Individual, Value, Laughter

While Nietzsche's laughter, expressed in #1 of The Gay Science, at the conferral of value on the Individual, is part of his effort to overcome Schopenhauer's influence, it is arguably antithetical to his own principles.  For, insofar as the Dionysian is a principle of Creativity, and to create is to create an individual entity, the existence of the latter is inherent in the principle.  On that basis, the devaluation of the entity is exposed as an expression of weakness and/or Ressentiment.  Thus, for example, since Schopenhauer has no ground for distinguishing general judgments from personal ones, his systematic depreciation of Individuality expresses only self-hate rooted in his sense of his powerlessness.  In contrast, because the affirmation of Life, the focus of Nietzsche's overcoming of Schopenhauer's influence, entails the affirmation of Individuation, it is an expression of strength, and the laughter that it occasions is one of triumph, not ridicule.