Nietzsche: Anti-Volksgeist and the Ultimate Zeitgeist

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Volksgeist in German means the “national character” or the spirit of the people, while zeitgeist the spirit of time. Nietzsche, a fighter against his own age, eventually becomes the emblem of his time. He dislikes equality and freedom in democracy, saying they are the remnant of Christian weakness and a squelching of the best of human nature. He’s against Kant’s concept of duty contending that the love of following a strict moral rule is a symptom of obedience and the rejection of the 'will to power'. He opposes Bentham’s utilitarian contentment for the pursuit of 'happiness', a passive denial of life and a state more like that of a herd-animal than a human being. Nietzsche advocates Master morality that issues from a self-reinforcing, self-governing, creative and commanding mindset that label everything like oneself as “good” and other plebeian trait “bad”; as opposed to the one of reactive subordinate “ressentiment” of slave morality that excuse one’s inferiority and failure on a noble and powerful external object as the scapegoat and label it as “evil”, while the opposite of it like oneself as “good”. Nietzsche claims that to be a truly free agent is to be causa sui, the cause of oneself, not the reactive response to the outside stimuli. Only the Ubermensch, or over-human, could achieve that. Nietzsche begins his premise with the assumption that God does not exist, thus objective morality and inherent value are not possible since there is no ultimate being. Nietzsche's Ubermensch will act as one’s own God, giving oneself morality. The Ubermensch is neither slave or master of others. The Ubermensch is an independent individual who has the power to banish herd instincts from his mind and become a master with self restraint and di... ... middle of paper ... ...espoused by his sister in Nazi propaganda). Striving to reach the highest possible position in life is the ultimate goal of the will to power, and is in fact itself a manifestation of the will to power. Above all, the Ubermensch is the next step in human evolution. Every human must deal with the question "What is the meaning of life"- some say God and Heaven, others say ultimate objective virtue, but the Ubermensch will give life value that is not based on superstition or mystical folly. The Ubermensch finds value in his life experience because it cannot be reasoned out through argument and logic. The Ubermensch would say that the meaning of life is that you die, so make it valuable. The Ubermensch is the opposite of Jesus Christ. The Ubermensch is the ultimate realization of the Will to Power, but no necessarily over others. His most valuable power is over himself.

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