Man is a rope tied between beast and [superior man] - a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.
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 overture and a going under.
I love those that know not how to live except by going under, for
they are those who cross over.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great reverers,
and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for
going under and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the
earth, that the earth may some day become the [superior man’s].
I love him who lives to know, and wants to know so
that the [superior man] may live some day. Thus he wants to go under.
I love him who works and invents to build a house for the [superior man]
and to prepare earth, animal, and plant for him: for thus he wants to go under.
I love him who loves his virtue: for virtue is the will to go under, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who does not hold back one drop of spirit for himself, but wants to be entirely the spirit of his virtue: thus he strides over the bridge as spirit.
I love him who makes his virtue his addiction and catastrophe: for his virtue’s sake he wants to live on and to live no longer.
I love him who does not want to have too many virtues. One virtue is more virtue than two, because it is more of a noose on which his catastrophe may hang.
I love him whose soul squanders itself, who wants no thanks and returns none: for he always gives away, and does not want to preserve himself.
I love him who is abashed when the dice fall to make his fortune, and
who asks: “Am I a crooked gambler?” For he wants to perish.
I love him who casts golden words before his deed, and always does more than he promises: for he wants to go under.
I love him who justifies future and redeems past generations: for he wants to perish of the present.
I love him who chastens his God, because he loves his God: for he must perish of the wrath of his God.
I love him whose soul is deep even in being wounded, and who can perish of a small experience: thus he gladly goes over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgets himself, and all things are in him: thus all things spell his going under.
I love him who has a free spirit and a free heart: thus his head is only the entrails of his heart, but his heart causes him to go under.
I love all who are as heavy drops, falling one by one out of the dark cloud that hangs over men: they herald the advent of lightning, and, as heralds, they perish.
Behold, I am a herald of the lightning, and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called [superior man].
I get a moderate Good reading (?!) and I’m confused to get it because the morality the person is espousing seems wrong. I’m guessing this comes from someone’s writings about their religion, possibly an Eastern religion?
I get a moderate Good reading (?!) and I’m confused to get it because the morality the person is espousing seems wrong. I’m guessing this comes from someone’s writings about their religion, possibly an Eastern religion?
Walter Kaufman (Nietzsche’s translator here) prefers overman as the best translation of ubermensch.
ETA: This is some interesting commentary on the work
I’m surprised. I’d heard Nietzsche was not a nice person, but had also heard good things about him… huh. I’ll have to read his work, now. I wonder if the library has some.
Niezsche’s sister was an anti-semite and a German nationalist. After Nietzsche’s death, she edited his works into something that became an intellectual foundation for Nazism. Thus, he got a terrible reputation in the English speaking world.
It’s tolerable clear from a reading of his unabridged works that Nietzsche would have hated Nazism. But he would not have identified himself as Christian (at least as measured by a typical American today). He went mad before he died, and the apocryphal tale is that the last thing he did before being institutionalize was to see a horse being beaten on the street and moving to protect it.
To see his moral thought, you could read Thus Spake Zarathustra. To see why he isn’t exactly Christian, you can look at The Geneology of Morals. Actually, you might also like Kierkegaard because he expresses somewhat similar thoughts, but within a Christian framework.
To really see why he isn’t Christian, read The Antichrist.
The Christian conception of God—God as god of the sick, God as a spider, God as spirit—is one of the most corrupt conceptions of the divine ever attained on earth… God as the declaration of war against life, against nature, against the will to live! God—the formula for every slander against “this world,” for every lie about the “beyond”! God—the deification of nothingness, the will to nothingness pronounced holy!
As with what he wrote in Genealogy of Morals, it is unclear how tongue-in-cheek/intentional provocative Nietzsche is being. I’m honestly not sure whether Nietzsche thought the “master morality” was better or worse than the “slave morality.”
The sense I get—but note that it’s been a couple of years since I’ve read any substantial amount of Nietzsche—is that he treats master morality as more honest, and perhaps what we could call psychologically healthier, than slave morality, but does not advocate that the former be adopted over the latter by people living now; the transition between the two is usually explained in terms of historical changes. The morality embodied by his superior man is neither, or a synthesis of the two, and while he says a good deal about what it’s not I don’t have a clear picture of many positive traits attached to it.
The morality embodied by his superior man is neither, or a synthesis of the two, and while he says a good deal about what it’s not I don’t have a clear picture of many positive traits attached to it.
That’s because the superman, by definition, invents his own morality. If you read a book telling you the positive content of morality and implement it because the eminent philosopher says so, you ain’t superman.
I wouldn’t call him a fully sane person, especially in his later work (he suffered in later life from mental problems most often attributed to neurosyphilis, and it shows), but he has a much worse reputation than I think he really deserves. I’d recommend Genealogy of Morals and The Gay Science; they’re both laid out a bit more clearly than the works he’s most famous for, which tend to be heavily aphoristic and a little scattershot.
It’s easy to find an equally forceful bit by Nietzsche that’s not been quoted to death, really. Had AK recognized it, you would’ve botched a perfectly good test.
One more, then I’ll stop.
Man is a rope tied between beast and [superior man] - a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.
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 overture and a going under.
I love those that know not how to live except by going under, for they are those who cross over.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great reverers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going under and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth may some day become the [superior man’s].
I love him who lives to know, and wants to know so that the [superior man] may live some day. Thus he wants to go under.
I love him who works and invents to build a house for the [superior man] and to prepare earth, animal, and plant for him: for thus he wants to go under.
I love him who loves his virtue: for virtue is the will to go under, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who does not hold back one drop of spirit for himself, but wants to be entirely the spirit of his virtue: thus he strides over the bridge as spirit.
I love him who makes his virtue his addiction and catastrophe: for his virtue’s sake he wants to live on and to live no longer.
I love him who does not want to have too many virtues. One virtue is more virtue than two, because it is more of a noose on which his catastrophe may hang.
I love him whose soul squanders itself, who wants no thanks and returns none: for he always gives away, and does not want to preserve himself.
I love him who is abashed when the dice fall to make his fortune, and who asks: “Am I a crooked gambler?” For he wants to perish.
I love him who casts golden words before his deed, and always does more than he promises: for he wants to go under.
I love him who justifies future and redeems past generations: for he wants to perish of the present.
I love him who chastens his God, because he loves his God: for he must perish of the wrath of his God.
I love him whose soul is deep even in being wounded, and who can perish of a small experience: thus he gladly goes over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgets himself, and all things are in him: thus all things spell his going under.
I love him who has a free spirit and a free heart: thus his head is only the entrails of his heart, but his heart causes him to go under.
I love all who are as heavy drops, falling one by one out of the dark cloud that hangs over men: they herald the advent of lightning, and, as heralds, they perish.
Behold, I am a herald of the lightning, and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called [superior man].
I know very little about Nietzsche, but I recognized this instantly because the first three lines were quoted in Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. :-)
I get a moderate Good reading (?!) and I’m confused to get it because the morality the person is espousing seems wrong. I’m guessing this comes from someone’s writings about their religion, possibly an Eastern religion?
Walter Kaufman (Nietzsche’s translator here) prefers overman as the best translation of ubermensch.
ETA: This is some interesting commentary on the work
I’m surprised. I’d heard Nietzsche was not a nice person, but had also heard good things about him… huh. I’ll have to read his work, now. I wonder if the library has some.
Niezsche’s sister was an anti-semite and a German nationalist. After Nietzsche’s death, she edited his works into something that became an intellectual foundation for Nazism. Thus, he got a terrible reputation in the English speaking world.
It’s tolerable clear from a reading of his unabridged works that Nietzsche would have hated Nazism. But he would not have identified himself as Christian (at least as measured by a typical American today). He went mad before he died, and the apocryphal tale is that the last thing he did before being institutionalize was to see a horse being beaten on the street and moving to protect it.
To see his moral thought, you could read Thus Spake Zarathustra. To see why he isn’t exactly Christian, you can look at The Geneology of Morals. Actually, you might also like Kierkegaard because he expresses somewhat similar thoughts, but within a Christian framework.
To really see why he isn’t Christian, read The Antichrist.
As with what he wrote in Genealogy of Morals, it is unclear how tongue-in-cheek/intentional provocative Nietzsche is being. I’m honestly not sure whether Nietzsche thought the “master morality” was better or worse than the “slave morality.”
The sense I get—but note that it’s been a couple of years since I’ve read any substantial amount of Nietzsche—is that he treats master morality as more honest, and perhaps what we could call psychologically healthier, than slave morality, but does not advocate that the former be adopted over the latter by people living now; the transition between the two is usually explained in terms of historical changes. The morality embodied by his superior man is neither, or a synthesis of the two, and while he says a good deal about what it’s not I don’t have a clear picture of many positive traits attached to it.
That’s because the superman, by definition, invents his own morality. If you read a book telling you the positive content of morality and implement it because the eminent philosopher says so, you ain’t superman.
I wouldn’t call him a fully sane person, especially in his later work (he suffered in later life from mental problems most often attributed to neurosyphilis, and it shows), but he has a much worse reputation than I think he really deserves. I’d recommend Genealogy of Morals and The Gay Science; they’re both laid out a bit more clearly than the works he’s most famous for, which tend to be heavily aphoristic and a little scattershot.
It’s easy to find an equally forceful bit by Nietzsche that’s not been quoted to death, really. Had AK recognized it, you would’ve botched a perfectly good test.
It’s being a long time since I read that… I guess Nietzsche wouldn’t have found “moderation in all things” too appealing...
Cute.