Becoming Superman (Übermensch)
“There is a superhero in all of us, we just need the courage to put on the cape.” Superman
Nietzsche
presents the three of metaphor to become Superman. For him, the road to authenticity is a spontaneous creativity requires the three stages described by Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. He says, “I name you three metaphors of the spirit; how the spirit shall becomes a camel, and the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.
The first metaphor that Nietzsche presents is the camel
He says,
To the spirit there is much that is heavy; to the strong carrying spirit imbued with reverence. His strength demands what is heavy and heaviest… All of these heaviest things the carrying spirit takes upon itself, like a loaded camel that hurries into the desert, thus hurries into its desert.
The camel is a metaphor for the stage in which the person must bear humility and is able to take up within himself the ‘truths’. He has to be aware also that he is endowed with human limitations that have to be confronted so as to overcome himself. Like the ascetic ideal, one kneels like a camel, do adhering to it.
The camel transcends into a lion, a metaphor of excessive strength and power of will. He writes,
But in the desert the second metaphors occurs. Here the spirit becomes lion, it wants to hunt down its freedom and be master in its own desert. Here it seeks its last master, and wants to fight him and its last god. For victory it wants to battle the great dragon… “Thou shalt” is the name of the dragon…Indeed, there shall be no more “I will”… to create freedom for itself for a new creations-that is within the power of the lion. To create the freedom for oneself and also sacred No duty: for that, my brothers, the lion is required.
According to Pearson, the Lion, the king of the jungle, is metaphorically presses into service as King of one’s personal will. The burdens of the camel become light, still burdensome, but lighter and no longer annoying, as the wild, powerful lion is rarely frightened and seldom annoyed at anything in its natural untrammeled habitat. This stage reflects ascetic ideals. Nietzsche utters that he has not to use anymore the term “I will” but instead “I must.” He must reject all system of values and represents freedom to create new values. This is the spirit of the lion according to Nietzsche.
The last stage is the transformation of lion, into child.
Nietzsche says,
…But tell me, my brothers, of what is the child capable that even the lion is not? Why must the preying lion still become child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a wheel moving not of itself, a first movement, a sacred yes-saying. , Yes, for the game of creation my brothers a sacred yes-saying. The spirit wants its will the one lost to the world now wins its own world
It is the metaphor to make a new beginning, act of innocence and forgetfulness, and this is the spirit of the child. Only in this condition can the spirit create new world of value. It is the child spirit that affirms a new existence, a “sacred Yes”. The child is a metaphor for the most playful, innocent, and forgettable element within us. “The child wills its own will” The playtime of the child reflects the Superman throwing off the temporary burden of existence, reveling in all of the world’s fullness and embracing the truth of becoming. The child’s ability to toy with his world is the greatest achievement of strength within him than the camel and even the lion.
The child is innocent and creates a world of value and the spirit of the child affirms a new existence. Nietzsche representation of a child is not the same as the camel and lion. The child has the will to power which is the unceasing will to overcome his self. His will to power is his freedom to express his characters which indicate maturity and strength. Furthermore, the will to power is the capacity to free one’s self from any constraint which could defile the drives and strong pressures that could be exerted for preserving life. Hence, the child would already be an overman (Übermensch) since he is the creator on his values.
"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment...
Behold, I teach you the overman. The overman is the meaning of the earth.Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go.
Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth...
What is the greatest experience you can have? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour when your happiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and your virtue.
The hour when you say, 'What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself.'
The hour when you say, 'What matters my reason? Does it crave knowledge as the lion his food? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
The hour when you say, 'What matters my virtue? As yet it has not made me rage. How weary I am of my good and my evil! All that is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
"Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman--a rope over an abyss...
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...
"I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.
Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and blinks.
The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.
'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth...
One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.
No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink...
One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.
'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink."
from Nietzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra, p.3,4,5, Walter Kaufmann transl.
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| Philosopher | Topics |
|---|---|
| FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE | BECOMING SUPERMAN (ÜBERMENCH) |
| FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE | SLAVES-MASTER MORALITY |
| FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE | Will to Power as Art |
| FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE | GOD IS DEAD? |
| FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE | Will to Power as individual |
| - | #THE LEAP OF FAITH |
| - | #THREE STAGES OF LIFE |
| - | #IS TRUTH SUBJECTIVE? |
| Soren Kierkegaard | PHILOSOPHY: DOES THE INDIVIDUAL PERSON FINDS MEANING IN RELATION TO THE CROWD? |
| - | #EXISTENTIALISM PHILOSOPHY: I THINK THEREFORE I EXIST! |