I made this thread for people who know about the ubermensch and the will to power that's the context man
One has to go back to the horse's mouth, though -- no skewered or "too literal" Nazi and eugenics interpretations.
Nietzsche's Overman does not seek the approval of the crowd (thus, there is no following the pattern of others). He creates his own path.
"Power" here is not the controlling "use and abuse" type (nobody needs to follow), but an unobstructed creative affirmation about life. A positive, constructive acceptance of unimpaired reality. It is a being for oneself, fulfilling one's own potential. (A private or personal enlightenment that is figuratively akin to a secret nobility.)
The latter involves being free of Christian duty (always putting others before one's self; sibling's keeper stuff) and its excessive egalitarian orientation that stunts both the individual's and humanity's development (crab bucket mentality). The Overman can still be generous toward others, but does so out of natural inclination or choice rather than due to feelings of guilt or seeking redemption from sin (as well as exploitation of general do-gooderism).
Understandably, the many still under the sway of Christianity or its putative secular imitators (i.e., enter later Ayn Rand territory with respect to both) will interpret the liberated Overman as a villain, selfish bully, or whatever ("evil man").
And I'm just the piano player. Attribute any pejorative, misconceived, and exaggerated fixations about Christian legacy and influential dominance in society and ideological movements --that one might be piqued about -- to those two authors (Fred and the Russian-Jewish migrant).
Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo translation): Zarathustra, as the first psychologist of the good man, is perforce the friend of the evil man. When a degenerate kind of man [opportunist priest] has succeeded to the highest rank among the human species, his position must have been gained at the cost of the reverse type—at the cost of the strong man who is certain of life. When the gregarious animal stands in the glorious rays of the purest virtue, the exceptional man must be degraded to the rank of the evil.
If falsehood insists at all costs on claiming the word "truth" for its own particular standpoint, the really truthful man must be sought out among the despised. Zarathustra allows of no doubt here; he says that it was precisely the knowledge of the good, of the "best," which inspired his absolute horror of men.
And it was out of this feeling of repulsion that he grew the wings which allowed him to soar into remote futures. He does not conceal the fact that his type of man is one which is relatively superhuman—especially as opposed to the "good" man, and that the good and the just would regard his superman as the devil.
"Ye higher men, on whom my gaze now falls, this is the doubt that ye wake in my breast, and this is my secret laughter: methinks ye would call my Superman—the devil! So strange are ye in your souls to all that is great, that the Superman would be terrible in your eyes for his goodness."
It is from this passage, and from no other, that you must set out to understand the goal to which Zarathustra aspires—the kind of man that he conceives sees reality as it is; he is strong enough for this—he is not estranged or far removed from it, he is that reality himself, in his own nature can be found all the terrible and questionable character of reality: only thus can man have greatness.
_
Last edited: