@philosophyminis: You're standing in a circle at a party, and somebody is talking about how incredibly hard their year has been. And you watch as groups do what groups always do. There's the soft head tilts, the knowing noises, the hands on the arm, and the 'Oh, you poor thing!' But according to Nietzsche, this is one of the most quietly destructive things that humans actually do to each other. Nietzsche argued that pity is more destructive, and far worse even than cruelty. Of course, pity doesn't physically harm a person, but it does something far stranger to the receiver. It gives them a costume. It gives them a label called 'the sufferer.' That 'I am the unlucky one,' and 'I am the person that things happen to.' For Nietzsche, pity corrodes both the receiver and the giver. For the receiver, when they hear the 'Oh, you poor thing,' they are given a small and subtle instruction to keep being the poor thing. And that story then hardens into an identity. And for the giver, while pity might feel like generosity, it is actually a way of standing above someone. The knowing noises and the soft looks are actually a way of saying, 'Thank God I'm not like you.' A culture saturated in pity is not a kind one. It is one that has learned to make people feel small, and to feel good about it. The friend who is always the wounded one. The colleague who is always the victim. For Nietzsche, pity does not heal them. It keeps them where they are. According to Nietzsche, pity asks the sufferer to stay the sufferer, but he thought that we should never be defined by the bad things that happened to us. He thought we should always move forward, and we should always define ourselves and move past the past.

Jonny Thomson

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Thursday 14 May 2026 14:14:54 GMT