Plagiarists come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they have in common: a huge, yawning gap between their ‘envisioned self’ and their ‘actual self’. They seem to be driven by envy of creativity! Although all creative individuals (including the geniuses such as Einstein, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche or Mahler) stand on the shoulders of earlier giants —they relish having companions in their lone endeavors. Hence, they are very likely to acknowledge their predecessors, or even (as Nietzsche or Schopenhauer did) take arms against those they most admire. Not so plagiarists. They envy more than they admire, and as they are not capable of any truly original thought, they ‘kidnap’ (this is the etymology of the word plagiarism) the original thought, tune, image and present it as their own. Their arrogance and their audacity in the face of being ‘found out’ is truly mind blowing. A plagiarist, as Schopenhauer said “frequently omits the best things [the original authors] say, their most striking illustrations, their happiest remarks; because he (and it is almost invariably he!) does not see their value or feel how pregnant they are. The only thing that appeals to him is what is shallow and insipid” (from The Art of Literature).
In November/December issue 93 of Philosophy Now, my essay was published: Nietzsche’s Übermensch: A Hero of Our Time?
Eva Cybulska dispels popular misconceptions about this controversial figure.
“Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Übermensch – a rope over an abyss.” Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue
And here is what someone, claiming to have a PhD in philosophy and be involved in active teaching, has done with it:
Posted: Nietzsche’s Superman
Posted on March 10, 2013 by Tongue Sandwich™
“Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Übermensch – a rope over an abyss.” Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The almost identical paragraphs are overwhelming. Here are some examples:
Eva Cybulska: In America, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of the Oversoul, and, perhaps with the exception of Goethe’s Faust, his aristocratic, self-reliant ‘Beyond-man’ was probably the greatest contributor to Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch. Nietzsche was, however, well familiar with all the above sources.
Tongue Sandwich: In America, Emerson wrote of the ‘Oversoul,’ and, with the possible exception of Goethe’s Faust, his aristocratic, self-reliant ‘Beyond-man’ probably was the greatest single contributor to Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch. Be that as it may, we know for a fact that Nietzsche was familiar with all the above sources.
EC: The first public appearance of Nietzsche’s Übermensch was in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-5). As a teenager Nietzsche had already applied the word Übermensch to Manfred, the lonely Faustian figure in Byron’s poem of the same name who wanders in the Alps...
TS: Nietzsche’s Übermensch made his first public appearance in 1883 in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Yet, as a teenager Nietzsche had already applied the word Übermenschto Manfred, the lonely Faustian figure in Byron’s poem of the same name.
EC: For Nietzsche, the idea of Übermensch was more like a vision than a theory. It suddenly surfaced in his consciousness during the memorable summer of 1881 in Sils-Maria (Swiss Alps), born out of that epiphanic experience that also gave rise to Eternal Return, Zarathustra and God is Dead. It was a timeless moment of ecstasy at the boundary between the conscious and the unconscious, of past and present, of pain and elation. Nietzsche entered his own inferno in “the middle of life, so surrounded by death”, haunted by memories of his father’s death, and also of his shattered friendship with Wagner, the most significant relationship in his life. He never explained what he meant by Übermensch, only intimated:
“The Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth!
I entreat you my brethren, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of supra-terrestrial hopes! …
Behold, I teach you the Übermensch: he is this lightning, he is this madness! …
Behold, I am a prophet of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Übermensch.” Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue
TS: For Nietzsche, the idea of the Übermensch seems to have been more like a vision than a theory. By his own account, it suddenly surfaced in his consciousness during the summer of 1881 in Sils-Maria in the Swiss Alps, born out of the same epiphanic experience which also gave rise to the concepts of Eternal Return, Zarathustra and God is Dead. It was a timeless moment of ecstasy at the boundary between the conscious and the subconscious, of past and present, of pain and elation. Nietzsche was, at that time, haunted by memories of his father’s early death, and also of his recently shattered friendship with another father figure, that of Richard Wagner – likely one of the most significant relationships in his life. Nietzsche never really elaborated on what he meant by Übermensch, but he intimated:
“The Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth! I entreat you my brethren, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of supra-terrestrial hopes! Behold, I teach you the Übermensch: he is this lightning, he is this madness! Behold, I am a prophet of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Übermensch.” Thus Spoke Zarathustra, PrologueEC: Nietzsche’s reluctance to spell out exactly what he meant has provoked numerous interpretations in the secondary literature. Hollingdale (in Nietzsche) saw in Übermensch a man who had organised the chaos within; Kaufmann (Nietzsche) a symbol of a man that created his own values, and Carl Jung (Zarathustra’s Seminars) a new ‘God’. For Heidegger it represented humanity that surpassed itself, whilst for the Nazis it became an emblem of the master race.
TS: Nietzsche’s reluctance to spell out precisely what he meant his concept of theÜbermensch to be has provoked an overabundance of interpretations – from the serious, to the subversive, to the silly – in the secondary literature: R.J. Hollingdale perceived a man who had organized the chaos within. Walter Kaufmann saw a symbol of a man who created his own values. C. G. Jung glimpsed a new god. For Heidegger it represented humanity surpassing itself. To anarchists it became a socialist prototype – the radical hero who philosophizes with hammer and sickle. For the Nazis it became an emblem of the master race.
EC: What the Übermensch is Not
“Above all do not confuse me with what I am not!” Ecce Homo
The Übermensch is not a Nazi. Nietzsche’s anti-semitic sister Elisabeth invited Hitler to her brother’s shrine in Weimar in 1934 and essentially made an offering of his philosophy. The Führer, who never read the philosopher’s works, took to the selected snippets that Elisabeth provided like a proverbial fish to water and adopted the Übermensch as a symbol of a master-race. Little did he know that Nietzsche had written that he “would have all anti-Semites shot”, not to mention his strong anti-nationalistic and pan-European tendencies. Provocatively, he also talked of himself as “the last anti-political German” (Ecce Homo, Why I am so Wise).
TS: What The Übermensch Is Not
“Above all do not confuse me with what I am not!” Ecce Homo
Contrary to what you might have been spoonfed, the Übermensch is not a Nazi. The reason for this widespread but nonetheless erroneous notion is that Nietzsche’s thoroughly anti-Semitic and somewhat Machiavellian sister Elisabeth invited Hitler to her brother’s shrine, which she had set up in Weimar in 1934, and essentially made an offering of his philosophy. Hitler, who to the best of my knowledge never read the philosopher’s works, took to the selected snippets Elisabeth provided like a proverbial fish to water and adopted the Übermensch hook, line, and sinker – to stay with the aquatic metaphor. Little did he know that Nietzsche had written he would “have all anti-Semites shot.” Not to mention his robust anti-nationalistic and pan-European inclinations.
Please note: Elisabeth Nietzsche had set her brother’s shrine in Weimar much earlier! When TS wants to be clever and authentic, he is invariably erroneous!
EC: Some anarchists appropriated Übermensch to their cause, latching onto its aspects of strength and individualism. But Nietzsche never advocated abolishment of the state or legislation in pursuit of selfish aims. Quite the opposite: he argued for a well-ordered soul and a well-ordered society. Übermensch is not a tyrant. If anything, he is someone capable of tyranny who manages to overcome and sublimate this urge. His magnanimity stems not from weakness and servitude, but from the strength of his passions. He is rather like “the Roman Caesar with Christ’s soul” (Will to Power; 983), a value-creating and value-destroying free spirit who disciplines himself to wholeness.
TS: Some anarchists appropriated Übermensch to their cause, latching onto its aspects of strength and individualism. There were many things that drew anarchists to Nietzsche: His disgust for the mindless social behavior of the ‘herd,’ his anti-Christianity, his distrust of the effect of both the market and the state on the production of culture. But Nietzsche never advocated abolishment of the state in pursuit of selfish aims. Quite the opposite: He argued for a well-ordered society. The Übermensch is not a tyrant either. If anything, he is someone potentially capable of tyranny who manages to overcome and sublimate this urge. His magnanimity stems not from weakness and servitude, but from the strength of his passions. He is a value-creating as well as value-destroying free spirit who disciplines himself to wholeness.
EC: Reclaiming the Divine
“The beauty of the superman came to me as a shadow: what are gods to me now!”
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue
Nietzsche has earned a reputation of being the most audacious of God-assassins. In his Gay Science (fragment 125), a madman announces that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”. He then asks a question: “must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” The image of a ‘dying god’ is millennia old: Egyptian Osiris, Greek Dionysus, as well as Jesus Christ suffered death, followed by a form of resurrection. Perhaps humanity’s yearnings to create gods have been intertwined with an urge to destroy them?
In The Phenomenology of the Spirit, Hegel proposed that alienation of human essence as divinity, and its subsequent re-appropriation, had accounted for the emergence and decline of religions. ‘Young Hegelians’, among them Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx, took up the theme. Feuerbach saw God’s creativity as a projection of human failure to realize full potential, and God’s omnipotence as a projection of human sense of finitude and vulnerability. “Atheism is a secret of religion” – he claimed in The Essence of Christianity. Once humanity achieves mature self-consciousness, there will be no need for such projections. Nietzsche’s own departure from Christian faith coincided with his reading of Feuerbach, later augmented by his immersion in Schopenhauer. His mission was to reclaim the god-like part of humanity, and Übermensch can be seen as an attempt to do just that.[...]
The Übermensch craves “nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity”. The Eternal Return turns into an ultimate test of total self-acceptance; it is also a manifestation of amor fati (love of fate), which became Nietzsche’s ultimate life-affirming formula. The Übermensch is a true ‘poet of his life’. He is no longer a plaything in the hands of God or gods, but a master of his own fate. In self-creating and self-destroying, he ‘becomes what he is’, a symbol in which “the creator and the creature are united” (Beyond, 225). In Nietzsche’s moral universe, evil is a necessity and something to be overcome. The ‘will to power’ is a will to master one’s own instincts, one’s own evil and resentment, and has nothing to do with subjugating others. In the process of perpetual self-overcoming, the Übermensch transcends the limits of human existence; man becomes a lord upon himself.
© Dr Eva Cybulska 2012
Eva Cybulska, formerly a psychiatrist, is an independent scholar and writer.
TS: Reclaiming The ‘Divine’
Nietzsche has earned a reputation of being the most audacious of God-assassins. In his book The Gay Science a madman announces that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” He then asks a question: “Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” The image of a dying god is a recurring one in mythologies around the world: Egyptian Osiris, Mayan Bacab, as well as Greek Dionysus suffered death followed by a form of resurrection. Perhaps humanity’s yearnings to create gods have been intertwined with an urge to destroy them?
In The Phenomenology of the Spirit, Hegel proposed that alienation of human essence as divinity, and its subsequent re-appropriation, had accounted for the emergence and decline of religions. ‘Young Hegelians,’ among them Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx, took up the theme with a vengeance. Feuerbach saw God’s creativity as a projection of human failure to realize full potential, and God’s omnipotence as a projection of human sense of finitude and vulnerability. Once humanity achieves mature self-consciousness, there will be no need for such projections. Nietzsche’s own departure from Christian faith coincided with his reading of Feuerbach, later augmented by his immersion in Schopenhauer. His mission was to reclaim the god-like part of humanity, and the concept of Übermensch can be seen as an attempt to do just that.
The Übermensch craves “nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity.” The Eternal Return turns into an ultimate test of total self-acceptance; it is also a manifestation of amor fati (love of fate), which became Nietzsche’s ultimate life-affirming formula. The Übermensch is a true poet of his life. He is no longer a plaything in the hands of God or gods, but a master of his own fate. In self-creating and self-destroying, he “becomes what he is,” a symbol in which “the creator and the creature are united.” In Nietzsche’s moral universe, evil is a necessity and something to be overcome. The “will to power” is a will to master one’s own instincts, one’s own evil and resentment, and has nothing to do with subjugating others. In the process of perpetual self-overcoming, the Übermensch transcends the limits of human existence. Man becomes a lord upon himself.
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Plagiarists, like rapists or shoplifters, have a compulsion to repeat their offense. Most of, if not all, Tongue Sandwich’s outpourings are plagiarisms, often poorly put together. To find out for yourself, just randomly copy his sentence here and there, paste it on the Google and there it is – in someone else’s essay, book or blog.
