INTRODUCTION 1035
In order to face life honestly and clearly, the creative genius must begin by pro-
claiming the death of God. With the death of God, slave morality—and all values
dependent on some external lawgiver—collapses and the individual is free to create
self-defined values. By the “death of God,” Nietzsche does not mean that there once
was a diety who got old and passed away, nor that people no longer should live holy
lives. Rather, Nietzsche claims that all absoluteshave collapsed, and there is no
transcendent basis in any area—whether religion, philosophy, science, or politics—
for making meaning out of life. The brief selection here from The Gay Science,
translated by Walter Kaufmann, is one of several passages in which Nietzsche
announces the death of God.
In our selection from Twilight of the Idols,also translated by Kaufmann, Nietzsche
examines how philosophers have tried to find something transcendent, something
permanent. Beginning with the Pre-Socratic thinker Parmenides, philosophers have
been unwilling to accept the actual transitory world of “becoming.” Instead they have
denigrated this world, labeling it “apparent,” and have in its place invented an
immutable world of “being.” But, as Nietzsche explains, “Any distinction between a
‘true’ and an ‘apparent’ world—whether in the Christian manner or in the manner of
Kant...is only a suggestion of decadence, a symptom of the decline of life.”
The genius who can embrace “becoming,” who acknowledges the death of all
external values, could become an Übermensch(“overman” or “superman”). Such
an overman would be a this-world antithesis to God and would affirm life without
any resentment. The overman would be to humans as humans are to apes. But,
most important, the overman would be one who acknowledges and celebrates the
will to power.
According to Nietzsche, all human behavior can be understood in terms of the
will to power and every relationship between persons is a power relationship. In
master morality, the hero asserts the will to power by taking direct action. In slave
morality, as explicated in our final selection from Kaufmann’s translation of The
Anti-Christ,the will to power is perverted into resentment in order to gain the
imaginary powers of revenge and pity.
But the will to power can also be expressed withinthe person. That is, more
than gaining power over others, the will to power can lead to power over the self.
The overman will be the one who uses power in this way to “overcome his animal
nature, organize the chaos of his passions, sublimate his impulses, and give style
to his character,”* becoming completely free and self-created.
Ironically, despite his distaste for anti-Semitism and his emphasis on the
self-overcoming aspects of the will to power, Nietzsche was hailed as a hero by
the Nazis. They used his emphases on the master morality and the will to power
as a justification for their atrocities. Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth, married a
German anti-Semite and in her old age eagerly received Adolph Hitler at the
Nietzsche Archives. However, despite its unfortunate association with the
Nazis, Nietzsche’s thought has continued to be influential, as his insights have
been developed by existentialists, phenomenologists, psychoanalysts, post-
structuralists, and deconstructionists, as well as poets and novelists.
*Walter Kaufmann,Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist(Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1950), p. 316.