Nietzsche's Understanding of Suffering

Suffering is an obstacle that everyone has to confront at all times in their life. Most of time, suffering is painful. However, if people consider it as a chance for learning, they can gain a broader appreciation of life and success. They will grow one step further in the process of overcoming and stepping out from the disincentive. However, confronting suffering is not necessarily drawing the beneficial consequences: sometimes, suffering seems ultimately pointless. It may ruin people devastatingly and even lead them to the dehumanization by drawing out their negative hidden traits. A Long Way Gone--a book of Ishmael’s dreadful memories of being a boy soldier and the atrocious truth of the war--and Othello--a tragedy of jealousy, vengeance, and love--indicate those two

Both Shakespeare’s King Lear and Dante’s Inferno explore the reasons for, and results of, human suffering. Each work postulates that human suffering comes as a result of choices that are made: A statement that is not only applicable to the characters in each of the works, but also to the readers. The Inferno and King Lear speak universal truths about the human condition: that suffering is inevitable and unavoidable. While both King Lear and the Inferno concentrate on admonitions and lamentations of human suffering, one of the key differences between the works is that Inferno conveys an aspect of hope that is not nearly as prevalent in King Lear.

Nietzsche also goes back and forth about inflicting pain and cruelty to enable one to see reason more clearly and whether or not public spectacles of pain are beneficial or a further cause of ressentiment. Many of his ideas seem rather drastic but he changes his mind about some of them as he continues to spill his thoughts on paper as they go through his mind.

What argument does he provide for why we should not fear death? What is the ethical purpose of this argument for how we should live our lives? Do you agree with Epicurus’s views? Why or why not?

David Brooks argues, in his essay “What Suffering Does”, that pain often gives people a new outlook and possibly even a new path in life. He explains that suffering can help people see their lives from an outsider’s perspective, discover new depths of their character, and often find new paths: “The grief of having lost a loved one smashes through what they thought was the bottom floor of their personality, revealing an area below,” (Brooks 286). Brooks in this passage describes how suffering can enhance a person’s character. As cliché as it sounds, hardships can, in fact,

Suffering. All of us have encountered suffering and many of us wish we never would have to again; however, what many people do not see is that since we have suffering, we have happiness. One can not exist without the other. Without this feeling of suffering or unhappiness, we would not be able to understand happiness or even know it as a pleasant feeling, since we would never have experienced a life of unhappiness. Journalist David Brooks in “What Suffering Does” and Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard in “The Alchemy of Suffering” gave their own input upon the relationship between suffering and happiness. They seem to mention how every person endures suffering, but what is important is not the suffering itself, but the way a person changes or reacts to the suffering. While one may hate suffering, we have to understand that one can not be happy without having suffered. The characterization of emotional suffering as “rewarding” to people fails to account for individuals who have undergone the death of their spouse and have come out of it a changed person. In fact, in the 21st century, pervasive media advertising through television advances western cultural expectations of “perfection”, that in part advance suffering.

There are many differing ways that people suffer. Some effects can be superior and some can be inferior. In the quote by H. Richard Niebuhr, suffering can make you stronger, have more character, along with respect.

The problem of evil as suffering is a problem of what to do with the obstacle for the believer but also an obstacle to unbeliever to converge because they do not think it harmonising. In contradiction to compatibility, an atheist often suggested that the present of evil entails the absence of God. Atheist argued, if God exists, then as an omnipotent, he is able to prevent the evil occurrence. For omniscient, it implies under any circumstances evil will occur if he does not act. Then, being perfectly good, he will prevent its occurrence and so evil will not exist. Based on this above proclamation, the existence of God does not compatible with the evil of whatever kind. However, theists response to this logical problem of evil by an atheist is that necessarily perfectly good being, foreseeing the occurrence of evil and able to prevent it, will prevent evil. The essay will first, define what evil is according to Swinburne as one of the philosopher of religion, Second, Swinburne four categories of evil will be discussed (Physical evil, mental evil, state evil, moral evil). Third, Phillip logical and existential problem evil will be discussed through. How will all these above assertions be a problem to those that and does not believe in God.

There are many different perspectives on suffering with regard to its meaning, significance and purposes. Pope John Paul II (1984) wrote "On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering", that it centres on the notion of redemptive suffering - to remit one’s sins in order to save the soul from eternal suffering (damnation). Personally, I believe suffering can have a purpose. It can enrich life by giving us knowledge of both the good and the bad, arguably making us more appreciative of what we have . Indeed, James Stewart (2005) purports, "If there were no suffering, would there be compassion? If there were no discipline and hardship, would we ever learn patience and endurance? Construct a universe with no trouble in it and immediately you banish some of the finest qualities in the world."

We have grown weary of man. Nietzsche wants something better, to believe in human ability once again. Nietzsche’s weariness is based almost entirely in the culmination of ressentiment, the dissolution of Nietzsche’s concept of morality and the prevailing priestly morality. Nietzsche wants to move beyond simple concepts of good and evil, abandon the assessment of individuals through ressentiment, and restore men to their former wonderful ability.

As human beings everyone suffers but we all suffer differently. Some suffer emotionally, some suffer physically, some suffer mentally. And through suffering and pain we gain different experiences, we either overcome pain and sorrows or we break down waste our lives. Edwidge Danticat present the theme of suffering in each of her stories. In all the stories the characters have to go through pain, but they all over come it in different ways. This is true in real life too. in the children of the sea that characters suffer but the outcome is that, in 1937 the outcome is inner peace, and My outcome is discovering myself.

“Suffering” is a word which carries negative connotations, used to incite pity, empathy or fear. Why would it not? Is suffering not simply agony, defined justly by the Oxford Dictionary as “the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship” (“Suffering)? Yet, we accept suffering as part of life, a fundamental aspect that defines living. Nietzsche tells us that the very act of living is suffering itself, but to survive is to find value in that suffering. Yet, what sort of value can be attached to an idea so negative? Pico Iyer’s editorial in the New York Times explores the value of suffering, likening suffering to passion and “[p]assion with the plight of other’s makes for ‘compassion’” (________________).I began to think upon the cohesive

The suffering of man is a very complicated matter that is most likely impossible to understand completely. It is a subject that people have grappled with since the dawn of recorded history. In fact, suffering is evident in every form of art man has created. Suffering is in our paintings, our poetry, our music, our plays, and in anything else that is conceivable. But still, we as a whole still struggle with the idea of suffering. It is my opinion that some individuals may grasp the notion of suffering more than others, but that no one person will ever fully understand suffering in every form. A person may only understand his or her own personal suffering, not suffering as a whole. It is the next step to then say

Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher and held in regard amongst the greatest philosophers of the early part century. He sharpened his philosophical skills through reading the works of the earlier philosophers of the 18th century such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Arthur Schopenhauer and African Spir; however, their works and beliefs were opposite to his own. His primary mentor was Author Schopenhauer, whose belief was that reality was built on the foundation of experience. Such as it is, one of his essays, Schopenhauer als Erzieher, published in 1874, was dedicated to Schopenhauer (Mencken, 2008). In the past two centuries, his work has had authority and influence in both

The thought of the herd is to praise the people that may fail and suffer in Nietzsche’s