American Idol's Kelly Clarkson, Germany's Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Worldwide Abuse of Aphorism

"What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger." - You've heard it many times. I would bet it is one of the most popular aphorisms and because of this it has been overused, reused, and abused countless times.

From Tupac Shakur to the lovely Kelly Clarkson whose pop song is currently a number one for the past six weeks and uses the words in its chorus, no where is the aphorism safe.  It is the latter which actually brought me to re-examine this piece of “truth” that makes so many rounds with so little thoughtfulness that those who have heard it believe that exposure is equal to knowledge.

The aphorism itself comes from the 19th century thinker Friedrich Nietzsche, the prophet of cultural nihilism and critic of moral idealism. As for the quote, it is always quoted incompletely, and therefore loses something one would argue that is integral to its decoding. It reads as follows:

“From life’s military school - that which doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

One finds the first part an almost obscene intrusion because it is so unfamiliar with respect to the more popular last half. What is life’s military school? Could it be a portend of the school of hard knocks? Most likely not.

Tracy B. Strong points out that Twilight of the Idols, from which the quote is extracted, writes Nietzsche, is a “declaration of war.” Perhaps than the military reference ought to be understood within this broader context. But a war against what? Strong suggests Nietzsche declares a war against oneself from becoming too deep. Depth is a problem that continually finds itself in the crosshairs of Nietzsche’s criticisms. In another place, Nietzsche pokes fun at the depth attributed to women. It is a woman, he says, the essence of mystery that is a foolishness culture perpetuates unreflectively, for, after all, mystery itself is inaccessible to reflection. How can one say anything about mystery? And if one cannot access mystery, how can it be? Nietzsche, the existentialist, dismisses this idealism, this shadow of life. Here, instead of Kelly Clarkson, Nietzsche might track better with Talk Talk, the pop 80s band, who sung the song, “Life’s what you make it.”

So, as Tracy B. Strong reminds, “anytime one thinks he knows what Nietzsche means, the first thing to do is to stop and ask oneself what precisely this is that one thinks he means.”  But since it is this very kind of aphorism that begs to be reinvented, redefined, segmented, and even forgotten, Strong suggests that Nietzsche intends the kind of activity and re-reading that becomes democratic, so that the possibility of misinterpretation is written into the interpretation.




Though, one becomes acquainted with a shadow of Nietzsche, but not Nietzsche.  It is a prophecy he himself predicts. “Whoever has thought to have understood me, has made me in his own image.”  But in doing so, this is something of the existentialist mode, the unattainable individual who is not but is always becoming. If this is hard enough to grasp, consider then how misappropriated his aphorisms must appear. Till next time...



For more info: Tracy B. Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration.