The Übermensch (Overhuman) is one of the most repeated, misunderstood, abused, and misused terms in the thinking-philosophizing of Nietzsche. In some translations, the German word ‘Übermensch’ is translated as ‘overhuman’; in others, as ‘superhuman’, and in others, as either ‘superman’ or ‘overman’.
‘Über’ as ‘over’, and not as ‘super’, conveys, suits, and thus brings close to Nietzsche’s philosophizing to a greater degree because it is connected with other notions lying at the heart of Nietzsche’s thought, which are overcoming and going under. ‘Mensch’ as ‘human’, and not as ‘man’, is that toward which Nietzsche is thinking-philosophizing because what is at issue in Nietzsche’s writings about this notion is the development of humans in general, and not the growth of a specific gender, despite Nietzsche’s problematic aphorisms and prejudices.
The Übermensch (Overhuman) as a thought, notion, or promise is concerned with the cultural, spiritual, and physiological development of humans. The overhuman knows no finality concerning its development or growth; it is a constant attempting at further development and growth; it is not a stage at which growth stops but rather a continuous overcoming of what has already been reached and that which is reachable; it does not bring development to an end, but thinks of it in terms of its endlessness.
In the thinking-philosophizing of Nietzsche, to refuse growth, to think of development as having a limit, a final boundary, or to aim to attain some fixity concerning how and what humans are, is not to be an overhuman, for being an overhuman necessarily requires a constant overcoming of what has already been culturally, spiritually, and physiologically attained. That is to say, even the overhuman itself sees itself as a passage toward still unattained and unthought-of further development and growth. It overcomes itself, constantly.
Self-overcoming defines the overhuman. The overhuman is constantly leaving itself behind, toward another version of itself, toward another self, only to leave it behind again toward other selves, other versions. This continuous leaving behind of a self toward a higher self confirms the “ethics” and “poetics” of the overhuman.
In the writings of Nietzsche, the overhuman brings us face to face with a paradox, which is that the overhuman is not something unrealizable, unreachable, or unobtainable, that is to say, it is not an impossibility, and yet we cannot simply be it. It is reachable but still not within our reach. It is obtainable and yet unobtainable by us. It is realizable but all of our realizations will inevitably fall short of it.
It is a possibility in this world; it lies within this life, and yet it demands another way of life, another founding of the world, a destruction of a world, and an overturning of a way of life. It is not beyond this world but only arises in the destruction of this world, of how it is, and perhaps of how it has always been. It is not an after-life but shines only in leading thought and existing into what is different from the dominant ways of living. It is within this life and yet still absent from it.
It shines, calling upon us, in leading thought and existing toward an otherness of thinking and being. This leading toward other ways of living happens by confirming life itself, that is to say, lifeness. The overhuman is a way of being that is concerned with life, with living, with confirming this world.
But in the thinking-philosophizing of Nietzsche, this confirming of life passes through the overcoming of oneself, which takes place by squandering the self, by bringing destruction to oneself, by welcoming danger while knowing that destruction, self-destruction, lies, as a possibility, in every danger.
That is to say, affirming life happens by going under, for in every going-under, there lies the possibility of going higher, toward a different human being, toward another way of being.
The overhuman affirms and is constantly affirming life. There is freedom in this constant affirming of life. The free spirits are passages leading to the overhuman. Passages are preparatory; they prepare and make ready. The overhuman is not here yet, according to Nietzsche, but such free spirits are already here, thinking about their freedom, about freeing themselves from the human being in its current form. They know that this form is only an imposition.
The free spirits are already en route to another form of humanity, another way of life, the form and way of the overhuman. They are free and freeing. They are thus already elsewhere, carrying out the leading, of us, from the dominant now/here, toward that which is rejected and warned against by those who see in the now/here the end of things, the completion of humanity, and the closure of history.
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