part of my undergraduate thesis, you can download the full version from http://www.scribd.com/doc/37703337/Influences-of-Heidegger-s-Ontology-and-Nietzsche-s-Overman-in-Sartre-as-Seen-in-the-Main-Character-of-Sartre-s-the-Flies
and read the abstract in http://www.library.usd.ac.id/Data%20PDF/F.%20Sastra/Sastra%20Inggris/054214091.pdf
B.1 Nihilism
Nietzsche in On Truth
and Lies in Non-Moral Senses argues that language cannot grasp things
completely. When saying a word, people do not say about the thing-in-itself and
the essence of thing but only the relation of the thing to human. Language also
undergones three basic shifts from one sense to other sense, which he called
metaphors. From this, concepts of words are invented and people agree on
certain form of truth. Thus, truth in fact is just “a mobile army of metaphors,
metonyms, and anthropomorphisms.” People agree on certain truth for practical
purpose, to survive. In short, the real truth does not exist but what
human makes of.
The idea above
consequences to nihilism, as described in several ways in The Will to Power.
First, Nietzsche describes nihilism as “the conviction of an absolute
untenability of existence when it comes to the highest values one recognizes;
plus the realization that we lack the least right to posit a beyond or an
in-itself or things that might be “divine” or morality incarnate”(Nietzsche,1967:08). Second, he describes nihilism as “that the
highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is lacking; “why?” finds no
answer”(Nietzsche, 1967:09). Third, Nietzsche argues that
”all the values by means of which we have tried so far
to render the world estimable for ourselves and which then proved inapplicable
and therefore devaluated the wordl-all these values are, psychologically
considered, the result of certain perspectives of utility, designed to maintain
and increase human constructs of domination-and they have been falsely
projected into the essence of things. What we find here is still the hyperbolic
naivete of man: positing himself as the meaning and measure of the value of
things.”(Nietzsche,1967:13-14)
The quotation above shows
Nietzsche attitude’s toward truth, truth as practical tool which is relative,
that ironically, according to Nietzsche,
falsely projected to the
essence of things, which do not exist. Thus, when human finds themselves
questioning the highest values (e.g essence, the Good, Reason to existence
(Raison d’etre)), they find themselves doom to failure. They found nothing,
hihil.
In
short, when people question the highest value, they find that the values
collapse and, therefore, basically people find no justification for their life.
The morality they cling to is no higher than other morality.
Nietzsche predicts the
coming of nihilism in Europe because of Christian values itself. The values
turns to destroy themselves. Inside Christianity, people learn how to
appreciate truth. However, Christianity was found on the base of lie and
hallucination of the world. When the value of truth contradicts the others, the
values collapse and destroy itself. Nietzsche argued that nihilism would be the
future zeitgeist. Therefore, Nietzsche through the mouth of madman
speaks” ‘whiter is God?' he cried. “I will tell you. We have killed him-you
and I. All of us are his murderers” (Nietzsche, 1974:181). The madman speaks
that the murderer of God as the representation of truth done together instead
of by personal. People loose
their principle in nihilistic world and the society moves into unobvious
direction. It is not only the Truth that collapse but also truths. In The
Gay Science Nietzsche writes that “[g]ods too decompose”(Nietzsche,1974:181)
Facing the nihilistic
world, people loose values and direction. As the madman quests rhetorically
“What were we doing when we unchained this earth from the sun? Whither is it
moving now? Wither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not continually
plunging down? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still
any up or down? ...do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become
colder? Is not night continually closing to us? Do we not need to light lantern
in the morning?”(Nietzsche,1974:181). Here Nietzsche explains how people think
that they are continually falling. The situation of that era will be declined
and people live without obvious purpose.
When people do not
have any direction, Nietzsche through his philosophies offers a new way to cope
nihilism. The metaphor of the lantern means new values that people need to
guide their life. Nietzsche suggested active nihilism to replace the old
values. Nietzsche writes “nihilism as a sign of increased power of the spirit:
as active nihilism”(Nietzsche,1967:17). He uses child as metaphor of the active
one in Of the Three Metamorphosis because child is “innocence and
forgetfulness, a new beginning, a sportt, a self-propelling wheel, a first
motion, a sacred Yes”(Nietzsche,1969:55). On the contrary, passive nihilism,
what Nietzsche wants society to avoid, is “decline and recession of the power
of the spirit”(Nietzsche, 1967:17).
In summary, Nietzsche
argues that the world basically is nihilistic, and people soon realize that
fact becuse of their own attitude. Thus, Nietzsche offers his philosophy to
overcome nihilism. He suggests people to cling to active nihilism.
B.2 The Will to Power
The concept of will to
power is highly related to other Nietzscheian concepts, and, henceforth, must
be understood in Nietzscheian body of thinking. However, due to the complex and
various interpretation of the term, the writer, for the purpose of academic
clarification, only reviews the interpretation of S.T.Sunardi and Gilles
Deleuze because both philosophers utter this term lucidly in a simple way.
What is the will to
power? Sunardi argues that Nietzsche refuses the question 'what is this?”
because the question “implies a hope for knowledge about the nature of being in
question, a nature that has a fixed essence”(Sunardi, 1996:41). The question
becomes invalide because Nietzsche refuses the existence of essential term such
as fact, reality world, truth, nature (such as kantian thing-in-itself) and so
on. Nietzsche, as quoted by Deleuze,
aruges that “There are no facts, nothing but
interpretations" (Deleuze, 2002:60). Therefore, Nietzsche's saying that
“the innermost essence of being is will to power”(Nietzsche,1967:369) should be
interpreted that the will to power is an interpretation of the world.
The will to power is not a substance that regulates all
beings. For Nietzsche, the will to power is a chaos that does not ground on
anything. Deleuze interprets
the chaos as relation of one force to the others. In Nietzsche and
Philosophy he writes that “the
will to power is thus ascribed to force, but in a very special way: it is
both a complement of force and something internal to it. It is not ascribed to
it as a predicate”(Deleuze, 2002:49). He further explains that the will
to power is genealogical element of forces, both differential and
genetics. The different quantity which
expresses the quality of forces differentiates one force from the other forces.
The will to power is element of force which the quantity and quality of forces
are derived. In other word, the will to
power is the principle of the synthesis of forces.
The will to power, which is determiner of force, is not
determined. It is self-determination or in Deleuze's language a plastic
principle. He explains that “it [the will to power] is an essentially
plastic principle that is no wider than what it conditions, that changes itself
with the conditioned and determines itself in each case along with what it
determines”(Deleuze, 2002:50). The will wills itself.
The will to power, as the determiner of
quality of forces, commands the forces in dominating relationship one to the
other. It decides the active force that dominates the reactive force. However,
the dominated force does not reflect passivity because a force need a will to
power to surrender to the other force. Surrenderer itself needs an activity.
The dominated force is active in sense that it decides itself to be dominated.
These relationships of forces, which indeed determined by
the will to power, constitutes a body.
The body can be chemical, political, or social. A body is not a mediate
because everything in the world is forces. Inside the body, there is a chance
or possibility to change when the realtionship between the active and the
reactive changes.
In Of the Self-Overcoming in Zarathustra Nietzsche
writes “wherever I find living creatures I find will to power” (Nietzsche,
1969:137). As a consequence, human and animal both have the will to power.
However, human being, according to Nietzsche is “a rope, fastened between
animal and superman”(Nietzsche,1969:43). As a Darwinian, Nietzsche believes in
the living being evolution. Hence, human is a more complicated in body compared
to animal and dead being.
The will to power determines the quality of a body. It
also seeks expansion and development of power through the expansion of body.
The will to power, through the body of being strives to dominate one to the
other. Their basic characteristic is self-egoism, and, thus, they try to expand
their power over others. To actualize will to power means to expand and
maximize the power in the being. This makes the world always moves and
moves.
When simple living beings are only capable to expand its
power, human being can also “exercising its power in schemes of
self-overcoming”(Welshon, 1996:87). The unique ability belongs to human,
self-overcoming, can increase the power. Because of that reason, human can
reach a goal that is only possible for human being. Human being can maximize
the potency related to the will to power.
Related to the ethics, Nietzsche as a naturalist insists
people to affirm their nature. His famous suggestion is to say “yes” to life.
Affirming the nature means people maximize the will to power; the nature of
human and all beings.
Slave Morality, Master
Morality, and Transvaluation of Values
Nietzsche divides human morality into two, master and
slave morality, not according to their social position but by their moral
quality. The master morality can be found in low class of society while the
slave morality also can be found in aristocratic society. In Beyond Good and
Evil he said that it is possible to find “relative nobility of taste
and reverential tact..,among the lower orders and especially among peasants,
than among the newspaper-reading demi-monder of the spirit, the cultured
“(Nietzsche,1972:184). Nietzsche also prefers Socrates in jail to Nero, who was
a king and Aristocrat. (511). Nietzsche offends slave morality and defends
master morality through suggesting the transvaluation of values, turning “good
and evil' into “good and bad.” As the ideas of Master morality, slave morality
and the transvalutations of values are highly related, it is worth to explain
them in a part where those three concepts are defined and connected one to the
others.
The first essay of The
Genealogy of Morals examines historically the origin of slave and
master morality and what Nietzsche calls as the “slave revolt in
morals”(Nietzsche,1956:170). The master morality was the values exclusively belonged
to aristocratic class. Nietzsche finds that the word good in German and Latin
etymologically was related with noble and aristocrat class. The aristocrat
posits the highest place in society and they were the most powerful class and
the ruling class of society. However, they were the exclusive and small in
number compared to the herd or mass. The superior, ruler, and the aristocrat
class created the good to justify themselves. They could be powerful because
they affirmed natural drive, exercise and expand their power. Nietzsche argues
that “all noble morality grows out of triumphant
self-affirmation”(Nietzsche,1956:170).
They
valued the world based on good and bad which they created. Good for the aristocrats mean “noble in hierarchal
sense, class sense,(Nietzsche,1956:162), mighty, highly placed,....high minded
(Nietzsche,1956:160)” , “powerful/beautiful/happy/favored-of-the-gods, and
maintain” (Nietzsche,1956:167), and spiritually distinguished while bad meant
“base, low-minded, plebelian (Nietzsche, 1956:160), common (Nietzsche,
1956:160).
They were “fully active, energetic people”(Nietzsche,
1956:172). Hence, they educated the next generation firmly. As the result of
the exuberant of energy, health and power, they love combat, war game, competition,
adventures, the dance, challenge, and live dangerously. In addition, they also
exercised their power and expanded it through their goodness.
When the aristocrat class contained also the priest
class, their domination of standard of good and bad was unshakeable. Yet, when
the priest class came from out of the aristocratic class, the priests envied
and felt resentment toward the power and the domination of the aristocrat. They
began to revolt against the aristocratic class. Nietzsche argues that their
revolt are dangerous and intelligent,
“As we all know, priests are the most evil
enemies to have-why should this be so? Because they are the most impotent. It
is their impotence which makes their hate so violent and sinister, so cerebral
and poisonous. The greatest haters in history-but also the most brilliance of
priestly vengeance all other brilliance fades”(Nietzsche, 1956:167).
The priests converted the aristocratic
values upside down, standardized altruism as good, and create the term evil to
replace bad. First, The priests valued their impotence, reactive, passivity,
which considered bad for aristocratic values, as good, and, therefore, “only
the poor, the powerless, ..., only the suffering, sick, and ugly"(Nietzsche,1956:167),
“who does not outrage, who harms nobody, who does not attack,
who does not requite, who leaves revenge to God, who keeps himself hidden as we
do, who avoids evil and desires little from, life, like us, the patient,
humble, and just" (Nietzsche,1956:179)” were good. The
priest's goodness for the aristocrat was bad because it did not expand and
exercised their power. Such life was weak and not energetic. The aristocrat's
goodness which expands and exercise their power such as war game, live
dangerously, competition, for the priests are evil because they were harmful
due to the priest's impotence. Second, as a protection, they gather in a
community and value everything useful and practical for the community as good.
They put the goal of humanity in community not in individuality. Thus,
Nietzsche sometimes also called slave morality as the morality of the mob or
the herd, depends on the translators of Nietzsche work into English. Third,
while the master morality opposed good with bad, they create the term evil to
oppose good. As the result, their opposition is “good and evil” instead of
“good and bad.”
The
slave revolt in morals triumphed when Jesus, the Jew, and his discipline such
as Peter, and Paul grew Christianity up and co-opted Romans culture. They
converted the Rome aristocrat's values and, thus, poisoned its culture. Finally
the whole Europe was poisoned by the slave morality. From this point, the slave
morality spread and defeat the master morality, and, thus, the “good and evil”
gained the triumph and replaces “good and bad.”
Deleuze
explains Nietzsche's ideas of slave morality by relating resentment and
reactive as the key concepts. Both concepts are connected one to the other to explain
the origin and the characteristics of slave morality. The reactive type
originates ressentiment, which characterizes
slave morality. Reactive type is not a type composed of a completely
reactive forces. Deleuze writes that “a reaction alone cannot constitute
ressentiment “(Deleuze, 2005:111).
Nietzsche
distinguishes two systems within the reactive
apparatus, the conscious and the unconscious. (Deleuze, 2005:111). Both work
hand in hand with active force in human memory. The unconscious reactive works
in unconscious memory by attaching themselves to invest the traces of memory.
In simple word, the job is to sublime or repress certain memory inside
unconscious condition. The conscious reactive's job is highly related with
conscious memory. This is a room in which reaction is directed toward
perceivement directly instead of traces of memory. It is a dynamic room where
there is always space for new things. Between those two apparatus, there is an
active force working to determine whether an idea will be forgotten or
remembered still in consciousness. The active force also renews the
consciousness while separating from the unconscious. Henceforth, the
unconscious cannot invade the conscious.
Ressentiment originates in a strong unpleasant
experience. The man of ressentiment receives too great pain without being able
to react because he does not have enough power to form a riposte, or a quick
sharp reply. Thus, he keeps the pain inside without being able to forget it.
The man of ressentiment only uses his reactive type to relate the stimulus from
outside. The man of ressentiment cannot “react”
to the outside world no matter what the excitations are. He always
associates whatever he perceives with his ressentiment. He cannot by active
force produces reaction because the man of ressentiment's reaction is based on
reactive force and the ressentiment inside him. The revenge haunts the man
consciously or not in memory, like the case of bloodhound which can only recognize the smell of trace,
and he confuses it with other stimulation.
The ability to forget, to separate conscious and
unconscious and keep renewing the consciousness, according to Nietzsche, is an
active ability which always keeps the conscious memory fresh. When an active
force cannot act upon the reactive force to forget from the conscious,
ressentiment, from the reactive unconscious, appears in the conscious. The
ressentiment people react toward their traces instead of the world. His wound
lies deeply in his memory that effects his attitude. He is passive since he is
determined by the ressentiment.
The passivity which marks slave morality goes further in
attitude, judgment, and behavior.
Deleuze says that
“The man of ressentiment does
not know how to and does not want to love,
but wants to be loved. He wants to
be loved, fed, watered, caressed and put to sleep.
He is the impotent, the dyspeptic, the frigid, the insomniac, the slave.
Furthermore
the man of ressentiment is
extremely touchy: faced with all the activities he cannot undertake he considers that, at the
very least, he ought to be compensated by benefiting
from them. He therefore considers it
a proof of obvious malice that he is not loved,
that he is not fed. The man of ressentiment is
the man of profit and gain”(Deleuze,2005:118)
Here, Deleuze describes the man of ressentiment as
completely want to consume instead of producing.
The man of ressentiment, or the slave morality, is
symbolize by camel in Zarathustra's Of the Three Metamorphosis. Camel is
animal that “longs for the heavy, for the heaviest..and wants to be
laden”(Nietzsche, 1969:54). For the camel, all values are received instead of
created through his power. Camel submits to “all values has already been
created”(Nietzsche,1969:54). Camel bents in front of tradition and, thus, he
bents down receiving the command “thou shalt.” In “thou shalt” there is no
individuality, only the herd exists and individuality is repressed.
Like all Christian, who for Nietzsche are the men of
ressentiment, they bend for order and heavy job. They act based on their fear
of God and their submissive longing. Fear,”the feeling of the absence of power
“(Nietzsche,1969:24), also dominates the feeling of slave morality. Fear
motivates their attitude. People submit their life because they cannot create
value and they, in fact, are dominated by the existing values.
Drive and desire are taboo for slave morality. Those two
endanger the surrender and contradict the impotence of power since desire and
drive haunt fulfillment. This herd morality opresses desire and drive, and,
hence, discourage creativity and spontanity. People holding slave morality will
be tame instead of energetic.
People of slave morality also constitute themselves by
negating others and the world. Deleuze denses the idea into a dictum “You are evil, therefore I am good; this
is the slave's fundamental formula”(Deleuze, 2005:119). He explains further
that they are not created by acting but by holding back from acting, not by
affirming but by denial. They attempt themselves by negating the others. It is
not, at first, that they are good, but because they accuse others are evil, so
that they are good.
Slave morality takes the people to say
“no” to an outside world because they are dominated by the ressentiment.
Nietzsche writes “slave ethics...begins by saying no to an “outside,” an
“other,” a non-self, and that no is its creative act”(Nietzsche,
1956:171). Because of their denial toward the world, they live in the
“afterworld,” promise of the Judgment day, austere life, and ascetics that
dwarf their power. In short, the no does not maximize the human
potential. They, in fact, deny the drive of power inside them.
In contrast with slave morality which denies the world,
the people of master morality accept the world and say yes to life. They
affirm their fate and love it, amor fati. By affirming their life, they
enjoy bliss. When tested by eternal recurrence, they would take the doctrine as
bless. Related to their desire, they express it and act what they want. They
say yes to the world in all its sense. When they want one joy, they will accept
all the pain that go with the joy as the consequences.
However,
doing their drive to expand and exercise their power does not mean that they
just do anything they want. Sunardi describes Nietzscheian sublimation as a
meeting between passion and geist, patient and self-overcoming
principle. (Sunardi,1996:70). When doing all the desire without geist, people
turn into animal. In the contrary, when people repress all the desire, like in
asceticism, they cannot express themselves. Nietzsche states that the meeting
is never in peace but turbulence and strain. Yet, in that condition the
creativity emerges. Here, the instinct drive is managed into creative act used
to turn back to organize the drive.
Nietzsche in Zarathustra uses child as metaphor of the
master morality characterized as “innocence and forgetfulness, a new beginning,
a sport, a self-propelling wheel, a first motion, a sacred
Yes”(Nietzsche,1969:55). Innocence refers to the conscious succeeds to free
itself from ressentiment, hatred, and envy. Here, forgetfulness denotes the
ability to forget which shows the active type. In active type, the reactive
forces and active forces work in their own proper part where the reactive can
be acted by the active. This results in self that can perpetually refresh
itself and get rid of from contamination of ressentiment. Thus, a new beginning
always exists. The phrase a new
beginning might also means the ability to destroy values when those value
signify tendency to be absolute. As discussed earlier that truth supports the
believer practically, the absolute truth in fact functions the opposite, and
thus the people of master morality avoid it. A sport points the playfulness
characteristics of master morality where “thou shalt” is replaced with “I
will.” Sport reflects joyfulness and will to play. Nietzsche explains the sport
as “the sport of creation”(Nietzsche,1969:55) in which the child create values
and “wills its own wills”(Nietzsche, 1969:55). The self-propelling wheel and
first motion show how master morality determines oneself. For instance, they
control their emotion and do not let the outer forces determine theirs. The
masters, since being active instead of reactive, influence and create instead
of being influenced and formed so that they can express their desire and expand
their power. A sacred Yes means a Yes that knows how to say no.
The camel's Yes is not sacred because of their inability to say no.
The transvaluation that Nietzsche offers means a
re-reversal of the priests’ revolt on morals. Nietzsche suggests to reveres the
good into “bad” and the evil into “good.” Otherwise, human will not be able to
expand the power and potency in maximum degree. He urges master morality to
gain the triumph against slave morality.
Eternal Recurrence
Eternal recurrence is not a new idea from
Nietzsche. It has been uttered since old Greek by Anaximander, Heraclitus, the
Stoa school, and Pythagoras (Sunardi,1996:111). However, the idea gets a new
emphasize and context in the philosophy of Nietzsche, related to his ethics.
The ethical implication plays more important role than the cosmological one.
Eternal recurrence argues that the world reoccurs again and again infinitely
with exactly the same occurrence infinitely.
Nietzsche justifies eternal recurrence by the ideas that
the combinations of universe are finite in number but the time of the universe
is infinite. When all combinations have occurred, the universe will have no
other choices but repeating combination. This always happens again and again
eternally. Nietzsche also justifies this as consistent idea with principle that
argues energy is eternal.
Although the world always reoccurs eternally, people have
to “beware of saying that there are laws in nature”(Nietzsche, 1974:168). The world does not go on in a regular and
paternal circle. Nietzsche depicts in anthropomorphic language that the
universe as “the total character of the world, however, is in all eternity
chaos-in the sense not of a lack of necessity but a lack of order, arrangement,
form, beauty, wisdom”(Nietzsche, 1974:168). The world occur unpredictably
because it goes on random series of movements. Nietzsche uses metaphor of dice
game in Zarathustra to depict eternal recurrence. When the dice thrown and it
results the combination has already occurred before, than, the moment reoccurs
in exactly the same. However, the dice is in irregular way.
Nietzsche urges not to draw any teleleological meaning of
the eternal recurrence of the world. He wrote “beware of believing that this
world is a machine, it is certainly not constructed for one purpose”(Nietzsche,
1974:167). He believes that the world is an eternity that always becoming.
Heidegger writes that “[a]ll Being is for Nietzsche a
Becoming”(Heidegger,1984:07). Everything is always in changing and it never
reaches a “state of equilibrium,..goal” because “this state must have been
reached”(Nietzsche,1967:548) due to the extremely long past of history of the
universe. In short, the universe is becoming without ending in eternal
recurrence. Therefore, Nietzsche insists that the hypothesis of eternal
recurrence is “the most scientific of all possible
hypothesis”(Nietzsche,1967:36).
Nietzsche also claims eternal recurrence as “the most
extreme form of nihilism.” The idea consequence to an understanding that the
world, including human existence, has no meaning or aim. It is neither created
nor aimed to certain goal, and the world has nothing but becoming. The world,
although meaningless occur eternally.
Ethically, eternal recurrence is a kind of test whether
one can affirm life or not (Homeric, 2005:269). When one undergoes a moment, in
the middle of and endless becoming universe, within its joy and pain, the one
can be classified as accepting and affirming life in the time the one is still
willing the moment to reoccur eternally.
In The Greatest Weight in The Gay Science Nietzsche tells a parable about a demon
that suddenly just comes and tells the idea of eternal recurrence. When the
idea is considered divine, it means you have been able to say holy Yes to life.
However, one is considered cannot affirm life when one throws oneselves down
and gnash one's teeth and curse the demon (Nietzsche,1974:274), . In other
word, you are terribly afraid and then
get angry to the demon. It means you still cannot affirm life.
Overman
Nietzsche offers overman to face the most extreme form of
nihilism. Only overman has characteristics that can face reality, and affirm
life completely in the whole integration. Overman for Nietzsche is the solution
for the extreme nihilism. Nietzsche summarizes his ideas on overman in prolog
of his book titled Zarathustra, Nietzsche's character derrived from
Zoroaster.
Overman represents the most extreme quality of master
morality. Kaufman argues that for Nietzsche overman appears as “symbols of
repudiation of any conformity to a single norm: antithesis to mediocrity and
stagnation”(Kaufmann, 1968: 309). When understanding overman as a symbols,
people should not confuse to refer overman with certain person. Overman
represents a set of ideas, concepts, and values.
In Zarathustra's prologue Nietzsche tells
ontological position of overman.
Zarathustra says that “man is a rope, fastened between animal and
superman- a rope over an abyss”(Nietzsche, 1969:43). Man plays transitional
between animal and overman. When animal is controlled by instincts, human,
although has the animal instinct, has the potency to overcome human's animal
insticnts. This also means potency to overcome humanity that contains
animality. After that, human being can move into higher level, the overman
level. Human has possibility to get move to animal and overman. As a
transition, Nietzsche encourage people to overcome man. When Zarathustra comes
to meet the crowd in market place, he preaches to the people “I teach you
the superman. Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done
to overcome him?”(Nietzsche). In short, overman is a condition where human can
overcome humanity completely.
Overcoming oneself means being able to control oneselves.
Nietzsche writes that “he who cannot obey himself will be commanded” (Nietzsche,1969:137). Kaufmann
summarizes Nietzsche's concept of self-overcoming as “he who has overcome his animal nature,
organized the chaos of his passions, sublimated his impulses, sublimated his
impulses, and given style to his characters”(kaufmann,1968:316). As the result,
overman “can perform his unique deed of self-integration, self-creation, and
self-mastery” and becomes “trully human or Zarathustra would say,..superman”(kaufmann,1968:316).
Self-integration means that overman can integrate his
characters. Overman sees all his characters as a whole instead of separated one
by one. Hence, he bears his weakness and sees them as inseparable from his
strength. All the integrated self is united to be given one meaning, that will
bring overman into joyfulness. Zarathustra says “one virtue is more than two,
because it is more of a knot” (Nietzsche, 1969:46). All his passions', desire,
and drives are integrated into one by the virtue.
By Self-creation, overman creates himself through
creating his active self-destruction, values, and truth , without relying on
trancendental being. To build a new, overman needs to destroy his old self in
which his values lay. This destruction and creation work hand in hand.
Zarathustra also preaches that “the superman is the meaning of the
earth”(Nietzsche,1969:42). When “God is dead”, and human finds that the world
is meaningless, overman becomes the locus of meaning. The dead god erases all
transcendental sources of value, and changes human orientation from
after-worldly into the earth. Hence, human has been the new sources of value.
Human can be the source of value to justify their own selves when they have
been able to overcome their own self.
As the herd hold tradition and old values, overman does
active destruction to create the new order. Overman “smashes their [the herd]
tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker-but he is the
creatore”(Nietzsche,1969:52). The values and law of tradition comforts people
in peace. In addition, the tradition and stable values weaken power. Thus,
overman declines the values, law, and tradition. Moreover, in order to create a
new values, the old must be destroyed. Overman declares war not also to build
the new values but also to exercie the power. He is like a child who can
destroy and create values, a sport of values.
When Nietzsche says overman as meaning of men existence,
he refers the word meaning as the self-meaning, related to the practical truth.
He writes “I want to teach men, the meaning of their existence: which is the
Superman”(Nietzsche,1969:49). It does not mean that the goal, overman, refers
to universal meaning of existence. The
meaning of the existence refers to the truth, as means to serve irrational
desire. Thus, overman creates truth of meaning based on the needs and the
context. He writes “and if one day my wisdom should desert me-ah,it loves to
fly away!-then my pride too fly with my fooly!”(Nietzsche,1969:53). The meaning of goals to the most
supreme actualization of one individual. By that means, overman can “realize
his own unique individuality”(kaufmann, 1968:309).
When Zarathustra looks at people he tells how to be
overman. He says that they who live for knowledge and will for knowledge will
let overman lives. Then, they who work and invent that may build a build the
house for Overrman. They, in addition, love their virtue. (Nietzsche, 1969:46).
Self-mastery, as discussed in the part of master
morality, is a concept of sublimation of animalistic instinct. Overman can
manage his drive, and become master of hisownself. He is like the metaphor of
self-propelling wheel, and first-motion.
Overman and Eternal
Recurrance
. Eternal
Recurrence and Overman have similarity because both play extreme role in
Nietzsche's philosophy. In one hand, eternal recurrence is the most and
complete nihilistic, the most destructive idea. In the other hand, overman is
one can overcome man that s/he is being able to affirm the worst possibility,
the eternal recurrence. Thus, the two ideas can be easily depicted in one
section. Only overman can affirm life as a whole through and in the
eternal recurrance.
By his self-integrity and self-creation, overman wants,
as a form of complete acceptance, the
eternal recurrance. Related to power, overman has great power in himself to
affirm life and preserve the joyfulness. When the slave morality who is poor in
power looks to heaven for salvation, overman, is like master, faces the earth.
Nietzsche writes that “did you ever say Yes to one joy? O my friends, then you
said Yes to all woe as well. All things are chained and entwined
together”(Nietzsche, 1969:32). Because all things are chained and entwined
together, wanting the joy means wanting the woes. If overman is a being enjoys
his state of joy because of his abundance of energy, then he also wants all the woes that always
accompany the joy because things are connected one to the others. In addition,
wanting to re-experience a joy equals to desiring all to return. Nietzsche
writes “if you wanted one moment twice, if ever you said: 'you please me,
happiness, instant, moment!' then you wanted everything to
return!”(Nietzsche,1969:332). Overman integrates what he wants with everything
entwined under one meaning.
He does not give meaning to even one by one, but giving
meaning to all. Through this way overman redeems his woes. Kaufman says that
overman “redeeming even the ugly by giving it meaning in a beautiful
totality”(Kaufmann, 1968:319). Thus, overman never feels any guilt because he is the salvation of his own selves.
As overman affirms every moment of time, as a whole instead
of in particular, in joy, eternal recurrence for him is bearable. In eternal
recurrence, the world is not in progress nor regress. There is no goal and
purpose of the universe. It is not also the world where everything is in
process of going somewhere. The world of eternal recurrence is “finished in
every single moment and its end attained”(Kaufmann,1968:309). By giving one
meaning as a “knot”, he unifies all the moments in joy. Then, he feels every
moment as a joy. Instead of considering salvation in the process, his goal is
achieved in every moment because every moment is eternity occurring in
unlimited time. Overman uses supra historical point of view in time. He “gives
meaning to his own life by achieving perfection and exulting in every moment “(Kaufmann,
1968:324). By his integration, overman bears the eternal recurrence, even in
the “loneliest loneliness” (Nietzsche, 1974:273).
The idea of
eternal recurrence is against enlighten spirit, that seeing history as a short
of progress. For Nietzsche, mankind is not always in progress. He thinks that
people of renaissance and people of
ancient Greek are more advanced than people of his age. As the alternative, he
offers idea, as quoted by Kaufmann, that “the goal of humanity cannot lay in the end, but only in its
highest specimen.”(Kaufmann, 1968:319). In other word, in all the eternity,
the peak of humanity is not in the community that gains most advanced, because
for Nietzsche herd never can be great together, but into the over man, or a few
people that reach the highest degree of humanity.
Overman, Society, and
Inequality
The scenes of Zarathusra mostly take place with other
people. Moreover, he leaves his mountain after ten years to descend to people,
or society. Society for Nietzsche stands as opposition of overman, or
individual. Yet, both are tied in a complex relation. Although overman and
society contradict one to the other in characters, they form mutual
exploitation for several reasons.
Society, the place where herd live together, tend to
comfort the people and dwarf their power. Society originates in the
multiplicities of individuals who lack of courage. Then, they impose certain
values such as “obedience, duty, patriotism, and loyalty”(Nietzsche,1967:382).
Society wants to maintain peace condition because most of the herd is
impotence. Moreover, they do not want to develop power. For example, society,
in the names of tradition and preservation of culture, is conservative. They
defense themselves against something new because it disturbs their comfort. In
the eye of society, new means evil and old means good.
Overman, on the contrary to society, loves war and
anti-stagnancy so that he creates environment to develop power. When society
longs for preservation, overman loves to create. Thus, he always creates new
things, and society calls them evil. Overman also needs war to exercise and
expand his power while society wants peace and comfort. Overman moves
individually due to his need to grow.
Due to those different characteristics, society tends to
hate overman. The attitude of society toward overman is delivered through the
mouth of buffoon who kills a rope dancer, symbol of movement in dangerous. He
says “too many here hate you, the good and the just hate you and call you their
enemy and despier; the faithful of the true faith hate you, and they call you a
danger to the people”(Nietzsche,1969:49). The old and tradition protects them
in conformity while the new, that for overman exercises his power and increases
it, attacks conformity.
The preservation and conformity, motivated by revenge,
also hide behind the term equality. He strictly says “one must have no choice:
either on the top.-or under neath”(Nietzsche,1967:404). In other word,
naturally men are unequal and they should not be equal. However, the herd still
wants to be in higher position although they are powerless. The herd “want to
do harm to those who now posses power”(Nietzsche:1969:123). This creates
revenge which motivates them to create the belief of equality so that the weak
can rule. Nietzsche symbolizes the preacher of this belief as poisonous
tarantula. He writes “you preachers of equality, thus from you thru
tyrant-madness of impotence cries for 'equality': thus your most secret
tyrant-appetite disguises itself in words of virtue”(Nietzsche,1969:123). The
mob insists for equality so that “everyone may sit in judgment on everyone and
everything”(Nietzsche, 1967:457). Thus, the judgment of the mob can win and
they defeat the master morality. Thus, the mob can decide the “truth” and turn
up side down the value of “good” and “bad.” The mob also uses equality to fight
against the value of the noble. By this belief, they justify their impotence
before the same right. Nietzsche, in addition, argues that equality comes from moral
point of view, “all moralities know nothing of an 'order of rank' among
men”(Nietzsche,1967:411). Based on the equality, the mob demands freedom and
justice. Justice, for Nietzsche, is paraphrase of demand for equal power and
freedom from power's demand.
Overman, however, needs rank to compete to place himself
in high place. Nietzsche writes “I feel impelled to re-establish order of
rank”(Nietzsche,1967:457). Then, he
explains further that quanta of power determines the order of rank. Society
with rank in it has more sever war, and war is what overman loves to exercise
his power. In such society, overman is also possible to stand up in high
place.
Although society and overman are in opposition, overman
descends to society because of his abundance of power and his need to
self-destruction. It is important to note that overman needs people in society
not because of his lack. He descends because of his abundance like shown in
Zarathustra's saying “Behold, I am weary of my wisdom, like a bee that has gathered
too much honey, I need hands outstretched to take it”(Nietzsche, 1969:39). In
more poetic language, he says 'Great star, what would your happiness be, if you
had not those for whom you shine”, or “the cups wants to overflow”(Ibid). To
avoid himself being destructed by his own abundance, overman descends to
society “to be man again”(Ibid). What has been overflows in overman is,
however, still worthy for society. Overman does what Deleuze says about
Nietzsche as active self-destruction. To do this, overman involves society as
receiver. In other word, he uses society as mean.
As society hates overman, overman endangers himself by
going down to society to give his abundance. Nietzsche even uses metaphor poisonous
flies that “weary”and make “bloodily torn in hundred places”
(Nietzsche,1969:79). They also punish “for all your virtues. Fundamentally they
forgive you only-your mistake”(Ibid). The herd sees overman as criminal because
he wants to break the old system, values, and tradition. It illustrates how the
herd defense and attack the overman. However, overman does not feel revenge and
he does not blame them because of their weakness. Because he loves to exercise
and develop his power through war and conflict, he uses the society to “empty
his cup” or to spend his abundance in order to develop his power. After he has
been empty again, he will fill again his cup.
Although being used, society indeed also gain advantage from this
process. Zarathustra says that “I should like to give it away and distribute it,
until the wise among man have again become happy in their foolly and the poor
happy in their wealth”(Nietzsche, 1969:39). In fact, overman can never fulfill
what society wish but he contributes to society his wisdom and abundance. In
the form of monarchy society, the society also take advantage when the noble
rules.
In summary, because society and overman contradict in
character, they are in war one to the other. The overman tends to grow and the society
tends to be stagnant. Yet, this relationship, indeed, benefits both the overman
and the society. The overman by the war exercises his power and the society by
that change into a more dynamic so that it can be more beneficial than what the
herd think of.
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