The well-known ‘God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!’ passage is key to understanding Nietzsche. This section is his way of saying that society is slowly losing its social conventions, and that is a good thing.

The dead god stands for religion. Of course, but god is also used as a metaphor for other metaphysical views and social conventions. Yet, religion is responsible for most moral conventions. And faith is dead. However, that doesn’t mean that the underlying moralities won’t live on.

‘God is dead; but given the way people are, there may still for millennia be caves in which they show his shadow.’

Nietzsche’s viewpoint can be directly connected to the blasphemy trial in Pakistan. Nietzsche wants society to completely liberate itself from ancient beliefs and conventions, including religion and all other forms of social conventions. Mocking religion or norms is an important way to advance society.

‘Being honest even in evil is better than losing oneself to the morality of tradition’

In addition, Nietzsche presents the doctrine of the feeling of power. This idea presents Nietzsche’s ethics regarding hurting others. Whether we help or harm someone is not particularly relevant. Humans’ primary motivation is to maintain and extend their power.

Nietzsche sees the world as competitive and unfriendly; this is how society improves. Nietzsche believes history supports this view.

‘Hatred, delight in the misfortunes of others, the lust to rob and rule, and whatever else is called evil: all belong to the amazing economy of the preservation of the species.’

Powerful people use their strength to transform traditions and destroy common morality. Allowing the strong to prey on the weak will make the weak stronger, as they are forced to endure hardship. Nietzsche wants people to criticise each other, and there is almost no limit to how far one can go.

‘Hostility towards what is familiar, traditional, … constitutes what is really great, new, and amazing in our culture; it is the step of all steps of the liberated spirit.’

Nietzsche doesn’t mind friction between individuals. Insults are part of life and help to establish a social hierarchy.

The comment section behind a social media post should be a place where people have the right to speak their minds, even if this involves hate speech and defamation/libel. Everything that can be done to kick against beliefs and conventions is good for society.

It’s safe to say Nietzsche wouldn’t execute someone for blasphemy; in fact, he would encourage blasphemy. Nietzsche would favour minimal terms of use and content moderation.

Nietzsche is a free speech absolutist, so he would be against banning people or removing content.

Given the decline in religious faith, finding purpose in life is a challenge for humanity. Nihilism can be the result of the death of god. But this is also undesirable.

Nonetheless, the decline of European morality creates opportunities to develop a new form of a healthier society. This can be the solution to both religion and nihilism.

For Nietzsche, Free spirits should experiment with new values. This is where gay in gay science comes into play. Nietzsche wants people to be gay; gay from gaiety, not from sexuality.

People should find humour in their suffering, in their happiness, and in their science. Nietzsche wants people to see the comedy of existence.

Don’t take life too seriously. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Be gay. This way, gaiety allows for a wide range of moral experiments.

On Instagram, one can only send a heart emoji. Besides posting a comment, the user has no other way of expressing their opinion on someone’s post. Mocking is not easy on Instagram.

Facebook allows for various emoji reactions: like, love, laugh, cry, etc. Nietzsche might like Facebook’s concept, but would still think most icons are too serious and compassionate. He would add more expressions to the options, including laugh at and disapprove emojis.

I argue Nietzsche would prefer the Facebook-style like buttons over the Instagram-like option, but with adjusted options.

Social media leads people to prefer their digital persona over their physical appearance. This phenomenon has escalated to the point where people visit a clinic to alter their facial features to match their online persona, so-called Snapchat Dysmorphia. This is the scientific term, but it is of course also applicable to other social media apps like Instagram.

People want to look like filters. Nietzsche would probably say, ‘also, also, also.’ This behaviour is quite different from the kind of happiness he encourages.

Nietzsche introduces two concepts to help people find their unique morality and innate happiness.

A. Eternal recurrence

The first concept is the spiritual exercise of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche invites people to think about a demon telling them:

‘This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy … must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence.’

What if your life were to repeat itself again and again in exactly the same way? Would you make different life choices? Would you be more careful or brave if you knew those choices would have the same impact in your next, identical, life? Do you want this countless times again?

B. Amor fati

Nietzsche’s second central moral idea is amor fati. He argues that life events are unavoidable. Individuals must learn to accept them peacefully.

‘Bad or good weather, the loss of a friend, a sickness, … it shows itself immediately or very soon to be something that was not allowed to be lacking.’

Individuals must come to terms with their circumstances and affairs. Shit happens, better deal with it. People need to love their fate: amor fati.

Presenting yourself in an inauthentic way on social media is refusing your fate. Using filters to hide imperfections is incompatible with amor fati.

If Nietzsche were in charge of Instagram, he would remove the photo filter function.

I argue that how people present themselves on social media reflects their aspirations for future lives. They project a model of what they wish their eternal recurrence to look like instead of actively making this eternal recurrence happen.

Keeping an online illusion alive is more important than working on a real-life achievement.