Nietzsche's Übermensch, 'God is Dead,' and Nihilism | Gentleman Thinker

Time for some Nietzsche! What is Nihilism, what is an übermensch, and what does it mean to say “God is Dead?” This is the backdrop to the Will to Power!

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Assets:

[IsaacOrson]

I like how you avoided saying Superman.

[unvergebeneid]

Wouldn't Nietzsche be worth a longer video or two?

[Sam_on_YouTube]

It's not really fair to mention Nazis in a serious Nietzsche video without at least mentioning briefly that in his lifetime he vigorous opposed Wagner's efforts to use his philosophy to stoke antisemitism. While Hitler was after Nietzsche's time, it is clear from his writings that Nietzsche would have vigorously opposed him.

[IndignantPhilosophy]

Nietzsches ultimate goal was to find an answer to nihilism.

[Cheesesteakfreak]

An Übermensch is a person who is totally excellent to themselves and others. The Übermensch abides.

[geedge]

I've been depressed for ages, I believe nihilism can be liberating but it is something you should not dwell on for very long.

[postmodernmusicalsophist]

Pachelbel's canon in D, distracted me so i ha to rewatch the video

[Theo_Caro]

You mentioned the quote God is Dead" but you didn't really explain it's context in the parable of the mad man. This could have easily been a full philosophy tube video.

[zdmsr]

It's late at night and I wasn't going to watch till the morning but once I saw Nietzsche I had to watch

[AustinOnSugar]

"God is Dead" has been used in so many places after this, I can't really be surprised few know its origin or meaning. Trying to describe it as "We've moved beyond the need for a god in morality" doesn't clarify much for those convinced of its blasphemous origins. That's why we all need The Gentleman Thinker, for the power of brevity goes hand-in-hand with a posh, English accent.

[MisterAwestasia]

As Socrates said: "Think for yourselves!" The existence that we all enjoy is meant to explored and heartily experimented with not needlessly giving into the constructions of others.

[LughSamildanach]

Throwing that cape in there was bloody poetic.

[FromRussiaWithLuv]

I've always thought that Nietzsche saying God is Dead to be more of a "le roi est mort vive le roi"
that our old conception of what God is just doesn't work anymore and we need to create something that does work.

[terryg]

@philosophytube Hey, no idea if you take requests, but as the subject has come up, I would love to see a video about the differences between Existentialism, absurdism and nihilism.

Specifically, when somebody explains the difference between existentialism and absurdism, absurdism starts to sound like nihilism. And when people explain the difference between Nihilism and absurdism, absurdism starts to sound like existentialism.

Thanks for the videos, watch them every week.

[CosmicErrata]

I remember mentioning "Nietzche is awesome" in front of Christians... Their reactions can be rather amusing.

Then I had to explain what he meant by 'God is Dead', which ends in pretty civil understandings.

[CosmicFaust]

Who doesn't love Nietzsche?
Oh right...
Anyway there wasn't anything our moustachioed friend couldn't teach us.

[TheAsyouwysh]

I'd argue that Nietzsche posits the ubermensch as an alternate goal, a next stage in human evolution sort of thing. He describes it in Thus Spoke Zarathustra as being as different from a humans as humans are from apes, and tells people to be "bridges to the ubermensch" rather than ubermenschen. Also keep in mind that TSZ was the most incomprehensible set of parables Nietzsche wrote, which is saying something because Nietzsche loved parables and being incomprehensible.

[jasminaliysa]

This is amazing. It get very stressful explaining nihilism to people. expecially when they assume then that you view life as meaningless.
I agree that the main man Nietzsche deserves some more videos expecially about truth or pity

[divinuminfernum]

i was thinking, how could it be possible to cover these three themes in one minute and 30 seconds, but i think your summary is fairly neat and at least allows one to fit it between a number of the different ways in which nietzsches texts have been interpreted and such . was nietzsche a Nihilist though? he was pretty invested in the idea of not just throwing out old values, but reforming them in some way- a transvaluation of all values?

[thebatmanover]

So I am the superman or at least some manifestation of the superman?