The Politics of Being: Encounter between Soyo and Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Echo of Existence or Creation of Transcendence?

Soyo's Existence Ethics (Existence itself is ethics)

The echo of existence

Today, even as we discuss politics, society, morality, and justice, we often miss the most crucial question: “What is existence, and where does it remain?” This question is not confined to the philosopher’s study. A politician seeks to leave his mark by passing a bill. A corporate leader imprints himself in a single advertisement scene. An artist struggles to leave a trace of being to overcome the void of anonymity. But honestly, are these gestures to “leave something behind” a genuine resonance of existence, or merely another struggle for possession and domination? Two philosophies stand facing this question: mine and Nietzsche’s. One speaks of “the trembling of existence and its social resonance,” the other of “the will to power and the creation of the Übermensch.”

Does Existence Tremble, or Transcend?

My philosophy sees existence as “a living resonance." It is not a life lived for myself alone, but one that approaches another person and remains in their memory as a trembling. We carry countless existences in our memories: the smile of an older man without a name, the hand of a young person offering a seat on the subway, the silent gaze of someone in pain. These beings have vanished, yet they still live in us as resonances.

"Existence does not vanish; it survives eternally as a resonance in memory."

Nietzsche said that existence must transcend. Through the will to power, a being must create itself anew, overcoming itself; the weak must be absorbed into the strong or disappear. The goal of existence is not survival but strengthening." This is Nietzsche’s conclusion. But we must ask: does actual existence remain through strength, or through the resonance it leaves in memory?

Does Power Leave, or Expand?

My philosophy locates the heart of politics in the 'departure of power'. Power itself is not justice. It emerges in the resonance left after power departs. The longer power stays, the more resonance fades, memory falls silent, and society hardens into cynicism. Soyo says,

"Justice is not the accumulation of power, but the engraving of existence's resonance in the place it leaves behind."

Nietzsche, by contrast, said power must expand. The Übermensch destroys morality through power and creates a new order. He scorns pity for the weak and venerates the strength of those who overcome weakness. For him, departing from power is failure; only power that remains and rules is true. Yet how is today’s politics recorded? By the endurance of power, or by the resonance after its departure? Is politics the strength of the strong, or the trembling in the memory of the departed?

Does Memory Keep Justice or Repeat Oppression?

My philosophy speaks of “the politics of memory." True justice must not vanish in someone’s cry, but be engraved in the history of the community. Justice is not proclaimed in words; it is a sense of being left at the bottom of time. So I say, “Justice that is not remembered is an illusion. The trembling of existence must remain in time.”

Nietzsche distrusts memory. For him, memory is the repetition of morality; a transmission of hardened pain born of the emotions of the weak and the sacrificed. Thus, he deems 'forgetting' necessary. To escape past oppression, to create new values, we must forget.

Yet the age we face now fights against politics that wield forgetting as a weapon to erase justice, and structures that annihilate memory through silence. Justice must live in memory. For the moment, it is forgotten; oppression returns.

Where Does Existence Remain?

Soyo says, “Existence remains as resonance." Nietzsche said, “Existence remains as power." One aims for the trembling in another’s heart; the other aims for self-transcendence. One releases power and engraves justice in memory; the other expands power and creates new values through forgetting.

This philosophical opposition lives in all our ways of life, here and now. Will we live by loudly asserting ourselves, or by quietly leaving a resonance? Will we grasp power, or learn to let it go? Will we engrave justice in memory, or create anew through forgetting? In the end, we must ask: How do we wish to leave our existence behind? Truth does not speak in excess. Existence deepens at the moment it departs. Politics is not about leaving power, but engraving resonance in memory. And philosophy is the ceaseless act of asking so that this trembling of being will never disappear.

To the Reader:

Ponder these questions: "What resonance will your existence leave? Or will it vanish from everyone’s memory?"

Soyo (逍遙) – Founder of Soyo's Existence Ethics, Author of 'The Silence of Existence' and 'The Flame of Truth.'

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