It appears this theory of law and violence – and, in some respects, the concept of atheist redemption at work in political ontology – chimes with the diagnosis of modernity one finds in Nietzsche. For Nietzsche not only shares with political ontology a commitment to a certain this-worldliness, to the idea that modernity is the age in which the possibility of a purely profane existence arises. He also figures this in terms of the human relation to its animal life: for Nietzsche, the possibility of overcoming nihilism rests on whether and how the human animal could come to terms with – and learn to affirm – its animal instincts. In both Nietzsche's model and political ontology, then, the human animal possesses a divided relationship to its living. In both theories this division is taken to have a political aspect, such that membership in political community as we know it is conditional on the human animal's alienation from its biological being. Both models are concerned with the possibility of transformation and, because of the connection they establish between politics and animality, link this possibility to a change in the human relation to its being alive. Yet Nietzsche and political ontology end up with a very different understanding of the nature of this change, and an entirely different understanding of its potential scope. Nietzsche poses the problem in terms of affirmation, arguing that the task is one of establishing a non-resentful, welcoming relationship to one's biological being: an unconditional yes to life.