Darwin reminded us that despite our posturing and our grand schemes we remain but super-chimpanzees: ephemeral biological forms organizing in complex unities and driven by the same motives - even if, in our case, they become convoluted and buried beneath hyperbole, evasive psychological tricks and clever semantics.
Hegel stated, and Nietzsche agreed, that art, religion and philosophy were mankind’s most “sublime†pursuits and what differentiated us from our beastly brothers.
Some believe that civilization, culture and the state constitutes the pinnacle of man’s ambition to be more than what he is and to rise above himself, while others believe that these human unities result in the exact opposite effect and that they really extinguish or subdue the real source of man’s sublime ambition, which is within each individual that seeks to overcome itself; the Apolonnian struggling and controlling the Dionysian.
The idea that nature itself is driven by some hidden and unconscious purpose, producing “higher†and “better†forms insinuates that the state and culture are the end result of this natural upward surge, yet some would contend that nature lacks the consciousness or will to focus her energies effectively, and that she squanders and wastes herself by creating mediocre multiplicity so as to bring about that special specificity, and that progress is not always an ascension. Perhaps man is an attempt by nature to become more efficient and wilful in her pursuits.
For these last the striving for “higher†and “better†forms culminates in chance “…scattered and accidental existences - Nietzsche†of individuals springing forth from a sea of mediocrity, that exemplify a true ‘human being’.
Plato tried to find a compromise by inventing a social unity which protected and promoted these accidental individual instances of greatness (philosopher kings) but failed to convince us as to how such an idealized state could become a reality, given man’s fundamental nature, nor how it could be maintained, for the same reason.
The problem is further complicated by the ambiguousness inherit in the notion of “higher†or “better†and what would characterize a real human being and would make him stand out from his many glorified-chimpanzee brothers and sisters.
Questions:
Is the idea of a higher and better man – call him “overman†or “philosopher king†or simply human – even possible and if so what, in your opinion, would define him as such?
Is the sate, culture or any form of unification the route towards the production of such an evolutionary leap or are such productions doomed to remain “scattered and accidental�
Really?!!