1. Among the many targets Nietzsche aimed at in On the Genealogy of Morals, one is the focus of an entire essay: the "ascetic ideal". Through this expression, Nietzsche encapsulated several of the themes that preoc- cupied him in earlier works and continued to do so in later ones, even if the expression itself disappeared from his vocabulary.¹ These themes include his criticisms of the dominating epistemology of his time and his charges against the Christian ethic and its derivatives. Nietzsche analysed them as the two faces of the same historical and logical coin, distant but toxic legacies of Platonism. He saw these belief Systems as being based on other-worldly and inhuman absolutes, resulting in a devaluation of earthly life, a demeaning of the body and a debasement of culture and civilisation by way of a domination of the elites by the masses. The ascetic ideal was for Nietzsche leading Western civilisation towards nihilism — that is, the collapse and rejection of all values and especially of the ancient heroic ones.