Nietzsche’s Philosophy: The Path to the Superman
NIETZSCHE COMMENT: LOCATION: F. Nietzsche belongs to the period of contemporary philosophy of the nineteenth century. His thinking is part of the stream of vitality, emphasizing life as the ultimate value and the will to power as a reaction against the excessive rationalism of the period, reflected in the philosophy of Hegel and the widespread cult of science.
SUBJECT: The three transformations of the spirit that will pave the way for the emergence of the superman.
IDEAS:
- 1. The spirit undergoes three transformations: camel, lion, and child.
- 2. The spirit-camel kneels, humiliates, mocks its own wisdom, and runs with its cargo to its own wilderness.
- 3. The second transformation is that of a lion who wants to conquer or catch prey, seeking freedom and mastery. To achieve this, it must face the duty (the dragon, its master so far).
- 4. The lion is not yet capable of creating new values but prepares the ground for the freedom necessary to create anew.
- 5. The lion must become a child who is innocent, forgetful, embraces eternal return, and is capable of creating new values.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IDEAS: At the beginning of Nietzsche’s text, he explains the subject: the transformation and evolution of the spirit and morality using the metaphor of the camel, the lion, and the child. The camel symbolizes the moral burden of Judeo-Christian values, the lion represents the transition and the need for freedom, and the child embodies the creator of new values: the superman.
EXPLANATION OF IDEAS: In this paper, part of Nietzsche’s masterpiece, the author reflects on the process to overcome the decay and disease of the West, illustrating the historical evolution of morality. Initially, Judeo-Christian morality emerges, and man accepts (carries) the moral values of an enemy of life. The camel symbolizes the burden of declining values that threaten Western culture, epitomized by the figure of God, a symbol to which it is subservient. This beast of burden represents the resignation and humiliation of Christianity, which mentors the perversion of Western values, revenge, and resentment. Christianity bears sole responsibility for the life crisis of our culture, a crisis that leads to self-destruction and the abyss because:
- 1. It involves the loss of the strongest instincts, leading to the invention of another world and the despising of this one.
- 2. It further narrows values: obedience, sacrifice, humility… typical of the herd.
- 3. The concept of sin destroys noble forms and values of life, corrupting them at their root.
However, as stated in the text, in that desert toward which the camel with its load is directed, the spirit becomes a lion, rebelling against its master and overthrowing it. The lion-man critically examines and masters himself, rebelling against ‘the duty’ (the great dragon) and asserting ‘I want’, imposing his will. The lion, therefore, symbolizes the liberation from God and the moral law, reflected in the ‘death of God’—the death of his ‘last master’.
With the death of God, Nietzsche aims to restore to man the ownership of his existence, involving a more radical critique of religion, morality, and metaphysics in the West. Through this metaphor, Nietzsche announces that the pillars supporting tradition and Western culture have collapsed, making the lion also a symbol of nihilism, the great denier. The lion paves the way for the freedom to say ‘no’ and destroy the old values of the West. However, this destruction leads to nihilism, which signifies a lack of compass and guidance in existence, based on false values and decay.
Thus, the lion, although unable to create new values, effectively prepares the ground for a ‘new creation’. Nietzsche distinguishes between two kinds of nihilism: the passive, representing the absence of meaning that God had imprinted on the world, and the active, which serves as a way to overcome the previous state, including the death of God not as ‘sunset’ but as ‘dawn’. Active nihilism embodies a stronger will to power, ready to undertake the task of the second revaluation of all values.
It is therefore necessary for the lion to become a child, meaning that decadent man in Western culture must build bridges to the superman, the creator of new values. The child will construct a new morality based on innocence and forgetting, with life as its fundamental value. This replaces the slave morality of men who preach moral values and practice the bravery and nobility of the superior man. The child is the artist who creates new values resulting from the will to power, playing and inventing new ways of valuing life, living the eternal return, and clinging to the ground with a ‘sacred’ yes.
In conclusion, this text illustrates the necessary transformation of decadent man, representing Western culture, and the advent of a new era in the history of mankind with the figure of the superman.