European Nihilism - THE WILL TO POWER - NIETZSCHE

21 (Spring-Fall 1887; rev. 1888)
The perfect nihilist.-The nihilist's eye idealizes in the direc-
tion of ugliness and is unfaithful to his memories: it allows them
to drop, lose their leaves; it does not guard them against the
corpselike pallor that weakness pours out over what is distant and
gone. And what he does not do for himself, he also. does not do
for the whole past of mankind: he lets it drop.

16 (Nov. 1887-March 1888)
If we are "disappointed," it is at least not regarding life:
rather we are now facing up to all kinds of "desiderata." With
scornful wrath we contemplate what are called "ideals"; we despise
ourselves only because there are moments when we cannot subdue
that absurd impulse that is called "idealism." The influence of
too much coddling is stronger than the wrath of the disappointed.

18 (1883-1888)
The most universal sign of the modern age: man has lost
dignity in his own eyes to an incredible extent. For a long time
the center and tragic hero of existence in general; then at least
intent on proving himself closely related to the decisive and es-
sentially valuable side of existence-like all metaphysicians who
wish to cling to the dignity of man, with their faith that moral
values are cardinal values. Those who have abandoned God cling
that much more firmly to the faith in morality.'o

(...)The most extreme form of nihilism would be the view that
every belief, every considering-some thing-true, is necessarily false
because there simply is no true world.(...)

42 (March-June 1888)
First principle:
The supposed causes of degeneration are its consequences.
But the supposed remedies of degeneration are also mere
palliatives against some of its effects: the "cured" are merely one
type of the degenerates.
Consequences of decadence: vice-the addiction to vice;
sickness-sickliness; crime-criminaIity; celibacy-sterility; hys-
tericism-weakness of the will; alcoholism; pessimism; anarchism;
libertinism (also of the spirit). The slanderers, underminers,
doubters, destroyers.

43 (March-June 1888)
On the concept of decadence.
1. Skepticism is a consequence of decadence, as is libertinism
of the spirit.
2. The corruption of morals is a consequence of decadence
(weakness of the will, need for strong stimuli).
3. Attempted cures, psychological and moral, do not change
the course of decadence, do not arrest it, are pbysiologically
naught:
Insight into the great nullity of these presumptuous "re-
actions"; they are forms of narcotization against certain terrible
consequences; they do not eliminate the morbid element; often
they are heroic attempts to annul the man of decadence and to
realize the minimum of his harmfulness.