Will, Weakness, Suicide

Nietzsche's criticism of Schopenhauer's Asceticism is based on the innovative thesis that the true character of Volition is Will to Power, not the traditional Will to Live.  As such, its range of expression can vary in degree of Power, stronger or weaker.  Accordingly, the weakest expression of Will to Power is a Will to Nothingness, i. e. Asceticism.  Thus, Schopenhauer's promotion of Self-Denial, and, more generally, the concept of Will as essentially suffering, is a doctrine of a weak Will, and, hence, not universally valid, just as the ambitions of a sick person, e. g. the minimization of pain, are not those of a healthy person, who can, e. g. take the same pain in stride.  Now, an alternative criticism of Asceticism is implied in Spinoza's doctrine, according to which Self-Denial as a principle, rather than a temporary exercise of self-control, is impossible, since the fundamental principle of Self is persistence in its being.  On that basis, Self-Denial is, as Nietzsche diagnoses, a symptom of weakness, but not a weakness of a Will in itself.  Rather, it is a weakness with respect to stronger external forces, including those which are inimical to it, e. g. a parasite seeking to appropriate the blood of its host.  In those conditions, an apparent expression of Self-Denial is, in fact, an internalization of the stronger external inimical force, and an expression of weakness in that respect.  The more general significance of these rival criticisms of Asceticism is to the extreme case--Suicide--and, despite their differences, are similar as alternatives to the common contemporary approach that, influenced by Freud, respects suicidal tendencies as a psychologically sound expression of a Thanatos-like principle.