok, you're overthinking this saying WAY too much. "That which does not kill you" (referring to things that actually COULD kill you, like cancer, or being raped, or not getting your assignment turned in, not something stupid like a number) "makes you stronger", sometimes physically, but most of the time it is mental. If cancer doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger by making you appreciate life. If something smaller happens like procrastination, then you learn from your mistakes. "That which could have killed you makes you more aware, alert, and appreciative of life".

Answer 9

Even if you end up with cancer, which is very weakening, YOU as a person can still stay strong positive and have an attitude of beating it and staying alive. If it happens to be a situation?! You can pull yourself up and still move on with life. I disagree with you on the fact that people in the past do not make you stronger (my mother for example) has taught me to be a strong independent woman and how to take care of a house kids and myself, and if I do say so myself I have done a dam good job. But I have her to thank because she has taught me to be that way.

Answer 10

Let us first rephrase it as: "That which does not wound me fatally makes me stronger." Then you can still say the number 128945634 does not wound me fatally, but neither makes me stronger. But let us now phrase it a little differently still: "That which wounds me non-fatally makes me stronger." This is what Nietzsche means. The aphorism in question is from the beginning of Twilight of the Idols. And in that book's introduction, he quotes the Roman author Aulus Gellius:

"Increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus."
("The spirits increase, vigor grows through a wound.")

So we can rephrase the aphorism as "What wounds me non-fatally makes my spirits increase and my vigor grow."

Ernst Jünger, however, adds something to the original aphorism. He says:

"'What does not kill me, makes me stronger.' And what does kill me, monstrously strong."

Here we cannot apply the above. For to rephrase it as "Whatever wounds me fatally makes my spirits increase and my vigor grow to a monstrous size" makes no sense. Here we must take "what kills me" metaphorically. It is like I once wrote:

"In order to be reborn, one must have died first."

I don't mean this literally, as in reincarnation, either. Compare Pantera:

"I'm born again
With snake's eyes,
Becoming
God-size"