You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"—how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be?
One of the guiding principles of Stoicism is to “live according to Nature." Nature, however, is not well defined by the Stoics. For an explanation of Nature, I recommend watching this video.
Living in accordance to Nature doesn't mean living by a moral code defined by some external divinity. Instead, Nature can be thought of as the wholistic, natural flow underlying the cosmos. It is, in some way, an acceptance of Fate, and Fate is indifferent.
Nietzsche therefore criticizes Stoicism for claiming to live in accordance to indifference: How can you live in accordance to something and also be indifferent of it? This is a contradiction that leads Nietzsche to conclude that Stoics are merely living according to themselves. They are not living towards some objective, truth called Nature; they are living based on their own values.
In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—
Stoicism pretends to live according to the “law of Nature." But this is only a trickster device used in order to cast the world in their own image. The Stoics don't follow “Nature," they follow the “Nature according to the Stoas."
Again, Nietzsche is attacking past philosophies that professed a way of living that is in alignment to some fundamental natural law, but all such philosophies are polluted with prejudice and conviction.
Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.
Nietzsche reiterates the idea of philosophy being tyrannical. Once a philosophy has “found” some fundamental truth, it dogmatically applies this rule to everything. Stoicism is no different: they form Nature in the image of their own wise principles, and then they wish to form themselves into the image of that image they created. And by induction, the philosophy forms everything in its own image.
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Addendum:
If you are more interested in this subject, I recommend watching Dr. Gregory Sadler's response to Nietzsche's criticism of Stoicism:
While Nietzsche doesn't “refute” Stoicism, I think his broader attack still holds water. Many philosophies, including Stoicism, claim to be founded on some pure, objective truth; however Nietzsche is trying to show us that behind every “truth," lies a conviction. And I believe Stoicism is no exception.
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