The Übermensch as he may appear

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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The thing around which everything in contemporary philosophy revolves is the pathos of Nietzsche. It’s hatred of weakness and of compromised absolutes. This weakness is a result of an increasing burden of being human, as humanity becomes more scientific, more indifferent and powerful. Nietzsche commands to encompass this indifferent power, to justify it, shape it into ones image, by willing it.

The thing around which philosophy will soon revolve is the justification of the compromise of Nietzschean standards. Thinking man will find that willing the ultimate does not produce optimal results. Fatigued, the excellent man will adopt standards that, in his willing and eroding away the unnecessary, are revealed as merciful, but only to the highest spirit. It is at this point that man will be coming “home” as in “to his senses” - the world that will appear to him will be in accordance with his will.

The compromise must come in the form of a symbolic view of reality. Man is bound to arrive at a new, more benevolent, expansive, life sustaining, philosophical idea of building and civilizing, of cultivating the gound of his past, present and future. For this, the binaries of right/wrong, good/evil and functional/non functional will dissolve as the shift is made to the sublimation of this valuing-choosing-reasoning into the higher dichotomy of compromising functionality versus fertilizing functionality.

with Charles Bukowski - “As the spirit wanes, the form appears.”

The will to the Superman must reveal in philosophy, by chiseling away the theoretically circumstantial to reveal the heart of that will, the ground of the superman. This seems the modest task compared to the placing into being of the superman himself - but it would be a justified modesty, because the superman must create himself. We can only be the shoulders on which he builds his innocent perspective of the world as it is meant to be - to him, by him - for him, - “and sees that it is good”.

We, humans can create an “Eden”, so that the Superman will be our Adam - who shall not know of Good and Evil, whose potency shall not be hidden in shame and so reduced to imperfect standards. All acts be eternal as they are willed as such.

So I’ve combined a few myths to create a meaning that appears to me as worth postulating. I may be a counterfeit - but if so, one of all orthodoxies. Iconoclast, Idols fly like sparks and splinters from the marble as my hammer chisels away layers after layer from the Thing, so that it may appear in its proper form, and may be given its proper name.

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Interesting thread title wording.

Very Marxist. The use of the words “may appear” instead of the more vulgar “is” is definitely something of the more modern philosophical tradition. The avoidance of words such as “cause” and the use of the conditional and the passive (e.g. if it could be said) are other such language evolutions.

There is something very scientific in such hypothetical sentence constructions. Science, in an effort to more closely reflect the on-going nature of its processes and the dynamic “becoming” of life as it appears, mirrors newer philosophy with the same treatment of language.

This suggests to me not only a significant departure from the ancient greek and medieval religious “eternal forms” that are able to equate exactly, consistently with the word “is”, and be discretely “causative” of precise effects. In this tradition, the word “appear” is - as Derrida would say - the “supplement” to its binary opposite, “is”. It is necessarily defined against it because “is” traditionally precedes “appearance”. This is now set to be reversed, and notions of eternal ultimate truth abandoned.

It also suggests a cultural change in attitude from definite command to polite suggestion. There is no doubt that this mirrors the change in socio-economic structure over the course of recorded history - from strict distinct master/slave roles to today’s liberal mixture of all of society’s roles. The “weakening”, that the OP incorrectly identifies as being hated by the author, is in fact just a diagnosis of attitude changes from ancient to modern times.

Nietzsche was primarily a doctor as well as a psychologist.

He diagnosed this shift neutrally. It is not a consequence of the burden of being human, but a simple consequence of the growth in slave morality in all areas of life. Or rather, to revert back to modern dynamic language, each may appear to emerge dialectically alongside the other.

Notice the length of the modern sentence structure compared to the traditional “this causes that”. It is more protracted: this is indicative of the traditional need for direct commanding language to be short and to the point, whereas dodging decisive commitment has evolved to be convoluted. This is all symptomatic of the decadent preference for peace, over war where your life depends on speed and precision, or perhaps it is rather the tactical resolution to gather the numbers necessary to overpower societies that thin their numbers out through war with each other - and this peetering out as other societies did the same, causing overcrowding, the necessity to get on with your neighbour in more cramped conditions to keep the peace, causing increased numbers of lower classes, and increased problems in controlling them in ways other than condoning their “weakening”. The liberal shift would here be pragmatic.

This weakening is perhaps a return to a balance with nature, in reflecting its motion more accurately and in sacrificing the tradition of conquering it - which is barely even a challenge anymore with all the technological advances we have enjoyed. The technology has replaced humanity in the control of nature. Humanity itself fades away under the protection of our creations, and we thus discover modern ideas and our corresponding dissolution into inert passive acceptance and surrender. Command could then be said to have been integral to human life - treating the world not as it is, but as our prey. Numbers and actually achieving victory would then be the death of mankind rather than just individuals.

The Übermensch is from the command tradition. I don’t know how applicable he is anymore with such human numbers and their global interconnection. Such is the increasing fear of the Last Man. A culling of such numbers would be necessary, or at least a disintegration to smaller tribes, to revert to any tradition. Yet the Übermensch is not meant to be retroactive, but newly creative - so the Hitleresque interpretation is perhaps a misinterpretation. A conquering of such numbers as we have today is a harder challenge than ever. Perhaps a compromise between command and suggestion is consistent with the Übermensch concept, as in the OP.

This is confusing as it would require a kind of physical evolution of mankind in order to find health optimised by our numbers, rather than compromised by them.

Nietzsche did not speak of slave morality and weakness as necessarily “worse”. He spoke in terms of health.
Health is perhaps to be associated with the compromise of master morality with slave morality - though this is counter to any mentions of the pathos of distance essential to nobility. However, perhaps the Übermensch of the future must be ignoble.

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In turn an interestingly composed reply. To identify the style in which the OP has been written as a way of “diagnosing” its content leads in this case to an insightful interpretation. Psychoanalytical philosophy revolves around the lie of language rather than the truth of it. Much to be said here which may be left unsaid. Your last sentence deserves to be further played out in the context provided by this approach.

Nobility - Adam was indeed a savage, he had no civilization but was placed as an innocent into a pure context. Placed before him were two types of knowing, two trees (which may be interpreted as the causal chains branching out into the world following from a choice): The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: the binary system of knowledge of good and evil (yes and no), and the Tree of Life: the organic system of life, so indeed rather of good and bad, in which bad is the extreme of one of two poles. Imbalance - in prescientific oriental medicin represents the very notion of bad health.

For those who are not familiar with the tree of life, a quick search and read will result in sufficient understanding to appreciate its dynamic of energetic, magnetic polarity of force and form versus the static status of epistemic polarity of yes and no. Life is brought down by lightning, the charge of spirit through the phases of its condensation slows it down from pan-organic power to principles of organic, individual life to concrete makeup of the individual mind, to the body.

This top down process is reversed in the initiation, when man attains, step by step, knowledge of his life as he lives it. The Tree of Life may as such seem as a useless guide for a process that runs along fine without interference, and there is certainly, thankfully, truth in that. What this means is that its technology does not interfere with life. What interferes is the commandments of good and evil - “you will surely die”. Nietzsches philosophy virtually embodies the Biblical account of life, good and evil, in Genesis 2:9-17

[i]"And out of the ground, God caused to spring up every tree that is kind to the eye and with nutricious fruits. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…

"God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”[/i]

God tries to secure in Adam the innocence of becoming. Compare how Nietzsche fulminates against mans adopting of “good” (intended, responsible) and “evil” (not intended, not responsible) as the highest standard of knowledge, a standard based on as lowly a justification as social utility:

"[Man] has even made God ill with it, he has deprived existence of its innocence, namely, by tracing back every state of being thus and thus to a will, an intention, a responsible act. The entire doctrine of the will, this most fateful falsification in psychology hitherto, was essentially invented for the sake of punishment. It was the social utility that granted this concept its dignity, its power, its truth." - WP 765

And it is precisely the valuation of social utility that must fall for man to be free of good and evil, and set himself to the much more conscious and therefore daunting, deep and confronting task of understanding life - which is to say understanding himself, not in word as “God”, but surely as the reason why the world exists.

“We others who desire to restore innocence to becoming, would like to be the missionaries of a cleaner idea: that no one has given man his qualities, neither God, nor society, nor his parents and ancestors, nor he himself - that no one is to blame for him.” - ibid.

This grounds, however maybe be unattainable the way Nietzsche goes about it - for the very reason he do powerfully annuls for his intellectual progeny. He is the last man standing on the crimescene, with the blood of the false God on his hands. He cannot completely dissociate himself from the paradigm that he closed - his style is still a yes, a no, a straight line and a goal. This, precisely, is the error of metaphysical absolute. To overcome this error, man has, since the Christian attitude wreaked havoc in its ultimate consequence before the beginning of the atomic age, lost his attention to the branches as they amount to the crown, and taken notice of the “mass of roots”, “rhizome” - which is not so much a branching-out as a network.

“Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari use the term “rhizome” and “rhizomatic” to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. In A Thousand Plateaus, they oppose it to an arborescent conception of knowledge, which works with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with horizontal and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections.” - wiki - my emphasis -

To return to the connection I make in the OP between the time before the original deviation in Genesis and Nietsches formulation of a time beyond deviation, - as in Genesis, so also to Nietzsche, it is woman who leads man astray to the notion of good and evil. She is the one who lets in with the Snake. But, dear readers, take heed that Eve is merely the woman of Adam. Even as Nietzsche and the Bible condone only Man as the original image of God, and as society does indeed modulate, I cannot fully allow this exclusivity in my thinking. But I will take heed that it is indeed woman-of-man who leads man astray, and unto death by judgment.

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While accurate to a degree, certainly, I think it is a terrible injustice to Nietzsche’s “pathos” let alone his philosophy to summarize it as “hatred of weakness” and “hatred of compromised absolutes.” I think you might agree; we must restrain ourselves from oversimplifying conclusions too early. Such broad summarizing conclusions ought to spring from necessity, and not from a place of desire or reverence/emotional investment - would that they sprang even from a place opposite of these!

We are already there. However I see this not as compromise of those standards, but the continuing evolution of them; Nietzsche did not erect a religion. He did not construct an idol. Nietzsche transformed aspects of the realm of human ideas, in a deep and significant way. He re-invented how we conceive that which we conceive, how we think about what we think about; how we view ourselves and life generally. But his was only a beginning first step away from the dogmas and crude lies of old – his was not meant to be the only step, nor even indication of the only direction to be taken. Like all things, Nietzsche’s thought was born so that one day it too may go under, may too perish of its own overgrowing of itself, just as that which Nietzsche overcame with his thought was so made by him to perish.

“Willing the ultimate” has always been a central part of man; and it has always been the case that it does not produce “optimal results”. However, man is now starting to become honest enough with himself to recognize and admit this. So he is searching more and more genuinely for a new “ultimate”.

This is a part of the going under of Nietzsche’s thought. Mercy/compassion are not weaknesses; quite the opposite, in fact. They are an overflowing.

Yes, this is a sublimation of the entire evaluation capacity as such; a refinement of our perceptibility. As man becomes more sensitive to himself he learns to see his needs and his nature better, and this improved perspective then begins to inform his thoughts, sentiments and desires. He starts to see the compromising nature that is at the heart of almost everything he formerly thought, did, desired, imagined, was.

If anyone would know, Bukowski might.

I think this is a bit of a religious interpretation that does not do justice to Nietzsche’s thought. The superman is not a vehicle for mankind’s realizing perfection, utopia, or Paradise… he is not man’s ascension away and freedom from “the Fall”. Likewise, to impose upon the superman the essentialist category of ‘will’ is to warp and misunderstand the essence of this superman itself… it is not subject to or defined beneath such crude categorical concepts. Nietzsche conceptualized the inner sphere of the human as “will” so as to inject a naturalism into this sphere, to work on destroying the religious myth of “free will”. Granted, Nietzsche sincerely seems to believe in this construction of his; but the creator must believe, always, or he cannot create. Given the times in which Nietzsche lived, he can certainly be forgiven these indulgences and short-comings.

As to the thought itself, to view the project of overcoming into self-honesty as “modest” merely because it does not achieve some pinnacle of enlightenment and superman-ism is also to limit ourselves; the superman is an idea, an ideal, one that is not “to be actualized”, because in doing so the ideal would perish. There is no “becoming the superman” in a literal sense; it is figurative and metaphorical. And no, that does not imply that there is no essential substance or power to the thought. Yet we must guard against the religious subversion here, guard against the tendency to concretize, reify and make into idols (for the purposes of reverence and inner self-simplifying).

There is no “Eden”. Interpreting Nietzsche as religion renders Nietzsche nonsensical. Man is an animal that is changing, like all animals, like all life, like all things. Man grows, becomes more, pushes out, re-defines himself. Becomes capable of more, deeper, more comprehensive. Of course the gain in one area is offset by losses in other areas - this is how it works. We specialize. Evolution is specialization. Time only “moves” in one direction, there is no “change” “back” to a point where there has not yet been such change. All that happens becomes the substance of that which follows it, irreversibly. Man struggles against this, defines himself against it, yes – but with limited success.

The substance of man, of his nature, his being, the collection of his instincts and passions and thoughts and drives and desires and imaginings, is memory, memory in the general sense of the sum impressions of the past constituting the construction of the present moment, being alive to some extent and in some extensive configuration and thus being generative of this present moment – of man’s “being”. There is no absolute separation from these components, only coverings-over.

Man is a process, movement-forward, a progression, and not a pinnacle, not a stopping place. Concrete idols and ideals betray an inability to scope and clarity of vision, an inability to sufficiently grasp a complex and multidimensional nature. Man will continue to evolve and grow, to be precisely what he “ought to be”. Remember that the beginnings of this thoughts, its inception even, are contained in Nietzsche’s thought itself – he gives it birth, but does not nurture this birth, he immediately subjects it to further concretizing, religious idolizing, reverence, historicity, in short the thought is not allowed to break free and be in its own essential being.

What is this proper form and name? Form is subordinate to content, and name is merely an expression of man’s conceptual horizons, his need to paper over essential nature and reality with fictions and simplifications that render back to himself a neat and self-contained world of his own ideas and imaginings. This is fine, for most people, and indeed this is how man currently resides, inhabits and grows – but we greater thinkers who set our sights beyond this present stage and necessity must never be satisfied with these common methods. Let us rather move forward.

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if you want to change something, you need to master it

he’ll appear as a movie star or some such

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Such a crude and simplistic way of looking at it. There are things that may only be “mastered” when you become subservient and subordinate to them; they are allowed to be as they are when resistance ceases. That which constitutes “you” is multiple, diverse and disperse… higher and more refined human sentiments, self-experiences (not to mention ideas and complex emotions) cannot be “willed” through “mastering” them; the reason for this is that they cannot be known until they are, until they exist fully-formed as they are. We are creators are merely outlets to the creative drives, we are like a tunnel through which these drives actualize; when we try to take control of the drives, then lock up and cease, they cannot be controlled, only subtly directed.

The objects of philosophy touch upon this realm of intangible sensations that can be articulated clearly only at the cost of rendering the sensations themselves meaningless and warped out of existence. We can only express this realm of the human in metaphor. The “mastery” of it comes only when we finally understand that there can be no mastering it. In this lies the utility and wisdom of eastern notions of self-renunciation, detachment, asceticism… giving oneself up is the only way to find oneself. And of course, this too is only a metaphor… and for what?

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I think that Nietzsches pathology is the first thing that needs to be understood, in order to absolve his thinking of his “quirks”. He would ask no less of us.

I am not dismissing Nietzsche by identifying some of his eccentricities, I am clearing the ground for building on what is really of value. At least I aim to do so.

Nietzsche overcame what he perceived as ‘slave morality’, but what he overcame has not thereby perished. He also overcame the notion of atomism, being-an-sich, and replaced it with perspectivism of affect, the will to power. But this has not made the notions of atomism or being-an-sich perish. It has made these things subject to much questioning, erosion, yes. Nietzsche attacked and decimated the old idols, but he did not destroy them. What was left standing is their core - mans notion of himself as part of a creative spirit; the totem at the crossroad of imagination and reality.

I take back my statement here, willing the ultimate remains at the core of mans endeavors, as it should.

Certainly, but then I said fatigue, not weakness. Mercy is what allows the restoration of used-up and liberates thwarted strength.

Please elaborate, if you have time, on the emphasized. I’d like to learn of your thoughts here in the most concrete form. I am curious about what you think is laid bare here - what it is, that after this stripping-away of the compromising, is left to stand. Perhaps you could give some examples of people or cultural phenomena, which may, if perhaps imperfectly, represent such nakedness-before-oneself, as it points us into a more truthful future.

Perhaps I am erring here but I do not see how.
I see a literal connection.

How is the concept of will broken down?
How do you see the will to power as a flawed concept?
Can you formulate this in a way which does not reflect the will to power?

Here, you and I take different roads.
I am not denying the intellectual validity of yours, and I am granting you that mine may seem an illusion, and definitely un-Nietzschean, but I conceive of the Superman only as an inhabitant of a “New Jerusalem”. I must quote William Blake here to ward off any notions of any exclusivity to desert-God-fearing peoples - but at the same time take the particular reference to England as a reference to the West.

[i]Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my charriot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.[/i]

Beware that I only interpret the Superman as Adam - and there is nothing religious about that. It only has to do with moving beyond good and evil, with recapturing innocence, absolving our culture of its guilt and shame - in psychoanalytical terms, allowing man to come to terms with his repressed drives by putting them in a proper context for expression. This is a political task, but it begins with philosophy, and religion is part of the available means. I agree that this part should not be overplayed, but to altogether reject it is equally unwise.

I do not agree that the best word for that which distinguishes man from amoeba is specialization. Evolution is a growth, an increase in power, an encompassing ever more of existence. The emerging of the mind has increased the rate of growth exponentially, and with this, the notion of God began to arise. This notion has not been made obsolete by understanding the first interpretations of it as superstitions.

The substance seems to be primarily literal substance - energy-matter. Memory is surely a function of this? And there may be other functions.

Can there be such a thing as clarity of vision of nothing in particular?
One can obly be clear about something. This specific thing will always, as it is a concept, in some way be an “ideal”.

You are right, the time is not here for setting such horizons. Let us indeed continue to grow and expand, and let forms appear as they will, naturally, without deliberate artifice, without us intervening into our own nature.