Golden Laughter#
Summary#
Golden laughter represents the highest quality of laughter, which Nietzsche proposes as a measure for ranking philosophers. Against Hobbes’s view that laughter is a defect to be overcome by thinking minds, Nietzsche elevates laughter to a philosophical virtue. He suggests that gods themselves philosophize with golden laughter, unable to refrain from ridicule even in holy matters, laughing in an overman-like fashion at the expense of all serious things.