In August 1881, while taking a walk nearby a
woods, Nietzsche was suddenly struck with an idea, so struck that he spent the next 10 days
feverishly writing. The result is Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s philosophical
novel, in fact his only novel, which is also his most popular book. Many novelists and artists have
this experience when you are flooded with ideas. If you’re writing a novel, words just flow.
If you’re a painter, your brush just glide. If you’re religious, you might call it a divine
revelation but if you’re secular you might call it artistic flow. Nietzsche’s experience was
somewhat similar to a shamanistic experience when ideas, words, images, flood in and you
have no control over it. A kind of epiphany. It’s also important to note that Nietzsche
wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra in response to the death of god, in which he offers his
solution to nihilism that everything is meaningless. Humans have lost purpose.
Life has no inherent meaning anymore. In this video, I will try to set the record
straight by arguing that Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra explains how art can liberate us from
nihilism after the death of god. In other words, Nietzsche tries to replace god with
human artists, whom he call ubermensch. I will also explain the three main concepts in
the novel, eternal recurrence, will to power and ubermensch which is translated as overman,
over-human and even superman. I will also discuss why Nietzsche’s answer to nihilism
is art, and how artists like Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka and Charles Bukowski fit into
Nietzsche’s notion of Ubermensch, artists who transcended themselves. At the end I will respond
to Jorden Peterson’s criticisms of Nietzsche. God is dead.
For thousands of years, God or gods provided us humans psychological
protection, spiritual and emotional comfort, and a set of robust moral values and a clear
path for life and after-life. When there was a divine power above, humans didn’t have to worry
about meaning or purpose. Everything was set and all we had to do was follow his instructions and
everything was fine. But during the Renaissance starting in 15th century Europe, with the help
of discoveries made by science and technology, people explored the world and the cosmos to
realise that it was too simplistic to believe in god. The old stories of earth being at the
centre of the universe didn’t hold anymore. The European Enlightenment of the 18th century
that followed brought forward a set of robust and reasonable philosophical arguments against
the existence of god in favour of humans who could replace god if they were rational enough.
Humanism, a human-entered philosophy was born. Then in the 19th century, Darwin’s theory of
evolution by natural selection further damaged the idea of god and posited that humans were no longer
special, but just another species of animal. Nietzsche was bold enough to announce that
God was truly dead and we killed him. Quote: “Thus spoke the devil to me, once upon a time:
‘Even God has his hell: it is his love for man’. And lately I hear him say these words: ‘God
is dead: of his pity for man has God died’.” Now the father being dead, there is a power
vacuum where the sons and daughters have to work out a new set of values to guide them in
life. Without a chaperon humans would either destroy themselves or get lost in the wilderness.
Without God telling us what’s right and wrong, we humans have to reevaluate values
such as happiness, reason, virtue, righteousness and pity. Nietzsche is aware
that European philosophers have replaced god with rationality and put rational humans on the
pedestals. Just a side note, the solitude that came after the death of God is beautifully
depicted in One Hundred Years of Solitude, a novel by the Colombian author, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, in which a group of people move into a new town and start everything over, but after
a few generations they destroy themselves. However Nietzsche says there is a problem with
rationality. Two things can happen. It either leads to authoritarianism, in which the leaders
can employ reason to create their own values and rules, and subject everyone else to those rules
in a kind of self-referential way as if they’ve replaced god. This idea of a self-referential
being is brilliantly depicted in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, in which the protagonist
thinks he’s beyond all laws and morality. What does he do? He murders an old but rich
woman to use her money for build himself so he can change the world. Of course, Dostoevsky
was also against nihilism, so Raskolnikov ends up in Siberia to repent for his crime and seek
salvation inside the Bible. Nietzsche, however, doesn’t seek answer in religion. That story is
dead. You cannot revive a dead body, instead you have to find a new answer. So neither religion
nor rationality is the answer to nihilism. Rationality also leads us to utilitarianism,
meaning promoting actions, rules, policies and values that benefit the greatest number of people.
A good example is the concept of democracy, in which the majority rules, at least on
paper. Nietzsche has a very low opinion of the majority or crowd because for him, the
crowd is dull and lacks excellence, refinement, and greatness. Instead of promoting the best,
rational utilitarianism promotes the most. Instead of nourishing the brightest, it holds
them back until the stupidest can catch them. Quantity over quality. Plato also had a
similar problem with the Athenian democracy, akin to mob rule that killed one of the
greatest minds of Ancient Greece, Socrates. So Nietzsche and Plato both saw the majority rule
as something negative for a culture to flourish. Rationality also produces conformity, everyone
thinking, behaving and feeling the same way. If you’re a weird, strange, outsider, or think
outside the box, or you stick out as most artists do in some way, you’re hammered. Artists are
weird, often terrible people in person. There are many more examples. So rationality replaces
a single god with a single rational truth. Be it a scientific truth or political truth but the
idea is that nobody can challenge it. A kind of perfectionist rational utopia, very similar
to totalitarianism, like Fascism in Germany and Stalinism in Russia. Both were the products of
rationality and the belief to level the world in order to create their own rational utopias
based on a perfectionist vision of a single race in the case of Nazi Germany or a single
ideology in the case of Soviet socialism. In essence rationality is nothing but a
tool to achieve whatever your goal is. It could be something great and it also be
something terrible. Nietzsche’s criticism is that rationality is a crude tool when
it comes to human excellence or greatness. So to sum up. God is dead and the European
Enlightenment offered reason as a replacement for god and Nietzsche objected to that. Rationality
is a tool, it is not an end in of itself. It needs something else to give us humans a
purpose. Just like Dostoevsky did a few decades before Nietzsche. So what’s Nietzsche’s solution
to the problem of nihilism in the absence of god, if rationality is an inadequate answer?
Dostoevsky retuned to religion, a sort of modified christianity with some eastern flavour and peasant
wisdom as an answer to nihilism. Nietzsche thinks that boat has sailed. Religion is an old story,
so humans understand the world through the prisms of science. Once seen, it cannot be unseen. If
you’re exposed to science it is hard to convince yourself to return to religion. So what do you
do? He instead offers art as a solution to the death of god and nihilism. Okay, for the rest of
this video, I will explain how Nietzsche thinks art can replace god, as well as counter-balance
rationality to keep humanity from going mad, and how art can give humans
a genuine purpose in life. Zarathustra:
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a fictional story of a man called Zarathustra, based
on an ancient Persian prophet who is credited to be the founder of the first monotheistic religion,
called Zoroastrianism which divided the world into good and evil. Later on Judaism, Christianity and
Islam, all adopted monotheism from Zoroastrianism in the Middle East. For Nietzsche, the single-god
idea coupled with binary notions of good and evil were in essence created to enslave humanity
through uniformed thinking. You’re either good or evil. You’re either with us or
against us. Nietzsche also sees a parallel between monotheistic religions and western
philosophical tradition all the way back to Socrates who put emphasis on reason alone.
Rationality is good and passion is evil. Pre-Socratic Greeks had great literary tragedies
in which reason always went hand-in-hand with passion. Apollo the god of reason was
counter-balanced by Dionysus the god of wine or passion. But Socrates and later Aristotle
in particular introduced truth or a single truth which later fit perfectly in-line with the
Christian’s notion of single god to steer western philosophy in the wrong direction, according to
Nietzsche. Instead of promoting free thinking, it stifled artistic creativity, by suppressing
human nature and passion as ugly and animalistic. Only rationality and faith in God
were the correct way of understanding the world. So in this novel, which is
an act of literary revenge, Nietzsche takes Zarathustra,
the man who founded monotheism, single god and good and evil, and transforms
him into his own antithesis or his own enemy. Instead of believing in a single god and old
moral values of good and evil, Zarathustra, in this novel, believes that god is dead and he
is being replaced by a new kind of humans, which he calls Übermensch or overman who is capable
of creating his own values. But Übermensch, unlike being a self-referential rationalist,
is an artist or very close to an artist. Zarathustra too goes through a kind of
spiritual transformation. It’s important to note that Zarathustra is 40 years old. We see
countless novels and stories of men turning 40 and suddenly they have an existential or midlife
crisis. Dostoevsky wrote Notes from Underground at the age of 42 or 43. Nietzsche wrote this when
he was 37. It’s a precarious time in a man’s life, when the existential angst comes to a very
sharp focus and people reflect on life. So, Zarathustra spends 10 years in a mountain cave
to gain wisdom. Solitude was quite important for Nietzsche. Also for many novelists and artists,
solitude is immensely valuable in their creation. Charles Bukowski who was massively influenced
by Nietzsche loved his solitude. The same story with Kafka and Proust both spent hours and hours
sitting alone to make their artistic creation. Nietzsche didn’t believe in crowd wisdom in
the city. Instead he sends his protagonist, Mr Zarathustra to the mountains to be
alone inside a cave. As I said earlier, this idea came to Nietzsche in the woods,
not on a city street. So it all makes sense. Once Zarathustra is overflowing with wisdom,
he descends to the city. He tells people that god is dead. He also tells them about the
übermensch but as expected everyone laughs at him, thinking he is some mad dude talking bullocks.
It’s important because Nietzsche says, great men are always laughed at
by the stupid crowd. Disappointed, Zarathustra retreats to his cave. Back to nature.
For Nietzsche, nature is the source of wisdom, not cities or crowd. Elitist? You bet.
Nietzsche didn’t hide his elitism. In western Christian tradition, humans have
descended from the Garden of Eden to earth, therefore nature is often considered
as ugly, chaotic and even dirty. Christians see themselves as temporary
guests on this terrible planet, like exiled on an island and
waiting to return to heaven. Nietzsche however, more in line with Eastern
philosophy, thinks not only we are from nature, but we’re nature ourselves, therefore should
derive meaning not from the heavens but from nature. Life is full of suffering but also
joy. Nietzsche also criticised eastern religions, for example he rejected Buddhism for trying to
tame human desire. According to Buddhism, our desires are the root causes of our suffering. In
order to be content, one must temper their desire. Nietzsche says our desires allow us to take risks,
grow and overcome obstacles. Without desires, we would not do much. Nietzsche also criticised
Taoism and its idea of non-resistance. According to Taoism, you should go with the flow of nature.
Instead of going against the current, you should flow with the current. Don’t move obstacle
but avoid them, like water goes around a rock. Nietzsche says, to overcome and grow, hurdles are
necessary. Nothing grows without resisting. For Nietzsche, one must grow and increase power which
may come at the cost of pain and discomfort. Once Zarathustra returns to the cave, Nietzsche
introduces two important doctrines based on the laws of nature in order to teach Zarathustra. The
first doctrine is also the most misunderstood. It is will to power. Nietzsche’s will to power
was used by the Nazis to promote violence and repression of the weaker races as they
called. The second idea is eternal recurrence. So in the next parts of this video
I will explain each in more details. Will to power:
Nietzsche was influenced by the German philosopher of pessimism, Arthur Schopenhauer who argued that
every living thing has a will to live, but life itself is nothing but suffering. Nietzsche was
also aware of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection which also stated that there is
an innate will to survive in every living being. Nietzsche, however, thought that a will to live
or a will to survive is too weak, too passive and too cowardly. To make matters worse, Nietzsche
didn’t like the pessimism of Schopenhauer that life is nothing but suffering. Sure life has
its suffering, but also triumphs, achievement, excellence and artistic beauty. It’s important
to note that Arthur Schopenhauer was perhaps the most influential philosopher on 19th century
literature. Novelists like Tolstoy, Turgenev, Flaubert were hugely influenced by Schopenhauer.
Nietzsche was the most influential philosopher on the 20th century literature. Novelists
like Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Joyce, Marcel Proust and Bukowski all were
highly influenced by Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche argued that the most important law
of nature is not the will to live or survive, but to grow and expand. So will to power in
essence is to make the most of one’s life, not cry about suffering and pain, but to thrive despite of
pain and suffering in order to achieve greatness in any field, be it art, writing or science.
All living beings instinctively want to dominate others. This is by no means a positive or negative
thing, but how nature functions so it is amoral. I think power for Nietzsche was not equal to
physical force. A piece of music, or a novel, or watching some skilful person performing
something in of itself is powerful as it moves you when you listen to, read or watch it. It
doesn’t have the repressive consequences of let’s say political power, but it’s psychologically
and emotionally powerful nonetheless. For Nietzsche will to power can be channelled
in a creative way that promotes human greatness. For example an artist producing great works
of art is channeling his lust for power in the shape of a great painting, a piece
of music or a literary work like a novel. Nietzsche calls such people übermensch, who is not
a selfish man seeking power to suppress others, instead, to elevate others. Quote: “The
creator seeks companions, not corpses- and not herds or believers either. The creator
seeks fellow-creators.” In other words, the will to power is not to destroy others, but
bring them up and inspire them. That’s what a great piece of art does, be it a painting or a
novel. That’s why Nietzsche centres his vision on art, not politics, because politicians want
to control others like an authoritarian parent, while artists try inspire others to grow
beyond themselves like a nourishing parent. Eternal recurrence:
The second doctrine Nietzsche teaches Zarathustra is eternal recurrence.
This is much harder for Zarathustra to accept. To understand eternal recurrence we need to think
of time and matter in the universe. We understand that time is infinite. In the universe time never
ends. Matter, however, is not finite. So what happens when you have a finite amount of one thing
and infinite amount of another? The finite thing has to repeat itself over and over to make up for
being limited. Since time is infinite but matter in the universe is finite, everything is repeated
forever like a hamster wheel. That’s Nietzsche eternal recurrence, which is very similar
to the eastern cyclical notion of the world. This means, the sublime, the good, the bad and the
terrible are repeated endlessly in the universe. Of course the cycles are rare and happens after
millions or billions of years so to speak. This thought is incredibly depressing for
Zarathustra. How could it be that the terrible things are repeated again and again. If
you believe in a linear notion of time, you think everything is getting better
and we are moving towards perfection, but according to Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence
that is not so. In the grand scheme of things, everything is repeated. Zarathustra
finally comes to terms and accepts it. Quote: “And once you are awake,
you shall remain awake eternally.” So the two laws of nature are: will
to power meaning every being wants to grow and dominate their fields, be it an
artist or a scientist or even a bricklayer. Nietzsche would define humans not
as human being, but human becoming. Being is too passive. The second law is
eternal recurrence that everything is repeated perpetually. Now let me explain the journey of
ubermensch, or the hero’s journey so to speak. Übermensch
Nietzsche says humans are a rope between apes and Übermensch. Quote: “Man is
something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an
abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.” So Nietzsche believe in the
dynamic of change and growth. Being a human is a precariously dangerous place to be, so there is
every incentive to overcome this situation. For Nietzsche, great things don't come out of serenity
or peace, which religions tend to promote, but out of chaos and conflict, which is nature.
Quote: “I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.
I tell you: you still have chaos in you.” To become an ubermensch, he has to go through
three stages. First, the Übermensch is a human with a free spirit. You could say he has some
artistic sensibilities for beauty, because in the first step, he is charmed by a beautiful
dragon, which starts off the transformation process. Quote: “Three metamorphoses
of the spirit have I designated to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel
a lion, and the lion at last a child.” In the camel stage, he has to carry the
burden of others and most crucially learn the discipline of being a slave to
the societal norms and traditions. It is like becoming an apprentice to learn a
craft from a master. Perhaps I should give you a little cultural context. Apprenticeship is hugely
important in Germany. Without some experience as an apprentice, it is very hard to find a job in
the country. So even today, the value of learning on the job from someone with superior skills is an
essential step in someone’s career in any field. So being an apprentice is like being a camel,
you listen your superior. You leave your ego and listen. It’s like a wolf turning into
a tame, obedient dog. But as time passes, and he learns more, he wants to be free
or have the freedom to say no to others. He then turns into a lion, which allows him
to say no to the social norms and traditions. On the one hand, he’s liberated from his
social burdens, but on the other hand, there is a danger that he might turn nihilistic
in rejecting everything or hedonistic in only seeking his own pleasures and indulgences. There
is another character in the novel, called the Last Man who is stuck in a vicious circle of seeking
more and more pleasure and self-indulgence. He doesn’t exercise self-control. This is
similar to today’s consumerist madness, you work to buy, and work more to buy more,
which is a vicious cycle that never ends. So the Last Man only wants pleasure for
himself, but not give joy to others. To overcome the lion stage, übermensch goes
through another metamorphosis and becomes a child, symbolising creativity and innocence. At this
stage, he has the freedom to be creative. Quote: “In a real man there is a child hidden: it wants
to play.” This childish creativity allows him to be artistic and create new values for him. I read
somewhere that the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud thought, fiction writers, in writing
novels and stories, in fact, are mimicking how children play. So the process of creating
a piece of fiction or art is quite similar to how children play. So once he has achieved a level
of creativity and created new values for himself, he becomes Übermensch, often translated in English
as overman, overhuman or even superman who is capable of creating his own values but most
crucially he is also capable of sacrificing himself for others. I think the Nazis ignored the
sacrifice part, instead focused on growth only. Why is self-sacrifice important for Nietzsche? The
answer is in nature. Not Nietzsche, but nature. Mother nature:
Nietzsche uses many elements of nature such as the sun, and the seas throughout the novel
to symbolise the ideal metaphor for how to become übermensch. He is not created by God or some
other divine power, but he is from nature or he is nature in itself. For example he uses the sun
here. Quote: “You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew
if you have not first become ashes?” The idea of overcoming is in fact in a way destroying
the old self in order to rise again and anew. Nietzsche also clarifies Ubermensch as
an unselfish man, just like the sun who gives away light. Quote: “I love those who do
not know how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over.” Again, the
sun sets by going under, by lowering itself. Nietzsche thinks man is so
contaminated with old ideas, values and behaviours, often religious, that
it needs a complete transformation. He says: “In truth, man is a polluted river. One must be a
sea to receive a polluted river without becoming defiled. I bring you the übermensch! He is that
sea; in him your great contempt can be submerged.” When Zarathustra talks about übermensch, everyone
laughs at him. This is expected because the sun looks small to us down on earth. In other words,
great men are often misunderstood by the crowd, because they cannot understand them as they
are too far apart. Quote: “The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”
So great artists are sometimes not appreciated by most people around them, just as we see the
sun as a small circle in the sky. The fact that it’s over a million times bigger than earth
is hard to imagine. So the sun is a perfect metaphor for Nietzsche to describe his idea of
ubermensch or ideal artists and philosophers. Most religions, particular western religions,
tend to see the human body, natural instincts and desires as animalistic therefore bad or even
evil. Ubermensch, however, reverses all that. By overcoming his human or religious qualities,
he no longer shuns life, but celebrates life, celebrates the body, flesh and blood, and no
longer avoids danger, but confronts it. Quote: “There is more wisdom in your body than in your
deepest philosophy.” Ubermensch rejects the soul, pity, meekness and the divine because
those values do not exist in nature. Übermensch artist
So to sum up, Nietzsche’s Übermensch is in fact an artist who spends years perfecting
his craft in the camel stage, where he learns from past masters, socio-cultural norms and values,
but he is also bound by all those traditions. Then he breaks out of those boundaries and traditions
and becomes a kind of wild lion who roars. Quote: “But in the loneliest desert happens the second
metamorphosis: here the spirit becomes a lion; he will seize his freedom and be master in his
own wilderness.” In religion, you’re punished if you defy religious doctrine. In rational world,
you’re punished if you transgress its values. But Nietzsche seeks the total freedom to be
creative. Then his final phase is to be a child again so that he can be creative. Now
he has learnt his craft in the camel stage, he has learnt to say no to traditions in the
lion stage, and now he has to learn to be truly creative by creating new values. Once he
has done those things, he is truly an artist. Nietzsche says that all religions valued soul,
the divine, and afterlife, but condemned power, sex and selfishness and looked down on life,
especially the human body, and earth as ugly and base. Nietzsche argues that religious people
are too weak to embrace the raw nature, so they invented soft cushiony ideas to shield themselves.
Quote: “It was the sick and decaying who despised the body and earth and invented the heavenly realm
and the redemptive drops of blood: but they took even these sweet and gloomy poisons from body and
earth. They wanted to escape their own misery, and the stars were too far for them.” Nietzsche
speculates that founders of religious beliefs are those who were physically or psychologically
weaker individuals in their social circles, therefore invented stories about gods or relied
on something divine to empower themselves in this life or in the after-life, sort of
manifesting extra prestige for themselves, which promoted being weak as something good or
supporting the weak was the greatest virtue. Nietzsche says that is why most religions
tend to condemn physical side of human existence, such sex, brute force and physical
competitions, because those religious founders, lacked those natural qualities themselves.
As a somewhat physically weak person myself, mainly my height and strength, I’m drawn to
stories and fiction, instead of competing in the real world or accepting the harsh reality
of life. So I think Nietzsche has a point here. Nietzsche’s philosophy puts life, human body
and earth above all else. Humanism or democracy according to Nietzsche also promotes equality
for all, despite one’s ability and merit, and a weak mentality in which people are coddled and
insulated from risks and dangers. So übermensch is someone who lives dangerously, dances, creates
his own values, and loves body and life. This is beautifully depicted in Zorba the Greek by Nikos
Kazantzakis. Zorba is like a beautiful soul who plays his instrument and dances his way through
life. The perfect definition of a true artist. Not only an artist who creates art, or writes
novels, but he is also an artist of life itself. He’s spontaneous, a combination of the
Apollon rationality and a Dionysian passion. Nietzsche himself had an example of ubermesnch in
mind. His close friend and a brilliant composer, Richard Wagner, though later he criticised
him for his anti art sentiments, mistaken religious beliefs and his rough
music later on. I agree with Nietzsche, sometimes it is hard to listen to Wagner’s
music. Germans are blessed so many amazing musicians and composers and music sits very well
with science especially mathematics. I’m no expert in music as an art form so here I will talk about
literature, fiction in particular which is an art form. I will discuss one of the greatest
archetypal Nietzschean Übermensch artists, the French novelist, Marcel Proust. I have spoken
about him in two of my previous videos so I will not talk too much here. But I will say this.
Proust believed exactly as Nietzsche outlined in this novel. Proust spent decades trying to
be an artist. To bring it all a full circle, Proust’s novel, In Search of Lost Time, which
I think is the greatest novel in the whole world, is about childhood, creativity and
artistic legacy. Proust spent his entire life in pursuit of artistic excellence, a sacrifice
for humanity. Proust did something so wonderful in his novel, his protagonist managed to discover
something magical to defeat the decaying power of time. Involuntary memory is triggered when you
hear a sound, taste or touch or smell something from your past and that’s when your past self and
your present self melt into one and time stands still. The way Proust presents this
is magical, powerful and eye-opening. Another two novelists that I think come close to
Nietzsche’s idea of Ubermensch are Franz Kafka who was incidentally born in the same year as
Thus Spoke Zarathustra was published in 1883. And the other author I can think of is Charles
Bukowski. Just like Proust, they dedicated their lives to creating art, often ridiculed, or
lived tough lives because they went against the current. I have discussed all three novelists
extensively in separate videos. Also important to note all these three novelists were influenced
by the philosophy of Nietzsche. In fact, I’m going so far as to say that Nietzsche is perhaps
the most influential philosopher among novelists, and literature as a whole, especially in the
20th century. Nietzsche’s own style of writing is closer to literature than philosophy. I think
he was the most artistic philosopher, which on the one hand makes him incredibly creative, but on the
other hand makes him quite frustrating because he is open to all kinds of interpretations. A good
example is how the Nazis used his writings to promote fascism in Germany. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
itself is a beautiful piece of German literature. Nietzsche’s use of German language is incredible.
It’s also seen as novel that resembles a piece of music, with its rhythm and tempo mimicking
an opera. So Nietzsche not only was a great admirer of music, here he also deployed music in
his writing. Another example, I can think of is Gustave Flaubert who similarly used words as
if they were musical notes. There are also many wordplays such as his use of over and under,
which is hard to translate into other languages. That’s why we have many versions of ubermensch in
English as overman, over-human and even superman. Jordon Peterson’s criticisms: Jordon Peterson in a video puts forward a few
points of contention with Nietzsche’s übermensch. He argues that Freud and Jung’s psychoanalytical
works expose a few holes in Nietzsche’s philosophy. First Jung’s multiple personalities
means each individual hosts many personalities which manifest themselves at different times.
This also creates internal contradictions as you can hold contradictory views, values and so
forth. I think Nietzsche agrees with internal contradictions because he didn't regard order as
fundamental. He, in fact, criticised religions and rationality for focusing too much on order and
conformity. For Nietzsche chaos creates stars, so contradictions are necessary conditions for
Ubermensch to transform from. Ubermensch is not the result of happiness and contentment, but
the result of chaos and contradictions within an artist. If you compare artists and novelists
with the general public, you will find more artists who have great many personality flaws
and in some cases you might term it as madness. Peterson’s second point is that
human values are not created but discovered. I think Nietzsche agrees with that.
To explain this, let me give you an example. Many great artists and novelists talk about
a kind of revelation when it comes to their creative works. In fact Nietzsche himself got
the idea of this novel, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, somewhat suddenly and almost struck him like
some kind of moment of magic. Many fiction writers go into their den without knowing
much what they might write about. We call it discovery writing. So fiction writing in itself
is discovering. This is partly conscious and partly sub-conscious. Art is partly created
and partly discovered in the subconscious. In fact übermensch goes through a journey
of self-discovery and self-actualisation. Quote: “You have evolved from worm to man, but
much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the
apes.” Nietzsche says apes came down the trees and turned into humans and now humans return to
the mountains for some solitude to discover what’s underneath the conscious mind. So we have
inherited most of what makes us humans from apes and worms and those qualities are still present
in our deep subconscious, which once discovered, artists turn them into a beautiful work of
art, a painting, a novel or whatever else. If we evaluate today’s world, to some extent
we live in a kind of Nietzschean world. We admire great artists, artisans, scientists,
craftsmen who excel in their fields so much that their creation or process of creation in itself
is powerful and artistic. But we value those creations based on good and bad. Certain arts
are good, thus promoted. Certain arts are bad, therefore ignored or even banned. Nietzsche
had issues with this morality of good and bad. So the moral values of a society is like a
box that allows certain excellence to flourish and certain arts to be condemned and censored.
Like growing a watermelon inside a square box, it takes the shape of the box, therefore
morality itself restricts artistic creativity. Nietzsche wanted a natural freedom or instinctive
and impulsive freedom, letting nature take its own course without religious punishment or moral
outrage. Societal values of good and evil should not limit human possibilities. Today our dominant
value is equality. We’re born with certain physical specs, such as height, looks, cognitive
ability, physical specifications, health and so on which determine our ability to excel in certain
areas. So our belief in equality is not genuine and somewhat superficial. So for Nietzsche,
humans should be able to freely probe like tendrils of a climbing plant, without the fear
of religious banishment, or moral punishment. Of course Nietzsche was aware that individuals
were not equal and not everyone is capable of becoming ubermesnch, only a select few are
capable of creating art that transcend themselves. For Nietzsche there is room for those who return
to religion, and of course he calls them as weaker humans, but there is room for them nonetheless.
So not everyone can become great in their fields, be it music, literature, and painting, only a
handful are able to create something sublime. So Nietzsche is an elitist in his views
and he wants artists to have the freedom to move beyond good and evil and morality of his
age. That way, they can truly create genuine, profound, and great art that stands the test of
time. I guess this idea of greatness can apply to any field, be it cooking, or YouTube,
you can achieve greatness by aiming high. So to conclude this video, in the absence of
god, Nietzsche offers art as a solution to the nihilistic tendencies of modernity. The
reason for that is that rationality alone cannot give our lives a meaning, but rationality
combined with human passion that can give our life a deeper meaning and a purpose. Reason
and science provide us with physical comfort, but they cannot provide us with the same solid
existential or psychological anchor. But art and passion can. Great artists like Proust, Kafka
and Bukowski symbolise Nietzsche’s Ubermensch who overcame themselves to dedicate their lives,
through pain and suffering, to the service of art that benefited and inspired millions of their
readers around the world. In other words, we use their novels as mirrors to see ourselves and some
even find themselves through these artists’ works, which also inspire them to
follow in their footsteps. Thank you for watching.
