He's famous for writing about the philosophy of a "Superman", his vision of the ideal man. It's like he was writing about me before I was even born. We're not talking about Superman the superhero, but rather Superman, as a vision of the potential greatness in man.
I read some articles on it and shit was deep. Very similar to Ayn Rand's writings, I now see where she got here inspiration from. He bashes religion and society, and reasons for the individualism in man.
Some excerpts from the articles I read:
A Superman is constantly changing and in a state of rebirth and growth. He determines what is good and what is evil, not allowing religion or society to determine these things for him. The Superman finds his happiness in this way. He uses a reason that is independent of the modern values of society or religion. He determines his own values. This creation of his own values gives him joy, and in order for the Superman to cope with a changing world, the Superman must constantly change. This constant state of change is a constant source of joy, leaving little or no room for suffering.
A Superman does not believe in an afterlife or the power of the soul over the body because he does not believe in religion and has no proof of an afterlife or a God. Therefore, he makes the most out of this life, not depending on a reward in Heaven or a punishment in Hell for what he has done on Earth.
A Superman, according to Nietzsche has reached a state of being where he is no longer affected by "pity, suffering, tolerence of the weak, the power of the soul over the body, the belief in an afterlife, the corruption of modern values".
I found it fascinating that I have gone through all of those phases, which I blogged about in my Super Saiyan 2 post.
The full article is here: Nietzsche's Superman
Here are some other parts that I liked:
Mankind, in order to justify its existence, has always required some belief in a higher purpose in life. People are never satisfied with the notion that there is no meaning in anything they do or accomplish. Without such a belief, life becomes impossible to bear as the question asked by nihilism is continually before one, "why live at all?"
The superman is someone who in discovering himself also discovers that it is in his best interests to reject any outside notions about values, trusting rather what he finds within himself. He creates his own good and evil, based on that which helps him to succeed or fail. In this way good is something which helps one to realize his potential and evil is whatever hampers or stands in the way of this effort.
Since to Nietzsche everything in the world, including good and evil, is transitory everything is being continually reinvented. The superman embraces this idea of change which to him appears evident, he understands the fact that since there is nothing in the world which is permanent whatever exists must eventually be overcome by something else which comes along. Seeing himself and his values in the same light he knows that these aspects must also be overcome by something stronger if not by him than by someone or something else. So in order to keep up with the times he continuously reinvents himself over and over always building something stronger, more powerful, on top of what went before. The superman therefore is the ideal of someone who has mastered the practice of overcoming himself.
One of the areas in which Nietzsche’s philosophy lacks is that to have any belief in it one must also come to grips with the fact that after death there is nothing more, the best we can hope for is to accomplish as much as we can while we live. This idea makes many uneasy, as the thoughts of at one point being then at another not being can be a frightening prospect. This is the gap which Christianity fills, it tells us that there will never be a point at which an individual ceases to exist, though he may change forms, he never dies. For some this is enough to justify the requirements which Christianity lays on them. But an argument may be made that the idea of an afterlife in a doctrine betrays a fundamental weakness as there is no empirical evidence for it, it could be nothing more than a tempting lure for those afraid of death. It exists and survives only through this key element, this reinventing of the world in a way which can not either be proved or disproved, by placing itself at the center of it. So if the concept of God is broken then nothing else about the system holds true. For the superman since there is no proof of an afterlife it would then be a fatal mistake to assume it exists only because someone says so. For him, since there is no afterlife, to do anything other than make the most of this life would be unthinkable.
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