Übermensch

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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The concept of the Übermensch (help·info)—(homo superior; equivalent English: "Superman", "superior man", "overman", "super-human" or "trans-human"; see below)—was expounded by Friedrich Nietzsche in the 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, whose eponymous protagonist contends that "man is something which ought to be overcome". Zarathustra thus announces the coming of the Übermensch, which must succumb to nihilism in order to overcome it. The Übermensch is contrasted with the exemplar of the Last Man. Whereas Nietzsche considered there to be no examples of an Übermensch in his time, via Zarathustra, he declared that there were many examples of Last Men. In his 1930s courses on Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger highlighted how the concept of the Übermensch was intrinsically connected to the will to power and the thought of eternal recurrence . In this sense, the Übermensch may be said to be the event of thinking the Eternal Return, and therefore of overcoming nihilism.

Zarathustra assigns to his contemporary civilization the task of preparing the venue for the Übermensch. Mankind could prepare this coming of the Übermensch through the following steps:

1. By using his will to power destructively, in the rejection of, and rebellion against, societal ideals and moral codes.
2. By using his will to power creatively, in overcoming nihilism and re-evaluating old ideals or creating new ones.
3. By a continual process of self-overcoming.

Nietzsche criticized the concepts of soul, personal consciousness, and the "ego". His criticisms of the metaphysics of substance and of the subject, whom he identified as a "grammatical fiction," opposed any individualist interpretation, which would render the Übermensch a heroic figure.^[1]

Therefore, the Übermensch also has been interpreted as a temporary state, or event, of the multiple wills to power composing this "individual fiction". Thus interpreted, the Übermensch is neither person nor substance, but the existential process of overcoming both oneself and nihilism. It should be stressed that if the coming of the Übermensch was a task for times to come, and thus engaged a responsibility of some kind, Nietzsche criticized any conception of freedom as "free will": it is not simply a matter of each one "choosing" to become a Übermensch—Nietzsche, who admired Spinoza, a philosopher who also criticized this conception of freedom, didn't believe in such a "free choice"—but rather of creating the conditions making the Übermensch's coming possible. Adding to the interpretative difficulty surrounding the Übermensch concept is the relationship between the views of Zarathustra, the book's protagonist, and the views of Nietzsche, himself.

[edit] Origins

Nietzsche was aware of Herbert Spencer's concept of "survival of the fittest." Spencer held that it was only adaptation, not morality or divine guidance, that enabled some species, institutions and people to triumph over others. Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch is in part related to his understanding of the body and of humankind. Thus, he criticized Spencer's assertion according to which species adapted themselves to their environment, claiming this was only a reactive form of action.^[2] This criticism of adaptation as a reactive force was enforced by Nietzsche's criticism of the "will to life" (and, for example, of Spinoza's conatus, or tendency to live of every being^[3]) on behalf of his "hypothesis of the will to power". Nietzsche also criticized any teleological conception of history, which identified the end of each thing with its origins (hence, the eye would have been created to see, and animalkind to have the human being as its perfection).^[4] Thus, his conception of the Übermensch should also be thought as opposed to the conception of mankind as the ultimate word of evolution.

[edit] Aspects of the Übermensch

[edit] The will to destruction

Nietzsche's motivation for claiming that God is dead was the destruction of the Christian conscience: that is, destroying the God-centered way of thinking, and the fateful will to break out. Only by breaking out of the idealistic norms — and overcoming nihilism — can one become an Übermensch, literally someone who is "beyond human", he wrote. According to Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals, Christianity is based on a doctrine of remedy and punishment. Zarathustra was the man who announced the coming of the Übermensch to the world.

Further, as Nietzsche put it, asceticism — religions positing a "next life" more important than the earthly, and especially the teachings of Plato that point to a nihilistic "beyond" —oppose a belief in God against objective, material reality. Nietzsche opposes a "slave morality" and a "master morality"; both, he said, can coexist within a person.

[edit] Re-evaluating or destroying old ideals

Once man has undergone the process of denying God ('Omnis determinatio est negatio'), he begins a journey towards becoming Übermensch. The humans are alone and, contrary to absolving themselves of responsibility by positing a deity, they must create their own new moral ideals.

In establishing new ideals, man now does not rank them according to transcendental aspects ("Where from" and "What for") because this would again aim towards beyond.

Instead, there are no absolute ideals any more but only an interpretation of them in which moral ideals are the most important ones.

[edit] Overcoming nihilism

The most difficult step according to Nietzsche's immanent philosophy is basing one's entire life in this world. Placing belief or faith in anything transcendent is nihilistic and would lead to the failure of man's attempt to become Übermensch. The idea of God is a quiet temptation. In overcoming nihilism, man undergoes three phases:

• The immoralist phase: he dares the jump away from the Christian dogmas to a space without God but wonders how life without Him can be possible. He 'balances over an empty space'.
• The free thinker phase: man is already fully aware of his freedoms and knows how to use them. He knows 'I am free when I am with myself'.
• The Übermensch: lives according to the principles of his Will to Power which ends in complete independence :

"It is here and nowhere else that one must make a start to comprehend what Zarathustra wants: this type of man that he conceives, conceives reality as it is: it is strong enough for it—, it is not estranged or removed from it, it is reality itself and exemplifies all that is terrible and questionable in it, only in that way can man attain greatness..."^[5]

In short, Nietzsche stated that the goal of mankind is to produce a being who can take absolute responsibility for himself, and that this can only be achieved by transcending nihilism, represented most prominently by Christian and platonic ideals.

It should be emphasized that the obstacles in becoming Übermensch are essentially internal, a matter of overcoming oneself (a notion also appearing in Christianity, though there the goal is submission to God). In Nietszche's words, the Übermensch must be "judge and avenger of [his] own law." It is not a question of dominating others.

[edit] Common misconceptions

[edit] The personification of the Übermensch

According to Nietzsche, he himself was not an Übermensch; neither was the fictional character Zarathustra, who only announced the coming of the Übermensch. He explicitly denied that any true Übermenschen had yet existed. Furthermore, his criticisms of consciousness and of the subject, tied to his criticisms of the traditional understanding of will as a "faculty", makes any individualist interpretation of Nietzsche extremely hazardous. It is doubtful to make of the Übermensch a "person", whether it be a person already dead or a person yet to live. This same criticisms of a conscious subject lead Martin Heidegger to his concept of the Dasein.

Nevertheless, Nietzsche did have an admiration for various figures, including writers such as William Shakespeare, artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Jesus Christ and also political figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Julius Caesar; even Socrates or Plato have been admired by Nietzsche. However, he admired above all others Goethe. Nietzsche praised Ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy as cultures which produced more creative individuals than exist in present society. As had Tocqueville done before him, he criticized modernity, assimilated to democracy, claiming it was characterized by a tendency to equality which uniformized all beings and ultimately led to nihilism.^[6]

[edit] Misidentification with Nazis and biological reductionism

See Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche#Social and political views.

The biologicalisation of the concept of Übermensch was criticized by Nietzsche in Ecce Homo, "Why I Write Such Good Books", § 1.

Many high-ranking Nazis, including Alfred Baeumler, admired parts of Nietzsche's philosophy and sought to adapt it to fit their own visions of super-human beings and an Aryan "master race" (Herrenvolk). The biologicalisation of the concept of Übermensch was criticized by Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche,^[7] because this biological interpretation significantly departed from Nietzsche's original ideas. In The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, he bitterly criticized the German artist, partly because of Wagner's pan-Germanism and antisemitism. It is widely thought that Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, who was an avowed anti-semite, and Peter Gast contributed greatly to this misconception by deliberately misrepresenting his work. Philologists Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari proved this in the 1960s when editing, for the first time ever, Nietzsche's complete posthumous fragments. The Nazis themselves reinterpreted and appropriated elements of many philosophical and religious texts, including Nietzsche's.

[edit] Misleading translation

The translation of Übermensch as "Superman" may compound the misconception. Über is, among other things, the German equivalent of the prefix trans-. It has also gained a colloquial use in English with (sometimes spelled "ueber" or "uber"). Examples of prefixed words in German with the "trans-" meaning are: Überwindung ("overcoming"), überstehen/durchstehen ("come through"/"get over"), übersetzen ("literal:"over setting"/"translate"/"take across"). Some scholars therefore prefer the translation "overman", not simply because this best captures the other meaning of über ("transman" wouldn't be acceptable English) but because the point of the Übermensch is that man needs to overcome.^{[citation needed]}

Furthermore, the German adjective übermenschlich (above/beyond human) is common and used in contexts such as "mit übermenschlichen Kräften gelang es ihm…" ("with a force no human being is capable of he managed to…" or "with superhuman force…"), the connotation is that of leaving the human sphere. Parallel constructions can be found in übernatürlich ("no longer natural", "transcendental"), überirdisch ("heavenly", literally "unearthly"). "Superman" lacks the German connotation of a sphere beyond human knowledge and power.^{[citation needed]}In addition, Mensch is less specifically male than the English "man", closer at times to the English "human". Mensch is to be understood as a neutral form of a noun.

[edit] In popular culture

The inescapable reference to the Übermensch is the American comic book character Superman; however, this comic book character (despite having tremendous physical and mental capabilities) is closer to a Last Man than an Übermensch, in that the character enforces and conforms strongly to pre-existing American cultural and especially moral norms.

• Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his 1866 novel Crime and Punishment, anticipated the Übermensch concept: the book's main character, Raskolnikov, justifies an act of murder he commits by deciding that he, as a superior being, is not bound by the normal rules of morality. Raskolnikov identifies Napoleon as having been an Übermensch and seeks to emulate him, though his attempt fails - he is full of scruples and remorse, and in the end he finds solace in Christian morality.

• Chester Coote, a character in the H. G. Wells novel Kipps, negatively references the Overman theory.

• George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play Man and Superman is a reference to the archetype; its main character considers himself an untameable revolutionary, above the normal concerns of humanity.

• The television series Andromeda has characters called "Nietzscheans" who have applied selective breeding, genetic engineering and nano-technology to themselves in order to become a race of Übermenschen. Those who distrust them refer to these Nietzscheans derogatively as "Ubers".

• Jack London is considered to have intended to his character Wolf Larsen, the sea captain in his book The Sea Wolf, as "an attack on Nietzsche's super-man philosophy".

• In real life, Leopold and Loeb committed an act of murder in 1924 partly out of a similar Übermensch-like conception of themselves.^[8] Their story has been fictionalized many times, including in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Rope and the 2002 movie Murder by Numbers.

• In C. S. Lewis's Narnia book The Magician's Nephew, the character of Uncle Andrew sends his nephew, Digory Kirke, into an unknown world. Uncle Andrew had tricked Digory's friend, Polly Plummer, into putting on a yellow ring which transports her to the "Wood between the Worlds." Not knowing where she has gone, Digory is incensed by his uncle's behavior. He tells his uncle to bring her back to which his uncle replies that "rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys—and servants—and women—and even people in general, can't possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me who possess hidden wisdom are freed from common rules." (p. 16, New York: Macmillian Publishing, 1988)

• The Space Trilogy, also by C. S. Lewis, offers several fictional treatments of the Übermensch. In Perelandra, Professor Weston, or the "Un-man" as he later becomes known, is a naturalist and renowned physicist who gives up morality in favour of "preaching the gospel of life itself.” Over the course of the first two books, his soul rots from the inside out and his body becomes a living corpse possessed by Satan. In That Hideous Strength, the characters Frost and Wither, a pair of historical materialists who as part of their philosophies reject morality, follow a similar arc, and are also critical treatments of the Übermensch. Lewis may have based Weston, Frost, and Wither in part on Nietzsche himself.

• The X-Files episode "Arcadia" features a creature called "Übermenscher".

• Grant Morrison's comics, particularly The Invisibles and The Filth, frequently feature characters and storylines preoccupied with a hypothetical evolution beyond the human form. The Invisibles character Jack Frost, in particular, can be seen as a Zarathustra-like agent of human evolution. However, many villains in the same comic are also avowedly transhumanist.

• In Revolutionary Girl Utena Tsuwabuki's duel chorus,"Absolute Conic Egg Algebra", has a whole verse about Übermensch.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Look up Übermensch in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Martin Heidegger and Nietzsche’s Overman: Aphorisms on the Attack

v • d • e Friedrich Nietzsche
Major Works	The Birth of Tragedy · Human, All Too Human · The Gay Science · Thus Spoke Zarathustra · Beyond Good and Evil · On the Genealogy of Morality · The Case of Wagner · Twilight of the Idols · The Antichrist · Ecce Homo · Nietzsche contra Wagner
Philosophy	Apollonian and Dionysian · Eternal return · God is dead · Herd instinct · Last Man · Master-slave morality · Perspectivism · Ressentiment · Transvaluation of values · Übermensch · The Will to Power
Related	Works by Nietzsche · Works about Nietzsche · Comparison with Kierkegaard · Influence and reception of Nietzsche