Moral and Overman - Study based on: Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with a Hammer By Friedrich Nietzsche

Résumé du document

“There are more idols than realities in the world. […] This time it is not contemporary idols but eternal idols that are being touched here with the hammer as if with a turning fork”. This “revaluation of all values”, an expression that Nietzsche would use numerous times in his oeuvre, enables him to present his personal conception of what “true” morality could be. Doing so, he also gives an insight into his perception of what could be a superior life, a life in which man would not be bound to any moral, but in which he could express himself freely and then realize his potential. But this superior way of living can only be achieved by the overman that Nietzsche characterizes in Ecce Homo as: “A type that has turned out supremely well, in antithesis to “modern” men, to “good men”, to Christians and other nihilist.” Thus, Nietzsche defines the overman regarding to the ones who represent the “wrong” morality he loathes (i.e. any morals that tend to enslave men or at least weaken them).

Extraits

[...] The great person is an end: the period of greatness, for example the Renaissance, is an end. The genius his works, in his deeds- is necessarily z squanderer: his greatness lies in his expenditure [ ] People call this ‘self-sacrifice'; they praise his ‘heroism', his indifference towards his own well-being, his devotion to an idea, a great cause, a fatherland: all of these are misunderstandings [ ] But because we owe a great deal to such explosives, we have given them a great deal in return, too, for example a kind of higher morality For that is how humanity expresses its gratitude: it misunderstands its benefactors.-”[31] “Throughout the ages the wisest of men have passed the same judgment on life: it is no good From this statement with which Nietzsche starts Twilight of the Idols (it comes just after the “Maxims and and the critic which follows and introduces the notion of décadence and of declining types, we can already guess that the idea of life that the philosopher will present us is probably not a happy one. [...]

[...] Maxims and Barbs, 10th, pp Ibid. What I Owe The Ancients, Section pp. 80-81 Ibid. Reconnaissance Raids of an Untimely Man, Section 5 Eliot”, pp.45 Ibid. The Four Great Errors, Section pp Ibid. The Four Great Errors, Sections pp. [...]

[...] Ironically, what is supposed to be the greatest of all virtues in Christian moral is the most denigrated by the philosopher. For him, charity is nothing but the expression of a certain pity, a certain condescension that someone strong should not have to feel. To compare, the accepted meaning of charity is a “loving kindness towards others; it is held to be the ultimate perfection of the human spirit, because it is said to both glorify and reflect the nature of But Nietzsche does not share this point of view and rather enounces that: “Christianity, [ represents the counter-movement to any morality of breeding, of pedigree, of privilege is the anti-Aryan religion par excellence: Christianity is the revaluation of all Aryan values, the triumph of Chandala values, the gospel preached to the poor and the lowly, the total revolt of everything downtrodden, miserable, ill-begotten, botched, against ‘pedigree' immortal revenge of the Chandala as religion of love We can notice that the image of something downtrodden has already been used in the thirty-first aphorism in “Maxims and Barbs”, the first chapter of Twilights of the Idols, to illustrate the notion of humility. [...]

[...] According to Nietzsche: fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought throws itself on rationality betrays a crisis: they were in danger, they just had one choice: either perish or absurdly rational The danger was that “everywhere the instincts were in anarchy; everywhere people were a few steps away from excess”, and for this reason people were looking for counter-tyrant” who would save them all from what was promised to be a decadent future. But it was: self-deception on the part of he philosophers and moralists to believe that in waging war on décadence they are already emerging from it. It is beyond their power to emerge from it [ ] Socrates was a misunderstanding; the entire morality of improvement, Christianity's included, was a misunderstanding [ ] To have to fight against the instincts –this is the formula for décadence: so long as life is ascendant, happiness equals instinct. [...]

[...] First, it has to be remarked that unlike many philosophers, Nietzsche never tried to prove or disprove the existence of God as this is not relevant in his mind. If he is criticizing religion in such a harsh way it is because he is persuaded that belief in God creates depravation and prevents man from achieving highest goal. Hence, for the revaluation of values he advocates, the proclamation of the death of God was a fundamental ingredient. Second, Nietzsche is not critical only of the Christian moral, but of all morals that tend to enslave man, to weaken him. [...]