Fight like Nietzsche
Arslan
Friedrich Nietzsche was a XIX century German philosopher who is considered the most famous critique of mankind. His ideas related to religion, morality and contemporary human identity have reversed the atmosphere among European philosophers. Nietzsche is considered one of the most proponent “haters” of the European state of mind, as well as of Christianity, which made his works controversial and even banned within some entities.
The philosophy of N is based on the idea of overcoming your boring self without any consideration of the “higher authority” and society. N ridiculed the “unquestionable authority” of God and other traditions, which are imposed on many of us upon birth. I believe that N’s philosophy is a somewhat root to a cult of anti-consumerism, critical thinking, self-motivation, and individualism. One should be able to reason independently, without any dependence on society, religion, and archaic moral principles. As per N, defeating your weaknesses is key to becoming something more valuable. This philosopher believed that every reasoning human being has a strong will to power within them. From what I have understood after reading some of N’s works, this will to power is what drives every living person for living, however, not everyone uses this will in the correct direction – a direction of self-improvement. What I do not like about N’s writing and storytelling style is the ambiguity of his ideas. While I have understood N’s approach to life as a path of self-overcoming and independence, some people have misinterpreted N’s ideas, making this greatest thinker equal to a character of the Devil, whose mindset brings only destruction and supremacy over others. Such an opinion is based on the fact that many of N’s works have been reversed and misinterpreted by the XX century Nazis, as well as modern-day neo-fascist movements. This has happened largely with a help of N’s sister Elizabeth, who has released some of N’s notes after his death, naming it “Will to Power”, where many of his ideas have been misinterpreted, but that is a completely different topic to discuss.
Instead, today I would like to discuss an idea of Ubermensch or an “Overman” in English.
Overman is one of the main concepts of N’s philosophy, firstly described by N in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It is an allegorical character, which can be somehow “created” by every reasoning human being. Basically, Overman is a creature that is the next stage of development after an ordinary human. It is a final condition of life, which every human being should be motivated to turn into. N believed that Ubermensch is an ideal future human and the ultimate goal for humanity. It is an intelligent creature that lacks all the negative aspects essential to an ordinary member of society, most notably religion, peer pressure, and moral obstacles. Consequently, Overman is a concept of a human, who is invincible in psychological terms. Overman is “programmed” to explore and create and not to destroy or obey, no matter what is going on around him. N believes that should someone become an Ubermensch – they would worship themselves, their heart and virtue, instead of any higher authority. To sum up, Overman is the opposite of the last man whose life goal is only to seek constant personal comfort. The idea which had suddenly popped up in my mind is that the idea of Ubermensch completely ridicules another philosophical theory – Utilitarianism. While utilitarians always seek for a way to minimize suffer and other negative consequences, an Overman acknowledges that suffering is necessary for well-being and enlightenment.
Why do we consider Nietsche a hater of all haters?
In “Thus spoke Zarathustra” N continues his tradition of criticizing Christian moral. The philosopher considers Overman as a new and better substitute for Christianity, that is why an entire book is written in a Biblical style and language because the author considers Zarathustra as a true messiah, who has sacrificed many things to get the wisdom of the Ubermensch. Specifically, Zarathustra had spent many years in complete isolation in order to develop those ideas. In the first part, Overman is presented as lightning, which arises to enlighten society and free it from the handcuffs of their moral principles. Zarathustra arrives at a local village when villagers are watching a show of a local actor. N called this village “Motley Cow”, which basically means “rule of the crowd” or “rule of the herd”. I think that naming this village like this is a great reference to Plato, who described the majority rule of democracy. Herd animals are the ones sticking very close to each other while seeking permanent comfort and avoiding any suffering. At some point, Zarathustra proposes his ideas of Ubermensch to villagers, but they reject it, stating that a show is more important than some unknown prophecies. During this show, a weaker actor is killed by another one, simply because he was weaker. Zarathustra is forced to leave the village while taking a corpse of a dead actor with him because society did not understand him. Personally, I have spotted a connection between the character of Zarathustra and a character of Jesus Christ. However, while Jesus has proposed worshipping Christian God as the salvation, Zarathustra (or N), on the contrary, suggests that worshipping something except for a self-improved version of yourself (or an Overman) is slave morality.
Stages of becoming an Overman
N does not describe Overman as something abstract. In fact, the philosopher implies kind of a practical guide to becoming an Overman. At first, it is important to emphasize three stages of mind evolution by N:
1) Camel. It is when an ordinary human finally distances themselves from a crowd, or a herd, already described. Camel is an animal that is ready to carry burdens and wander around the desert. Consequently, camel is a metaphor for a human mind, which is open to necessary suffering and ready to start seeking knowledge;
2) The Lion. This stage is about removing all extra burdens from yourself and gain control over everything that a person possesses. In the book, N depicts the lion as a Lord of the desert, who once fights a strong dragon to win its freedom. From what I have understood Lion is a root of an Ubermensch, while the Dragon is the problems and pressure imposed on us while self-developing. A fight between a lion and a dragon is a constant crisis within our mind – the struggle between our future better selves and all our negative properties. Should the lion win this battle, a person would build mastery in their own mental universe.
3) The next stage of evolution is becoming a Child. A child in N’s philosophy is a spirit that owns his own will. It is an innocent, forgetful, and fresh mind who is finally ready to absorb knowledge and develop his own principles. The child does not carry any burdens. It is very curious, creative, and always ready to act on something. Also, a child is very forgetful, so it does not hold any offenses and bad memories for too long while filling their mind with something interesting instead. Here comes another concept of philosophy mentioned by N – an idea of Amor Fati, which from Latin means “love of fate”. It is a mindset that implies self-acceptance and seeing everything happening in life from a positive aspect.
4) The final stage of development would be an Ubermensch itself. A fearless, creative, and persistent man, which is the highest goal of humanity.
It is important to note that N believed that it is almost impossible to become an Ubermensch. He stated that the only two people who have achieved this highest stage of improvement are Julius Caesar and Johann Goethe, not even N himself.
But that’s not a reason to be disappointed – from N’s philosophy I have understood that it’s not an Overman itself that should be important, but our constant pursuit to become Ubermensch during our entire lifetime. Consequently, N implies his distinction from the idea of Nihilism, which states that life is pointless. Indeed, from N’s philosophy, I have understood that striving to become an Overman should be a sense of our lives, even if we never gonna achieve it. Actually, N believed that human life is nothing but a connecting rope between an uncivilized monkey and an Overman. After reading Thus Spoke Z, especially the first part, I was also able to identify some main ideas of N’s philosophy of Ubermensch – one who is mistreated by society is not necessarily the one who is the worst. Also, continuous suffering is necessary for self-overcoming, therefore only the strongest can get through this life, while the metaphorical weakest should exit the race. The latter represents the idea of social breeding – a society should inherit the qualities of an Ubermensch to survive. This is specially mentioned in N’s notes, issued by his sister posthumously.
Why did Nazis love Nietzsche?
And here comes the point where I was finally able to understand why N was so much loved by the Nazis. “The Will Power” is genuine ridicule – here, Elizabeth, who was a Nazi sympathizer, has completely reversed his ideas in her favor, making a lot of statements sound ambiguous and have two meanings. Understanding N from the Nazis point of view means taking his philosophy in a literal sense instead of a metaphorical one. For example, N’s statement about exterminating the weak had been interpreted in a racial contest, with ethnic minorities considered weak, instead of metaphorical human qualities. The idea of social breeding was interpreted as an idea of Social Darwinism, which implies not igniting good qualities within the society but killing people with bad qualities instead. Overman has been perceived not as a morally invincible human being, but as a racially chosen one. Nazi interpretation of N focuses on society as a whole, while in fact N probably implied the idea of only individual development.
It is interesting that while N was alive and conscious, he had ridiculed all of the interpretations mentioned before. Indeed he once said that he wanted all Anti-Semites to die. There is also a statement related to N’s ideas about social behavior. It is the following:
“The Greeks are interesting and extremely important because they reared such a vast number of great individuals. How was this possible? This question is one which ought to be studied”
The book “Will to Power” itself is terribly edited and written in a completely different style, not essential to N’s. It is pretty much clear it was not the philosopher himself, but the people who wanted him to act in their favor, have written that book. The parts are purely organized and do not correlate with each other, and I don’t think that this book should be applied to N’s authorship. He would never release it, should he be alive.
All right guys, I hope at least some of you have reached this paragraph. I know that sometimes philosophical ideas and concepts, written over a century ago may seem boring or irrelevant. I would like to emphasize the fact that N’s philosophy is still valid, exciting, and relevant. I think that this would perfectly be illustrated by mentioning one quite famous modern movie, as well as a book on which this movie is based on. I would like to discuss the movie called “Fight Club”, starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. The film is based on a book with the same name by American novelist Chuck Palahniuk. For those who have not watched it, sorry for the spoilers.
The protagonist of the film is an unnamed American middle-aged man, who has a white-collar job and earns quite a lot of money. He can afford to have expensive furniture, cars, and a beautiful penthouse apartment. This man is addicted to buying and consuming. He does not care about exploring the world and thinking outside of the box. The only thing he is concerned about is having his stomach full of food, his apartment full of useless stuff, and his wallet full of his salary. One day, this man starts to suffer from lack of sleep, he has severe insomnia. He goes to his therapist and brags about his constant suffering and how bad his life has turned into. The doctor, on contrary, ridicules the hero, asking him to visit a club with people who have a terminal stage of cancer – to see what the real suffering is about. After visiting such a club, the man starts to see the world in a different, non-consumeristic manner. Things that used to be important to him no longer matter. Step by step, he kinda starts seeking for the truth.
One day, he meets a mysterious man while being on a work trip. This man, named Tyler Durden, fascinates the hero by his moral independence and coolness, so different from the hero. After the hero returns from the trip. He finds his apartment being destroyed by an explosion. Because the man now has nowhere to live, the hero decides to contact Tyler, his new cool friend. They establish a good relationship, during which Tyler opens a completely new and cruel view of the current world. The main idea of Tyler is that Slavery has never ended in fact, and the vast majority of people are currently enslaved by money, beautiful but useless furniture, and their bosses. As far as the hero does not have a father, he often complains about his life is bad because of this, because he still wants for his father to return and help him. Tyler, on contrary, states that the hero should not rely on his gone father, who is probably dead already. Together, Tyler and the hero soon establish a militant organization, which is called “Project Mayhem”. The mission of it is to free people from modern slavery by terrorism and by destroying banks and robbing the billionaires – modern slave traders. The organization becomes quite large, with thousands of soldiers around the country. By the end of the film, when Project Mayhem is about to blow up an entire rich district in a city filled with banks. The hero finally realizes that Tyler actually does not exist, and it is only him who has planned and done all this. Tyler was a second personality within the hero’s body. After the realization, the hero shoots himself, watching an explosion to destroy the city, freeing a lot of people from their financial debt.
Why I have brought up this movie today is because it perfectly describes the society – no matter if it is the society mentioned by N or modern society. The majority of people still live like they are a part of an animal herd, controlled by one watchdog. The majority of people do not want to free themselves and become an Ubermensch – a better version of themselves, because they don’t want to leave their comfort zone and explore. The hero comes through all stages of forming an Ubermensch – from being a Camel while suffering from insomnia to becoming a lion when he copes with Tyler and his apartment being destroyed. Finally, the hero becomes the Child, when he forms the militant organization for as he believed a great cause. By the end, when the goal of life is accomplished, the hero becomes an Ubermensch. As far as the Nitshean’s highest point of life is now achieved, the hero decides to kill himself, because as per N humans should die (of course, metaphorically, to become an Ubermensch).
The idea of Ubermensch is extremely relevant, since every day a reasoning human being faces a fight club between their boring self, who wants only to eat, laugh, have sex, and between our another side – the one which wants to explore, create and change the world order. The ideas mentioned by N and depicted in Fight Club are applicable to our current society since many people choose not to enter this fight, not to listen to Zarathustra, and live their comfortable, but pointless life.
Personally. I adore the philosophy of N and now I consider some of his points as a goal of my life – to become my own Ubermensch. Of course, I am not willing to explode building to free the people from so-called slavery, but I do believe that constant development is key to true life.