Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 19:04:46 -0400
From: albright-AT-world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Subject: RE: The Overman


>I get the impression that the Overman is not "the pinnacle of man" in
>any sense, but rather a qualitative leap beyond man. As different from
>man as man is from the other animals. The Overman is not the higher man,
>but rather the overcoming of man. "The pinnacle of man" smacks of vulgar
>humanism (Man in God's place).
>
>Sean Saraq
>Toronto

Actually, many have used Nietzsche for humanistic purposes, in my opinion.
People like Albert Camus, Thomas Mann-- fighting against Nazis, for
example. It is very much, in my mind, an attempt to raise the individual
higher, with its roots in sayings like Emerson used in "Self Reliance"
about those who only imitate cannot go beyond that whom they are imitating.
However, a great confusion in Nietzsche arises from his own view (I only
have the English translation of _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_----- I'm actually
more of a _Gay Science_ lover, myself) that as different as man is from
apes, so will the "Superman", as it's called in my Penguin edition
translated by Hollingdale. One must remember that men, for example, are
still connected to apes, even if they're "higher"-- and again, even
Nietzsche would point out, on whose terms are we viewing "men" as "higher"
than apes. Thus, the "Superman" is, to me, an unfortunate word choice.
Really, David Bowie (a Nietzsche fan, if any of you know "QuickSand" from
"Hunky Dory", for example) said it in better in the concept of "We can be
*heroes*"-- but then he adds "just for one day."

As far as Bowie's own "mortal with the potential of a Superman", it's
important to realize that he's also *sinking* in the quicksand... and he
doesn't have the power anymore... in that song.

Nietzsche himself warns against men playing God, and yet his word choice as
well as assumption that through evolution and will one will actually be as
far away from the human race as the human race is from the apes------ is a
problem.

Anyone else read George Stack's excellent _Emerson and Nietzsche, An
Elective Affinity_ (Ohio, 1992), by the way? Available in paperback these
days.

        ---Randall Albright
                        http://world.std.com/~albright/




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