Existentialism by Aho Kevin

Author:Aho, Kevin [Aho, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: EBC Converted
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

to an absolute moral authority, and it for this reason that ‘God's death’ is a cause for celebration. It provides an opening for what Nietzsche calls the

‘overman’ ( Übermensch).

The Übermensch is a reference to a human ideal in a post-Christian,

post-nihilistic future. Nietzsche describes him as one

who will redeem us as much from the previous ideal as from what was

bound to grow out of it, from the great disgust, from the will to

nothingness, from nihilism, this midday stroke of the bell, this toll of great decision, which once again liberates the will, which once again gives the

earth its goal and man his hope, this Antichristian and Antinihilist, this

conqueror of God and of nothingness – he must come one day. (1996, II, 24)

The Übermensch is a “Yes-sayer,” one who embodies the principle of

“amor fati” by loving and affirming his life as a whole (1995, 276). He is true to himself because he accepts the world as it is without the support of moral absolutes and owns up to all of the unique and idiosyncratic

qualities that make him the person that he is, all of his strengths and

weaknesses, everything that has been and will be in his life. In The Gay

Science, Nietzsche describes the kind of courage that is required for the total embrace of one's life with a powerful thought experiment that he

calls the ‘doctrine of eternal recurrence’:

What if one day or one night a demon slinked after you into your loneliest

loneliness and said to you: “This is life, as you live it now and as you have lived it, you will have to live it once more and countless times more. And

there will be nothing new about it, but every pain and every pleasure, and

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every thought and sigh, and everything unspeakably small and great in

your life must come back to you, and all in the same series and sequence.

… The eternal hourglass of existence [is] turned over and over again – and

you with it, you mote of dust.” If that thought took control of you, it

would change you as you are, and maybe shatter you. (341)

On Nietzsche's account, most of us would be ‘shattered’ by this doctrine.

The thought of living through the fears, disappointments, and monotony of

our lives over and over for eternity is too much to bear. This is why we

don't overcome ourselves. We are unwilling to accept and carry the weight

of our own lives. We conform to the bourgeois norms of the crowd, doing

what ‘they’ do. But the Übermensch does not recoil from the demon; he responds, “You are a god and I have never heard anything more godlike”

(341).

For Nietzsche, by embracing the world and owning up to our fate in this

way we are able to impart a unique aesthetic style to everything we do,

creating our own identity and life story as if it were a work of art (e.g.,

Nehamas 1985). It is ‘giving style’ to life that is, for Nietzsche, the one

thing that is needed in order to be true to oneself:

‘Giving style’ to one's character – a

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