Key concepts

Originally posted on a demonstration website called adamintaegerard.com (it's me)!

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The Last Man – Nietzsche’s Boogeymen – complacent, non-creative, conformist, average, non-individualistic, “herd-like”, ideologies and judgement they have (perhaps unintentionally) rejected, they seek happiness and nothing else, and they accept other-worldly hopes.

Overhuman – Both a literal evolutionary state (biological) and an ethical state characterized by extreme and unfettered creativity and individualism – a being that transcends the limitations of (normal) human beings with an unwavering affirmation of life. Nietzsche gives a few (proto) examples: Christ, Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Napoleon.

Will-to-Power – On one reading, an intrinsic drive or force shared by all things in their quest to overcome themselves. Perhaps, a somewhat mystical interpretation of Darwinian evolutionary processes. My two cents: Nietzsche ascribed a kind of deep metaphysical force or power to all things in nature because concepts like “self-organization” did not yet exist (which explains, without positing a kind of sentience or directedness how various “levels” of information become increasingly more complicated – like non-living matter into organisms, organisms into more complicated organisms, and so on).

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Overcoming – The production of new values (systems of judgment and the belief systems that surround them). But isn’t that contradictory? “I thought Nietzsche was opposed to systems”, you might ask. Well, Nietzsche doesn’t seem to really care much about logical consistency insofar as he thought that frameworks like classic logic where symptomatic of slave morality. Nietzsche admired those who created values and belief systems and had disdain for those who followed them. And really that’s altogether too crass and simple an interpretation of his philosophy. I would say that he puts the emphasis on the act of creation (of those systems) and sees systems as being little more than things to overcome (perhaps relics of human thinking to be discarded and left behind upon the transition and culmination of the Overhuman). Part of the problem is trying to force Nietzsche into tidy logical categories – that’s either a virtue or a vice depending on who you ask. Personally, I’m totally guilty of inherent systemic thinking – it’s my default way of navigating the world.

Values – Evaluations and judgements. Matters of aesthetic taste (and other such value-laden judgments).

Highest Value – Insofar as we’re concerned with value, what’s the most valuable thing? Presumably the act of creating value itself. While not objective, it is perhaps a universal standard by which others can be judged.

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Otherworldly Hopes – Grand Meta-Narratives or teleogies. Stories that structure existence into a story about a beginning and an inevitable end (and through that assign meaning and purpose the way a plot runs to its conclusion). Nietzsche picked out Marxism (with its story of class warfare or clash of dialectics and the inevitable revolution of the proletariat and the ultimate triumph of communism), Christianity (with its story of Genesis, the perpetual war between Satan and God over humanity, and the inevitable apocalyptic triumph of God), Platonic philosophy (with the posit of an immaterial Platonic heaven of ultimate Forms whose knowledge of is achieved by the Philosopher King), even Scientism (that there is an ultimate end-point in which all of the world can be known and that humans are capable of objectivity and reason coming to achieve such through the slow march of “progress” and “enlightenment”). These stories exist to give slaves a means by which to compensate for their powerlessness in the face of harsh and unforgiving circumstances.

The Death of God – A point where humanity has thrown away the concept of God after coming to understand the circumstances in which such beliefs came about. But it doesn’t’ stop there. Truth, absolutes, objectivity (which all, to some extent, according to Nietzsche derive from our concept of God) are likewise undermined. Reason and inquiry eventually turn back on themselves and challenge the very foundations upon which they rest. Skepticism is the stark answer and lays bare the fact that they are without justification, evidence, or foundation.

Eternal Recurrence – A thought-experiment and test to determine how close one is to becoming the Overhuman. The Overhuman is not just some evolutionary state achieved in biology – for Nietzsche it’s a spiritual and ethical state as well (this is perhaps a point of significant conflation). Would you say be happy to live your same life over and over again, unendingly? More importantly, would you be happy with each and every moment of that life? Could you embrace life and every aspect of it whether painful or beautiful, cruel, or inspiring?

Perspectivism – The position that human knowledge and experience are at most incomplete perspectives and perhaps that objective reality is unknowable because of that.

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Transhumanism – I define this as the position that humanity is a transition point and not a final stopping point in evolutionary terms. The explicit endorsement and dissemination of that view. A rejection of the implicit assumption that current humans are the sole beings within and the only concern of the end-goal of political and ethical theory.

Posthumanism – I take this to be the position that humanity will or ought to be superseded or upgraded into some future organic, digital, cybernetic, mechanical (or some combination of those) system whose capacities, norms, beliefs, and so on far exceed and are very different from those found in Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Presumably, such future beings would not be limited in the same way current humans are and would not exhibit humanity’s present flaws/vices.

Master/Slave Morality – An archaic distinction found throughout Hegelian, Nietzschean, and other German philosophical contemporaries. An attempt to explain differences in norms, ethical systems, and beliefs. For Nietzsche, the Slave is “bovine” and herd-like. Conquered and defeated by cunning, amoral, masters and resentful of their plight, they invent elaborate stories to compensate for their weakness and plight. According to Nietzsche, their morality is one of resent and revenge as opposed to the life-affirming morality of masters (who are inclined to just be their “true” animal selves). Incapable of defeating the Romans and other oppressors, early Jews invented Divine Wrath and a Vengeful God as a means to channel their outrage and anger. Incapable of Overcoming the political turbulence of political Athens, Socrates and Plato invented Platonic Metaphysics and claimed that only they were the rightful heirs to knowledge and political power. Incapable of overpowering the ruling capitalist class, the workers contrived Marxian philosophy with its promise of their eventual revenge (revolution) and rule. This crass distinction was criticized by Nietzsche himself who noted that we, insofar as we’re still humans and not Overhumans, are all differing mixtures of both. One key component that appears in most slave moralities in the idea of egality which according to Nietzsche is a deliberate attempt to suppress individual greatness and keep everyone at the same level as the herd.

Some, of course, have pointed out that Nietzsche’s philosophy may itself be an exemplar par excellence of the very slave morality he condemned.

Part Six