THE MAN WHO TRIED TO RISE ABOVE HUMANITY
This particular post is going to be a very controversial one. It discusses topics of faith, religion, meaning, purpose, and God and will make a point to challenge those belief systems. If you are not comfortable with this, please feel free to leave. Also, while I will discuss this ideology heavily, please note that they are not mine. As I said while discussing Buddhism in my previous post, I am a Christian and believe in the Christian Faith. This is mostly just my feeble attempt to understand and comprehend one of the most infamous and controversial thinkers in history.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Now, let’s begin.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
These were the words spoken by one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, but who the hell was this person? And how could he come to such an outrageous and aggravating statement? Well, the answer lies in his story. But before we do that, we need to take a quick detour and look back. Back to the centuries before the emergence of the enlightenment period and back to the era of the classical period in Ancient Greece.
Aristotle was one of the greatest and smartest minds in history. His work became the bedrock for Western Civilization and inspired many subjects including physics, biology, literature, zoology, metaphysics, and so on. He truly was one of the founding fathers of philosophy. Much, like the philosophers that existed during his time, Aristotle belonged to the school of thought that proposed the idea of the body inhabiting the “soul”. This was one of the ideas that Aristotle and others like him shared with Christianity although his definition of the soul was a bit different from what scholars like Plato had in mind.
If there was one thing these philosophers of old had in common, however, it was the unwavering belief that…
ESSENCE PRECEDES EXISTENCE
You see, classical philosophers unanimously believed that the meaning of a thing is more vital than its existence. For example, a hammer is created with a purpose in mind. That “purpose” precedes the actual creation of the hammer. It is designed with a specific function, and it is created in such a way that it can carry out its role effectively.
This same notion is also applied to human beings as well.
According to these philosophers, people were designed with a premeditated purpose in mind and if this sounds familiar, that is because Christianity also shares this viewpoint. God created us for a specific purpose and role, and it is our moral duty to discover what that purpose is.
And for a very long time, this was accepted as nothing but the truth by everyone.
Until the enlightenment period.
The enlightenment period was a significant point in human history. It marked the turning point of the Industrial Revolution as well as the French Revolution. It also gave birth to science and reasoning. People especially began to ask questions about their preconceived beliefs concerning faith and the concept of God. Before the enlightenment period, the Catholic Church had established itself as the dominant force in the world. They established a political and religious doctrine referred to as THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS. It was a mandate that emphasized an individual’s divine right to rule. Significantly, the doctrine also asserted that a monarch is not accountable to any earthly authority (such as a parliament) because their right to rule is derived from divine authority. Thus, the monarch is not subject to the people’s will, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm. It follows that only divine authority can judge a monarch and that any attempt to depose, dethrone or restrict their powers runs contrary to God’s will and may constitute a sacrilegious act. (Wikipedia)
Now, you might say that this is nothing but a bullshit excuse to maintain power, and you’d be right, but the people of that time never thought about it. Up until the enlightenment period, nobody questioned anything.
At all.
And so, the church continued to maintain power, and, in the period they ruled, the Priests, who were supposed to represent the pinnacle of Christianity did some truly heinous shit. Examples include Pope Paul III, who came to the throne in 1527 after having allegedly murdered both his mother and his niece as a means of inheriting the family’s wealth. Another example is Pope John XII who was the head of the Catholic Church from 955 to 964. His immorality and sexually deviant conduct made him infamous.
Things got so bad that a faction of people had to leave the Catholic Church and form their own, which was what eventually led to the Church of the Protestant Ethics, which, in modern-day, is known as the Pentecostal Churches.
All this eventually led to several philosophers questioning the Church as well as the Christian Faith and the validity of what it is they preached. But they didn’t just question the Christian Faith…. No… They questioned everything. They questioned human existence…. and this what was led to the birth of EXISTENTIALISM.
It is important to note, however, that existentialism does not exist in a vacuum, as it lies on the bedrock of an equally important and quite uncomfortable philosophy known as NIHILISM.
Nihilism is essentially a philosophical doctrine that argues that there is no inherent meaning to the universe. There is no objective morality, nor is there any objective truth or purpose to our being as well as any divine plan set in motion.
Human beings are born, then we die and are forgotten.
It’s a pretty bleak idea and philosophers knew that which was why they tried to come up with their answers as to how one can live in such a world. This is where existentialism comes in.
Existentialism argues that…
EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE
They believed that one must find his own meaning and his own purpose in a world devoid of one. How in particular one goes about discovering their meaning in life was discussed by different philosophers and this brings us to Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche, at the time, began to see a shift in the fundamental truths humans had come to believe in for centuries. He never considered it to be a good thing and I think this is what set him apart from most philosophers. Nietzsche knew that once you take away the foundation that society builds itself upon, the structure of that society will crumble.
Let me explain.
You see, whether we realize it or not, our fundamental beliefs and ethics are all predicated on one thing. The belief in the transcendent, or to be more accurate, the belief of a supernatural being. That “supernatural entity” acts as the ultimate judge that we all are accountable to, and I believe this to be true. Now, whether Nietzsche believed this or not is unclear, but he understood that this single belief was the foundation for all morality, and society was structured on this belief, which was why when people began to doubt this truth, he was stricken with fear. And it gets even more complicated because despite this, Friedrich Nietzsche…
…HATED CHRISTIANITY
Well, hate may be a strong word, but there is no argument that he was a severe critic of Christianity, which is ironic really. He referred to Christian Faith as “the master-slave morality.” According to him…
Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength in which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious.
What also makes this even more confusing is that, in a very weird way, he was an admirer of Jesus Christ. In fact, as far as he was concerned, the only Christian who ever existed was the same one that died on the cross 2,000 years ago. I believe Nietzsche’s problem was with the teachings of the church and particularly how they emphasized weakness and pity above everything else. There was also a particular quote from the Bible that he absolutely despised, and it goes like this…
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
To him, this was the ultimate example of the master-slave morality he spent most of his life talking about, and the irony of this is, that particular quote doesn’t really mean what he thought it meant, but that’s a discussion for another blog post.
Despite all this, he understood the fundamental importance of having a foundation upon which society rests itself, and for centuries, that was the Abrahamic Faith, until the enlightenment period, which prompted the famous speech, “God is dead, and we have killed him!”
Nietzsche then went on to find a solution for this existential problem that all human beings would face eventually. He knew the dangers of nihilism and how susceptible humans would be to this belief without some kind of foundation on which to base their beliefs, and then, he came up with an answer.
You see, Nietzsche believed in POWER. This was, to him, the fundamental belief that all living things had intrinsically. He came to this conclusion after observing that all struggle to preserve life, and they do this by self-conservation. He saw this as a consequence of a creature’s will to exert its strength on the outside world and so, he used this as the foundation of his idea.
The idea of the superior man
THE UBERMENSCH
From Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Zarathustra’s Prologue; pp 9–11)
I teach you the Übermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just the same shall man be to the Übermensch: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any ape. Even the wisest among you is only a conflict and hybrid of plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants? Behold, I teach you the Übermensch! The Übermensch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth… Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch — a rope over an abyss… What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a going under.
The Ubermensch was Nietzsche’s idea of the man who could become God. He argued that people would have to take their place in divinity and create their own values and meanings in this world. To him, this would be the savior that rises against the master-slave morality of good vs evil that is so often taught by contemporaries and form his own morality from nothing.
He would be the SUPERIOR MAN
Now, the question to be asked becomes this, “is this the answer?” “Can this solve our deep existential terror?” “Is this what will save humanity?”
Personally… No. I don’t believe so and there are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, it is impossible to create your own values. You simply cannot and let me explain why
Human beings are a mystery. Yes, you and me. Psychologists have spent decades trying to understand the inner workings of our minds and consciousness and each time a discovery is made, fifty more questions take its place. The reality is, much of what you think is under your control, isn’t. You’re a network of things that we have no idea how to fathom and this is especially relevant when it comes to consciousness. Psychologists believe that much of your actions are informed by your subconscious, the innermost part of you that exists within you. It is also important to note that you have no control over your subconscious. It has a life of its own and the same is true with your conscience.
And we all know this.
We know this because we’ve all experienced it. Whether it’s your gut feeling or the Holy Spirit or something else entirely, we all have that little voice in our head that beats us up when we do something that we know we shouldn’t do. It's there. You can’t deny it. And interestingly enough, this particular voice doesn’t really tell us what we should do, no, it tells us WHAT NOT TO DO. You can ignore the voice, but it will still be there, almost like a whisper, reminding you what it is you did that is not right.
Secondly, human beings, generally, aren’t very smart. We are not. Not only that, but we also justify our actions in the name of a “higher cause” regardless of how messed up our actions become. That is, unfortunately, our nature as individuals and there is no greater example of this than the Nazis and WWII. A lot of people seem to agree that the works of Nietzsche were taken out of context to suit the Nazis’ ideology of what they perceived to be the superior race, which was the Aryan race.
Did they really take his words out of context though?
When you preach to people to “create their own values and to become the superior man,” is it that much of a stretch to assume that some people would interpret this into their own radical ideology?
I don’t think so.
Along the lines of his life, Nietzsche began to suffer a complete mental breakdown, leading to complete and utter madness. He would lock himself in his room, and dance naked like a wild man possessed. The origin of his madness is unclear, but some have argued that this was a result of the great and prolonged suffering he went through while exploring his consciousness. He wrote…
I undertook something that not everyone may undertake; I descended into the depths; I bore into the fountains…
His friend and acquaintance Overbeck uttered the following…
He is entirely in his deranged world from which, in my presence, he never emerged again. Quite clear about who I and other people were, he was in darkness about himself… In evermore intense attacks of singing and crashing about on the piano, he came forth with fragments of the world of thought he had recently inhabited. Sometimes, in a whisper, he produced sentences of wonderful luminosity. But also uttered terrible things about himself as the successor of the now-dead-God, the whole performance continually punctuated on the piano…
Nietzsche believed that it was time for humanity to rise above morality, to take our place as the divine beings of this world and create our own truths and morals.
He would be first among us to become the Ubermensch, the superior man…
But he failed…
