Some preliminary thoughts and questions concerning an exposition of the übermensch
What is it for a person to stand to man as man stands to ape? Is it a natural occurrence, or is it rather something attainable? something which can be reached with a certain practice, a diligence and discipline, a status? Can there be such a thing as an aspiring, fledgling übermensch, or is it rather something that you either are, forever, or are not, and never will be? If it is the former, Nietzsche offers us an extreme form of a self-help goal; a process of edification is formed, whereby we can improve ourselves towards this end. If it is the later, are we not left with a concept which more closely resembles the Nazi Aryan ideal? To put it crudely, can a human become Superman, or must one be an alien, like Clark Kent?
Perhaps there is a pro-determinist or fatalist argument in favour of the latter view; if you're an übermensch, you always have been, always will be, whether or not you want to be! Even if we don't ascribe to the latter view, the determinist is probably committed to the notion that whether one can become an übermensch is ultimately beyond our will, as product of the chaotic swirl of cause and effect. Perhaps our definition of übermensch is tautologically chiasmic, of the form "the übermensch is a man, a man who is an übermensch".
I think it's most clear that Nietzsche holds the former view; otherwise, why present the idea? What would Zarathustra's purpose be? We certainly don't want to paint Zarathustra as a period-prototype of Adolf Hitler. When he first comes down from his mountain, why do the common folk laugh? What is it that they misunderstand? Is it, as fundamentally decent people, they perceive Zarathustra's polemic as an argument in favour of the latter view - and thus ridicule and reject it (especially since the appearance of some mountain hermit espousing a genetic supremacy would be ridiculous), or is it rather that they are supposed to simply lack the potential, the vision and the aspiration to dream of a greater state of being, and thus reaffirm the importance of the status, the difficulty of attaining it, and the general slave morality contracting and restricting their ambition?
It seems the übermensch is meant to have attained a particular form of gradient enlightenment. Once realizing this beyond-common-man potential, a mountain appears before the agent, begging to be climbed; the mountain of overcoming slave morality, of seeing the potential of becoming one's own definition of nobleman, of reaching out to some before-unseen realm of possibilities, strengths and powers. Much like the Hindu conception of Moksha, in which one is at once liberated from the illusory nature of everyday living and at the same time presented with a new range of challenges to overcome. This is the view that wisdom is a gradient. Much like a video game, or a sports league, the higher the plateau of wisdom, the greater the challenges. An aphorism to express this:
Your ability increases, but your win-rate never improves
So, you find yourself in a competitive sports league. Over time, you hone your skills, increase your knowledge of the game and its potentials for strategy. Eventually, you reach the top of your league, having the ability and reputation to conquer all opponents within that league. So, you move up to a higher league, where you will be faced with tougher opponents, ones more in line with your ability. So, whilst the quantity of leagues below your position always increases as your ability improves, the opponents against whom you will be most frequently matched always pose roughly the same level of challenge. Your ability increases, and the distance between you and the worst player increases, but the frequency of your victories in the sport is pretty much static.
With this in mind, can we not picture an ever-rising mountain, of which the peak is forever visible and at once forever unreachable? Let's take a look at how man stands to chimp, so we might understand how this means the übermensch stands to man.
For the chimp, the role in his group is fixed; it may change over time given unforeseen circumstances and growths. But a chimp's strength and ability to lead is determined by the actions he necessarily performs as he moves through the forest. His gym is his activity. He makes no clear and explicit effort to guarantee his movement upwards through the hierarchy; rather, whether or not he can conquer a rival is already waiting in his muscles.
For the human then, we stand above the chimp in such a way as we proactively seek to better our position; we train, we study, we practice, beyond the realm of necessity.
So how might an übermensch stand above man in this same way? At first it might be tempting to define it as the capacity to realize there is a mountain, a climb. But we all already know this; life is an uphill struggle. So for us to rise above this, what might it look like? Perhaps it lies in the general ignorance of the common man to the fact that the peak can never be reached; an obliviousness pervading the drive to climb. If this is the case, then the übermensch is that individual who has proactively contemplated the fact that the goal is unreachable, absurdly far away; the redundance and pointlessness pf the climb, but finds itself climbing on regardless; to realize a kind of nihilism, and to spit directly in its face.
The übermensch realizes that his only opponent and obstacle is god; and god is laughing at the futility of his struggle. The übermensch feeds from the laughter of the gods; he swallows the humiliation whole, and his muscles swell with divine protein. He cuts through the mountain to make his own, attainable peaks. He leans back, looks down the mountain, sees the abyss, and laughs - all the while knowing that he could, if he wanted to, let go and fall; he will climb until he can't grip any longer, and once his fingers give way, he will take his leave with gratitude and accomplishment. He grins at Silenus the demon, charging him with a new wisdom. The regular man, on the other hand, clings on for dear life - he doesn't want to fall; he wants to reach the peak, and he thinks he will, one day. He doesn't set his own boundary, he adheres to the prescribed, impossible summit, and is terrified when he looks down at the abyss. How much this might say about slave morality, nobility, and the eternal return!
