Superman is an image introduced into philosophy by the famous thinker Friedrich Nietzsche. It was first used in his work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". With its help, the scientist denoted a creature that, in terms of power, is capable of surpassing modern man in the same way that man himself once surpassed the monkey. If we adhere to Nietzsche's hypothesis, the superman is a natural stage in the evolutionary development of the human species. He represents the vital affects of life.
Definition of concept
Nietzsche was convinced that the superman is a radical egocentric who lives in the most extreme conditions, being a creator. His mighty will has a significant impact on the vector of all historical development.
Nietzsche believed that such people are already appearing on the planet. consonanthis theories of the superman are Julius Caesar, Cesare Borgia, and Napoleon.
In modern philosophy, a superman is someone who, physically and spiritually, stands immeasurably higher than other people. The idea of such people can be found for the first time in the myths about demigods and heroes. According to Nietzsche, man himself is the bridge or path to the superman. In his philosophy, the superman is the one who has managed to suppress the animal nature in himself and now lives in an atmosphere of absolute freedom. In this sense, throughout history, saints, philosophers and artists can be attributed to them.
Views on Nietzsche's philosophy
If we consider how other philosophers treated Nietzsche's idea of the superman, then it is worth recognizing that opinions were contradictory. There were different views on this image.
From the Christian-religious point of view, the forerunner of the superman is Jesus Christ. This position, in particular, was held by Vyacheslav Ivanov. From the cultural police, this idea was characterized as an "aestheticization of a strong-willed impulse," as Blumenkrantz put it.
In the Third Reich, the superman was considered the ideal of the Nordic Aryan race, a supporter of the racial interpretation of Nietzsche's ideas.
This image has become widespread in science fiction, where it is associated with telepaths or super-soldiers. Sometimes the hero combines all these abilities. Many such stories can be found in Japanese comics and anime. There is a special subspecies in the Warhammer 40,000 universepeople with psychic abilities called "psykers". They can change the orbit of planets, take control of the minds of other people, are capable of telepathy.
It is worth noting that in one way or another all these interpretations contradict the ideas of Nietzsche himself, the semantic concept that he put into the image of the superman. In particular, the philosopher strongly denied its democratic, idealistic and even humanitarian interpretation.
Nietzsche's concept
The doctrine of the superman has always interested many philosophers. For example, Berdyaev, who saw in this image the spiritual crown of creation. Andrei Bely believed that Nietzsche was able to fully reveal the merits of theological symbolism.
The concept of the superman is considered the main philosophical concept of Nietzsche. In it, he combines all his highly moral ideas. He himself admitted that he did not invent this image, but borrowed it from Goethe's Faust, putting his own meaning into it.
Theory of natural selection
Nietzsche's theory of the superman is closely connected with Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. The philosopher expresses it in principle "the will to power." He believes that people are only a transitional part of evolution, and its final point is the superman.
His main distinguishing feature is that he has the will to power. A kind of impulse with which it becomes possible to control the world. Nietzsche divides the will itself into 4 types,demonstrating that it is she who constructs the world. No development and movement without this is impossible.
Will
According to Nietzsche, the first kind of will is the will to live. It lies in the fact that every person has an instinct for self-preservation, this is the basis of our physiology.
Secondly, purposeful people have an inner will, the so-called core. It is he who helps to understand what the individual really wants from life. A person with an inner will cannot be persuaded, he will never be influenced by someone else's opinion, with which he initially disagrees. As an example of inner will, one can cite the Soviet military leader Konstantin Rokossovsky, who was repeatedly beaten and tortured, but remained faithful to the oath and soldier's duty. He was arrested during the repressions of 1937-1938. His inner will so impressed everyone that he was returned to the army, during the Great Patriotic War he rose to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
The third type is the unconscious will. These are affects, unconscious inclinations, passions, instincts that guide human actions. Nietzsche emphasized that people do not always remain rational beings, often being subjected to irrational influences.
Finally, the fourth type is the will to power. It manifests itself to a greater or lesser extent in all people, this desire to subjugate another. The philosopher argued that the will to power is not what we have, but what we really are. It is this will that is the most important. It forms the basis of the concept of the superman. This idea is related toa radical change in the inner world.
A moral issue
Nietzsche was convinced that morality is not inherent in the superman. In his opinion, this is a weakness that only drags anyone down. If you help everyone in need, then the individual spends himself, forgetting about the need to move forward himself. And the only truth in life is natural selection. It is only by this principle that the superman should live. Without the will to power, he will lose his power, strength, strength, those qualities that distinguish him from an ordinary person.
Nietzsche's Superman was endowed with his most beloved qualities. This is an absolute concentration of will, super-individualism, spiritual creativity. Without it, the philosopher did not see the development of society itself.
Examples of superhumans in literature
In the literature, including domestic, you can find examples of how the superman manifests himself. In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, Rodion Raskolnikov demonstrates himself as the bearer of just such an idea. His theory is to divide the world into "trembling creatures" and "those who have the right." He decides to kill, largely because he wants to prove to himself that he belongs to the second category. But, having killed, he cannot withstand the moral suffering that has piled on him, he is forced to admit that he is not suitable for the role of Napoleon.
In another novel by Dostoevsky - "Demons", almost every hero considers himself a superman, trying to prove his right to kill.
A vivid example of the creation of a superman in popular culture is Superman. This is a superhero whose image was inspired by the works of Nietzsche. It was created in 1938 by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. He has become over time an icon of American culture, is the hero of comics and films.
Thus spoke Zarathustra
The idea of the existence of man and the superman is stated by Nietzsche in the book "As Zarathustra spoke". It tells about the fate and ideas of a wandering philosopher who decided to take the name Zarathustra, named after the ancient Persian prophet. It is through his actions and actions that Nietzsche expresses his thoughts.
The central idea of the novel is the conclusion that man is just a step on the way to turning a monkey into a superman. At the same time, the philosopher himself repeatedly emphasizes that humanity itself is to blame for the fact that it has fallen into decay, having actually exhausted itself. Only development and self-improvement can bring everyone closer to the realization of this idea. If people continue to succumb to momentary aspirations and desires, then with each generation they will slide more and more towards an ordinary animal.
The problem of choice
There is also the problem of the superman associated with the need to choose when it is necessary to decide on the superiority of one individual over another. Speaking of this, Nietzsche highlights a unique classification of spirituality, which includescamel, lion and child.
If you follow this theory, then the super-superman must free himself from the shackles of the world that surrounds him. To do this, he needs to become pure, as a child is at the very beginning of the path. After that, a non-trivial concept of death is outlined. She, according to the author, must obey the desires of man. He is obliged to have a monopoly on life, to become immortal, comparable to God. Death must obey the goals of a person, so that everyone has time to do everything that he has planned in this life, so a person needs to learn how to manage this process himself.
Death, according to Nietzsche, should turn into a special form of reward that a person can receive only when he has lived with dignity all his life, having fulfilled everything that was destined for him. Therefore, in the future, man must learn to die. Many researchers have noted that these ideas are similar to the codes and concepts followed by the Japanese samurai. They also believed that death must be earned, it is available only to those who have fulfilled their destiny in life.
Modern man, who surrounded him, Nietzsche despised in every possible way. He did not like that no one was ashamed to admit that he was a Christian. He interpreted the phrase about the need to love your neighbor in his own way. Noting that it means to leave your neighbor alone.
Another idea of Nietzsche was connected with the impossibility of establishing equality between people. The philosopher argued that initially some of us know more and know more, while others know less and are not able to perform even elementary tasks. Therefore the ideaabsolute equality seemed to him absurd, namely, it was promoted by the Christian religion. This was one of the reasons why the philosopher was so vehemently opposed to Christianity.
The German thinker argued that it is necessary to distinguish two classes of people. The first - people with a strong will to power, the second - with a weak will to power, they are just the absolute majority. Christianity, on the other hand, sings and puts on a pedestal the values inherent in the weak-willed, that is, those who, by their very nature, cannot become an ideologist of progress, a creator, and therefore will not be able to contribute to development, the process of evolution.
Superman must be completely freed not only from religion and morality, but also from any authorities. Instead, each person must find and accept himself. In life, he gives a large number of examples when people were freed from moral shackles in order to find themselves.
Superman in the modern world
In the modern world and philosophy, the idea of the superman is being returned more and more often. Recently, the so-called "self-made" principle has been developed in many countries.
The characteristic feature of such a principle is the will to power and selfishness, which is very close to what Nietzsche was talking about. In our world, a self-made person is an example of an individual who has managed to rise from the lower rungs of the social ladder, to achieve a high position in society and the respect of others due solely to his hard work, self-development, cultivation of his best qualities. In order to become a superman in our day,it is necessary to have a bright individuality, charisma, to differ from others with a rich inner world, which at the same time may not at all coincide with the norms of behavior that are considered generally accepted by the majority. It is important to have the greatness of the soul, which is not inherent in many. But this is what can give meaning to the very existence of a person, turn him from a huge gray faceless mass into a bright individual.
At the same time, one should not forget that self-improvement is a process that has no boundaries. The main thing at the same time is to never stop at the same place, always strive for something fundamentally new. Most likely, there are traits of a superman in each of us, as Nietzsche believed, but only a few are able to possess such willpower to completely abandon the moral foundations and principles accepted in society, to come to a completely different, new kind of person. And for creating an ideal person, this is only the beginning, the starting point.
At the same time, it is worth recognizing that the superman is still a piece of "goods." By their nature, there cannot be many such people, since in life there must always be not only leaders, but also followers who will follow them. Therefore, it is pointless to try to make everyone or an entire nation superhuman (Hitler had such ideas). If there are too many leaders, they will have no one to lead, the world will simply plunge into chaos.
In this case, everything can work against the interests of society, which should be interested in a promising and systematic evolutionary development, an indispensable movement forward, whichand be able to provide the superman.
