Nietzsche’s Superman: The Three Transformations
Author: Nietzsche’s philosophy presents a radical critique of idealistic and positivistic reason, and a defense of the values of life. His nihilistic vitalism was a strong reaction against any form of rational thought, against all dogmatic systems of concepts and values, and all forms of social, political, or economic collectivism. His vitalism led him to affirm life as the ultimate nature of all reality. The life instinct manifests as spontaneous, constant struggle and constant change, and therefore cannot be defined; it is beyond concepts. Nihilism is the term used to describe the history of Western culture: based on nothing. Western history is the history of decline, the denial of the true values of life. The history of Western culture is the triumph of commoners’ values, the morals of slaves over the values of aristocratic master morality. It is the triumph of Christian morality: a universal and uniform herd morality, the result of resentment towards life.
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche presents the creator of Manichaeism (Zoroaster), who contrasts good and evil, as a spokesperson for the death of God and a prophet of the Superman and the eternal return. The death of God signifies the release of a great burden that overwhelms man, the weight of the idea of an afterlife, a transcendent objective. It will allow the creation of new values and the coming of a new type of man: the Superman.
The Three Transformations of the Spirit
Topic: The three transformations through which the spirit must pass to reach the new type of man, the Superman.
Main Ideas:
- 1st Transformation of Spirit: The camel is the patient spirit who kneels, like the camel, and carries the heavy burden of all moral codes based on metaphysical and religious values, especially Christian ones.
- 2nd Transformation of Spirit: The camel becomes a lion. The lion rebels against the imposed burden of moral duty, symbolized by the great dragon (“Thou shalt”). It wants to win its freedom to make way for a new creation (new values related to the Superman).
- 3rd Transformation of Spirit: The lion becomes a child. The baby symbolizes the game, a new beginning, the coming of the Superman, the creator of new values.
Explanation of the Ideas
This text presents one of the most important and famous concepts in Nietzsche’s thought: the concept of the Superman, a new idea of man, the result of the three transformations that the spirit must undergo.
First, the spirit is transformed into a camel. The camel, a beast of burden, symbolizes those who are content to follow blindly, who carry the weight of values considered “greater than life,” and symbolize the man who bows to the omnipotence of God and the moral law.
In the second transformation, the camel becomes a lion, which symbolizes the denier, the nihilist who rejects traditional values, claims their freedom, and creates conditions for the emergence of the Superman.
Finally, the lion must become a child to be able to live free from prejudice and create a new value system that serves the Superman, serving the recovery of man’s vital instincts. The child, for whom there is only play, is able to act on instinct, without considering consequences or prejudice, to live life as an instant. This will be the Superman.
The Superman will give new meaning to reality, incarnating Dionysus. He will create the values of life with no basis in an afterlife, a return to earth. The morality of the Superman will have absolute moral autonomy; it is beyond good and evil. It will ignore the prejudices of the people, but he himself will establish what is good and evil. His freedom places him above any indoctrination. The Superman is affirmed in the evolution of life; he is created without subterfuge, another world to console his anguish. He does not believe in equality, which he considers a ploy of the weak and the Christians, but in the difference between men.
The arrival of the Superman will become possible after the death of God, and with it the disappearance of the religion, morality, and metaphysics on which Western civilization has risen. The idea of the Superman is not the announcement of an inexorable reality, but a goal for the will. His arrival will depend on whether superior men have the audacity to transform all values, especially Christian values, and create the basis of his life and power.