One of the most fascinating ideas in philosophy is the Ubermensch. Translated as “the “overman”
or “superman,” it’s a concept created by the philosopher Frederich Nietzsche significantly
a psychologically superior person of the future individuals of today should strive to become.
Although the Ubermensch is just briefly mentioned at the start of Nietzsche’s
greatest work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” this idea of an exemplary human we ought to strive to become
appears throughout his work and can been seen as a core pillar of Nietzsche’s philosophy.
This video will cover what one interpretation of what the overman
is, how Nietzsche meant for you to apply this idea to your own life,
and my thoughts on how relevant and essential the overman is today.
In ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’, the main character, 30-year-old Zarathustra, descents from the
mountains where he has become enlightened to share what he has learned with humanity.
Upon arriving in a village, he abruptly announces to everyone with great fanfare. "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…”
Zarathustra paints a picture of a being that’s far more evolved and conscious
than both ape and man looking down upon both of them both.
So this leaves us with some initial questions. What is this overman, why must man be overcome,
and why does Zarathustra, the prophet, need to teach us this concept anyway?
To understand the answers to these questions,
we first have to briefly explore the concept of nihilism and Nietzche’s thoughts on it.
Nietzsche saw nihilism as the outcome of repeated frustrations
in searching for meaning and purpose in religion, specifically Christianity.
Thanks to science and the Enlightenment, Christianity
began to be seriously questioned as truth. Plus, Nietzsche believed his
own psychological insights into why humans feel the need to create things like religion
lead him to believe Christianity is something people need to, and eventually will, give up.
Because of this, the false Christian values and beliefs that used to give our life meaning,
like living for God, now have no purpose for the rational thinking individual.
People may fall into despair since it appears that we’re just
regular animals in a universe with no objective meaning to it.
He wrote
“...Nihilism appears at that point, not that the displeasure of existence has become greater
than before but because one has come to mistrust any ‘meaning’ in suffering, indeed in existence…
it now seems as if there is no meaning at all in existence, as if everything were in vain.”
This collapse of meaning, relevance, and purpose he believed will be extremely
destructive but could be overcome and had to be overcome. Hence, the concept of the overman,
a highly evolved psychological strong individual that has overcome false
imposed values and meaning and created his own subjective values and meaning to life.
Nietzsche does not give a specific description of what the overman is precisely and the values he
creates but instead helps us understand what the overman by examining what he is not. After being
mocked, Zarathustra decides to teach the crowd about the Last Man, the antithesis of the overman.
“It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the seed of his highest hope.
His soil is still rich enough for it. But this soil will one day be poor and weak;
no longer will a high tree be able to grow from it…
“I tell you: one must have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you:
you still have chaos in you.
“Alas! The time is coming when man will give birth to no more stars….
Behold! I shall show you the Last Man…”
While the overman is about responsibility and overcoming,
the last man, his opposite, is about laziness and consumption.
The Last Man goes about living comfortably in the moment, like an ape, with his hedonistic daily
pleasures and nightly pleasures. Despite thinking he is happy, inside the Last Man
is miserable with no meaningful goals and no meaningful values of his own. This breeds envy
and contempt for others who appear to accomplish goals, taking risks, and flourishing in life.
See, Nietzsche could be thought of as a psychologist long before the
advent of psychology as a field of serious study.
He believed Christianity was poisonous to individuals not just because it was paradoxical
but because by accepting imposed meaning and values,
it forces us to suppress important emotions and feelings we all have within us.
Everyone is born to feel things like envy, lust, and suffering in life. Instead of suppressing
because “the herd” tells us to, we ought to examine them and what they are telling us.
Two important feelings he wrote about in particular were suffering and envy.
Suffering isn’t something that happens to us as life goes by, but something
inherent to being human that is necessary to accomplish great things and experience great joys.
He writes “I must first go down deeper than ever I descended—deeper into pain than ever I descended,
down into its blackest flood. Thus my destiny wants it….Whence
come the highest mountains? I once asked. Then I learned that they came out of the
sea. The evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks.
It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height”.
Envy as well could be used as an essential tool toward becoming an overman, too.
Envy helps tell us what we want in life and pushes us toward accomplishing that.
Man is the only animal that needs a purpose to suffering, and looking
inward and examining what we want helps push us toward creating our meaning and purpose.
If you’re envious of a great athlete and told by your family or a school that you
don’t have the makeup to become one. Perhaps it’s time to pick up a sport
and start training yourself regardless of what they say. Now you’re on the path
to improving yourself and creating your own goals and purpose unique to what you to want.
Although he didn’t believe anyone could fully become an overman today, he gave some examples
of people he thought were on the right track, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Napoleon.
These were men who were in touch with what they uniquely wanted, weren’t afraid to cause chaos and
change to live out their meaning and values, and ultimately affect history indefinitely.
Perhaps it’s best to think of the overman as a tool to help you become who you are
and who you’re meant to be. In the final part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
the main character explains as he reflects on the entirety of his work and teachings.
“I am he…who once bade himself, and not in vain: ‘Become what you are!’”
Nietzsche, through Zarathustra, give us the teaching of the camel,
the lion, and the child to help us on the path to becoming an overman.
Like a camel, we first carry the weight of imposed meaning and values around us. First,
we ought to examine these values, whether they come from a religion, our parents, a school,
etc., and understand what someone else wants for our lives, not us.
Next, we need to push back against them to create our own. Like a lion,
we’re going to have to be ready to put up a fight for our independence.
Finally, we can become the child. Like a curious, free child,
we can explore what is meaningful to us and what we want to pursue.
Ok so that’s the concept of the overman in a nutshell. Is this idea still important and
relevant today? Well, I think so, to a degree. Studies and research into human well-being are
continuously showing that when we don’t have a bigger purpose than just aiming for fleeting,
present moment happiness, we begin to become worse off, in some cases, resulting in serious
depression. Meaning appears, at least so far, to be something man is wired to need
to have a better life. Plus, like his ‘Last Man’, If we just live moment-to-moment hedonistically
with no real aim to our lives, a purpose and aim will be given to our lives by others that,
if history is any indicator, won’t be good for us longterm. Of course, there’s something to be said
about just living in the moment and not having to strive to be something great all the time.
Research as well is showing that many of us may need simple in the moment feelings of
joy and happiness in addition to a greater purpose to have better well-being overall.
Having a better sense of subjective well-being doesn’t seem to involve striving for meaning
and to be great alone. However, being a great philosopher, Nietzsche thought that was what
people of his time needed to hear and thus, he created the overman. Let me know your thoughts on
the overman or anything covered in this video and if you want more topics about Nietzsche covered.