Übermensch
TheÜbermensch(German pronunciation:[ˈʔyːbɐmɛnʃ];transl."Overman" ) is aconceptin thephilosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.In his 1883 book,Thus Spoke Zarathustra(German:Also sprach Zarathustra),Nietzschehas his character Zarathustra posit theÜbermenschas a goal for humanity to set for itself. TheÜbermenschrepresents a shift from otherworldlyChristian valuesand manifests the grounded human ideal. TheÜbermenschis someone who has "crossed over" the bridge, from the comfortable "house on the lake" (the comfortable, easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes) to the mountains of unrest and solitude.[1][2]
In English[edit]
In 1896,Alexander Tillemade the first English translation ofThus Spoke Zarathustra,renderingÜbermenschas "Beyond-Man". In 1909,Thomas Commontranslated it as "Superman", following the terminology ofGeorge Bernard Shaw's 1903 stage playMan and Superman.Walter Kaufmannlambasted this translation in the 1950s for two reasons: first, the failure of the English prefix "super" to capture the nuance of the Germanüber(though in Latin, its meaning of "above" or "beyond" is closer to the German); and second, for promoting misidentification of Nietzsche's concept with the comic-book characterSuperman.Kaufmann and others preferred to translateÜbermenschas "overman". A translation like "superior humans" might better fit the concept of Nietzsche as he unfolds his narrative. Scholars continue to employ both terms, some simply opting to reproduce the German word.[3][4]
The German prefixübercan have connotations of superiority, transcendence, excessiveness, or intensity, depending on the words to which it is attached.[5]Menschrefers to a human being, not a male specifically as it is still sometimes erroneously believed. The adjectiveübermenschlichmeans super-human: beyond human strength or out of proportion to humanity.[6]
This-worldliness[edit]
Nietzsche introduces the concept of theÜbermenschin contrast to his understanding of the other-worldliness ofChristianity:Zarathustra proclaims the will of theÜbermenschto give meaning to life on earth, and admonishes his audience to ignore those who promise other-worldly fulfillment to draw them away from the earth.[7][8]
Zarathustra declares that the Christian escape from this world also required the invention of an immortal soul separate from the earthly body. This led to the abnegation and mortification of the body, orasceticism.Zarathustra further links theÜbermenschto the body and to interpreting the soul as simply an aspect of the body.[9]
Death of God and the creation of new values[edit]
Zarathustra ties theÜbermenschto thedeath of God.While the concept of God was the ultimate expression of other-worldly values and their underlying instincts, belief in God nevertheless did give meaning to life for a time. "God is dead" means that the idea of God can no longer provide values. Nietzsche refers to this crucial paradigm shift as a reevaluation of values.[10]
In order to avoid a relapse intoPlatonic idealismor asceticism, the creation of these new values cannot be motivated by the same instincts that gave birth to those tables of values. Instead, they must be motivated by a love of this world and of life. Whereas Nietzsche diagnosed the Christian value system as a reaction against life and hence destructive in a sense, the new values that theÜbermenschwill be responsible for will be life-affirming and creative (seeNietzschean affirmation). Through realizing this new set of values, theÜbermenschis perfect because they have mastered all human obstacles.[10]
As a goal[edit]
Zarathustra first announces theÜbermenschas a goal humanity can set for itself. All human life would be given meaning by how it advanced a new generation of human beings. The aspiration of a woman would be to give birth to anÜbermensch,for example; her relationships with men would be judged by this standard.[11]
Zarathustra contrasts theÜbermenschwith the degeneratelast manof egalitarian modernity, an alternative goal which humanity might set for itself.The last manappears only inThus Spoke Zarathustra,and is presented as a smothering of aspiration antithetical to the spirit of theÜbermensch.
According toRüdiger Safranski,some commentators associate theÜbermenschwith a program ofeugenics.[12]
Re-embodiment of amoral aristocratic values[edit]
ForRüdiger Safranski,theÜbermenschrepresents a higher biological type reached throughartificial selectionand at the same time is also an ideal for anyone who is creative and strong enough to master the whole spectrum of human potential, good and "evil", to become an "artist-tyrant". InEcce Homo,Nietzsche vehemently denied anyidealistic,democraticorhumanitarianinterpretation of theÜbermensch:"The wordÜbermensch[designates] a type of supreme achievement, as opposed to 'modern' men, 'good' men,Christians,and othernihilists[...] When I whispered into the ears of some people that they were better off looking for aCesare Borgiathan aParsifal,they did not believe their ears. "[13]Safranski argues that the combination of ruthless warrior pride and artistic brilliance that defined theItalian Renaissanceembodied the sense of theÜbermenschfor Nietzsche. According to Safranski, Nietzsche intended the ultra-aristocratic figure of theÜbermenschto serve as a Machiavellian bogeyman of the modern Western middle class and its pseudo-Christian egalitarian value system.[14]
Relation to the eternal recurrence[edit]
TheÜbermenschshares a place of prominence inThus Spoke Zarathustrawith another of Nietzsche's key concepts: theeternal recurrence of the same.
Laurence Lampertsuggests that the eternal recurrence replaces theÜbermenschas the object of serious aspiration.[15]
Use by the Nazis[edit]
The termÜbermenschwas used frequently byHitlerand theNaziregime to describe their idea of a biologically superiorAryanor Germanic master race;[16]aracialversion of Nietzsche'sÜbermenschbecame a philosophical foundation for Nazi ideas.[17][18]The Nazi notion of themaster racealso spawned the idea of "inferior humans" (Untermenschen) who should be dominated and enslaved; this term does not originate with Nietzsche, whowas criticalof bothantisemitismandGerman nationalism.[citation needed]
In his final years, Nietzsche began to believe that he was in factPolish,not German, and was quoted as saying, "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood".[19]In defiance of nationalist doctrines, he claimed that he and Germany were great only because of "Polish blood in their veins",[20]and that he would "[have] all anti-semites shot." Nietzsche died long before Hitler's reign, and it was partly Nietzsche's sisterElisabeth Förster-Nietzschewho manipulated her brother's words to accommodate the worldview of herself and her husband,Bernhard Förster,a prominent German nationalist and antisemite.[21]Förster founded theDeutscher Volksverein(German People's League) in 1881 withMax Liebermann von Sonnenberg.[22]
Anarchism[edit]
The thought of Nietzsche had an importantinfluence on anarchist authors.Spencer Sunshine writes:
There were many things that drew anarchists to Nietzsche: his hatred of the state; his disgust for the mindless social behavior of 'herds'; his anti-Christianity; his distrust of the effect of both the market and the State on cultural production; his desire for an 'overman' – that is, for a new human who was to be neither master nor slave; his praise of the ecstatic and creative self, with the artist as his prototype, who could say, 'Yes' to the self-creation of a new world on the basis of nothing; and his forwarding of the 'transvaluation of values' as source of change, as opposed to a Marxist conception of class struggle and the dialectic of a linear history.[23]
The influential American anarchistEmma Goldman,in the preface of her famous collectionAnarchism and Other Essays,defends both Nietzsche andMax Stirnerfrom attacks within anarchism when she says
The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer's ideas or personality. Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance, is decried as a hater of the weak because he believed in theÜbermensch.It does not occur to the shallow interpreters of that giant mind that this vision of theÜbermenschalso called for a state of society which will not give birth to a race ofweaklings and slaves.[24]
Sunshine says that the "Spanish anarchists also mixed their class politics with Nietzschean inspiration."Murray Bookchin,inThe Spanish Anarchists,describes prominent Catalan CNT memberSalvador Seguías "an admirer of Nietzschean individualism, of thesuperhometo whom 'all is permitted'".Bookchin, in his 1973 introduction toSam Dolgoff'sThe Anarchist Collectives,even describes the reconstruction of society by the workers as a Nietzschean project. Bookchin says that
workers must see themselves as human beings, not as class beings; as creative personalities, not as 'proletarians', as self-affirming individuals, not as 'masses'... [the] economic component must be humanized precisely by bringing an 'affinity of friendship' to the work process, by diminishing the role of onerous work in the lives of producers, indeed by a total 'transvaluation of values' (to use Nietzsche's phrase) as it applies to production and consumption as well as social and personal life.[23]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Notes
- ^"Gutenberg, THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA".Project Gutenberg.Retrieved2023-11-21.
When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains. -- Liest thou not in a sky-blue lake of happiness? — Ye wags, answered Zarathustra, and smiled, how well did ye choose the simile! -- What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal. What is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING. -
- ^Nietzsche, Friedrich (2024-03-01)."Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None".Project Gutenberg.Retrieved2024-03-05.
- ^Lampert, Laurence (1986).Nietzsche's Teaching.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- ^Rosen, Stanley (1995).The Mask of Enlightenment.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^Duden Deutsches Universal Wörterbuch A–Z,s.v. über-.
- ^Übermenschlich. PONS.eu Online Dictionary. Retrieved fromhttp://en.pons.eu/german-english/%C3%BCbermenschlich.
- ^Hollingdale, R. J. (1961), page 44 – English translation of Zarathustra's prologue; "I love those who do not first seek beyond the stars for reasons to go down and to be sacrifices: but who sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth may one day belong to the Superman"
- ^Nietzsche, F. (1885) – p. 4, Original publication – "Ich liebe die, welche nicht erst hinter den Sternen einen Grund suchen, unterzugehen und Opfer zu sein: sondern die sich der Erde opfern, dass die Erde einst des Übermenschen werde."
- ^Nietzsche, Friedrich (2003).Thus Spoke Zarathustra.London: Penguin Books. p. 61.ISBN978-0-140-44118-5.
- ^abLoeb, Paul. "Finding the Übermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality".Journal of Nietzsche Studies.42–4:77 – via EBSCO Host.
- ^Thus Spoke Zarathustra,I.18; Lampert,Nietzsche's; Rosen,Mask of Enlightenment,118.
- ^Safranski,Nietzsche,262-64, 266–68.
- ^Nietzsche,Ecce Homo,Why I Write Such Good Books, §1)
- ^Safranski,Nietzsche,365
- ^Lampert,Nietzsche's Teaching.
- ^Alexander, Jeffrey (2011).A Contemporary Introduction to Sociology(2nd ed.). Paradigm.ISBN978-1-61205-029-4.
- ^"Nietzsche inspired Hitler and other killers – Page 7",Court TV Crime Library
- ^"Nietzsche and Hitler".Archived fromthe originalon 2012-03-13.Retrieved2010-04-19.
- ^Friedrich Nietzsche,"Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is"[1]
- ^Henry Louis Mencken,"The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche", T. Fisher Unwin, 1908, reprinted by University of Michigan 2006, pg. 6,[2]
- ^ Hannu Salmi (1994)."Die Sucht nach dem germanischen Ideal"(in German).[dead link]Also published inZeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft6/1994, pp. 485–496
- ^Karl Dietrich Bracher,The German Dictatorship,1970, pp. 59–60
- ^ab"Spencer Sunshine:" Nietzsche and the Anarchists "(2005)".radicalarchives.org.18 May 2010.
- ^Goldman, Emma(1911).Anarchism and Other Essays(Second Revised ed.). Mother Earth Publishing Association.
Bibliography
- Bentley, Eric (1957).A Century of Hero-Worship: A study of the idea of heroism in Carlyle and Nietzsche, with notes on Wagner, Spengler, Stefan George, and D. H. Lawrence(Second, revised and reset ed.). Boston: Beacon Press.
- Knoll, Manuel(2014) "The Übermensch as Social and Political Task: A Study in the Continuity of Nietzsche’s Political Thought", in: Knoll, Manual and Stocker, Barry (eds.) (2014)Nietzsche as Political Philosopher,Berlin/Boston, pp. 239–266.
- Lampert, Laurence (1986)Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich(1885)Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Nietzsche, Friedrich;Hollingdale, R. J. and Rieu, E.V. (eds.) (1961_Thus Spoke ZarathustraPenguin Classics: Penguin Publishing (Originally published 1885)
- Rosen, Stanley (1995)The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche's Zarathustra.New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Safranski, Rudiger(2002Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography.Translated byShelley Frisch.New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
- Wilson, Colin(1981)The Outsider.Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher.
External links[edit]
