Meschugenes Ubermenschchen", which means in Enlish, translated loosely, "Loco little Overperson". — god must be atheist

:rofl:

I especially appreciate your translation of Yiddish into Spanglish.

You mean he wanted to destroy what other people once believed, instead of expressing his own opinion accurately?

I'd say your claim that he meant purposefully to exclude women is as much, if not more, "retro-reading into him." — Artemis

Not at all exclude. Anymore than you purposefully excluded Tibetan yak milk from your breakfast cereal this morning. Just not the same sensibility that you or I have, wherever we may have got ours.

First task of reading anyone is to read him or her without judgment and within their own world and context, a not-always easy job. Being impossible, this becomes at all times a work-in-progress - which mainly means trying to be aware of reader's bias. Lacking this one never actually reads the author, but always and only the author/reader, and sometimes just the reader.

But in terms of the OP, I suspect this is a distraction. Can we settle this simply by saying that Nietzsche was not a man of XXIst century western culture, experience, and sensitivity?

Can we settle this simply by saying that Nietzsche was not a man of XXIst century western culture, experience, and sensitivity? — tim wood

Since that would be inaccurate, not really.

For example, despite having many controversial views on women's potential, he did talk about it. So, no he did not just "accidentally" exclude women because they were some odd afterthought as foreign to his writing as yak milk would be to my breakfast. Note that there were many writers of his time who did just leave out talk of women altogether.

You're accusing me of attributing some 21st C understanding of the world to Nietzsche. But you're attributing some simplistic, stereotyped, and frankly inaccurate 21st C understanding of the people of the 19th C to him.

You're accusing me of attributing some 21st C understanding of the world to Nietzsche. But you're attributing some simplistic, stereotyped, and frankly inaccurate 21st C understanding of the people of the 19th C to him. — Artemis

I'm trying not to. But if you'll review theses few posts, you will see that you consistently misread me. Not worth pursuing. You apparently think it valid to look at Nietzsche - or anyone, one supposes - through a 21st century lens. I think that's inevitable - and at some point useful, or necessary - and because it is, something to try to account for and be aware of. E.g., Ubermensch has been variously translated as "superman" and over-man, and with perhaps more care defined as not-ordinary man. Just how not-ordinary being the point. Uber=over, mensch=man. But never as woman. Whether Nietzsche considered it I don't have to know. Even if he did, his culture would not have. Not impossible, just not on the menu.

If you continue this, please cite chap. & verse and show I'm wrong.

Uber=over, mensch=man. But never as woman. Whether — tim wood

I've explained the proper translation of Mensch. Feel free to Google it if you don't trust the bilingual, native German speaker (that would be me). Nietzsche cannot be held accountable for the mistakes of his translators.

If you continue this, please cite chap. & verse and show I'm wrong. — tim wood

I've been supplying you with specific facts that counter your very vague, hand-wave-y generalization.... Perhaps it is you who needs to provide more in evidence and/or argument?

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I'm not arguing how Mensch is translated now, although as you can see, Google gives us "man." Nor am I arguing that modern sensitivity does not advise us on how to re-interpret these words in light of, in this case, feminism. I am arguing that mid-19th century sensitivity was not especially feminist, and certainly not self-consciously so.

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Friedrich Nietzsche in 1869
The Übermensch (German pronunciation: [ˈʔyːbɐmɛnʃ]; transl. "Beyond-Man," "Superman," "Overman," "Superhuman," "Hyperman," "Hyperhuman") is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also sprach Zarathustra), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself. It is a work of philosophical allegory, with a structural similarity to the Gathas of Zoroaster/Zarathustra.

In English
In 1896, Alexander Tille made the first English translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, rendering Übermensch as "Beyond-Man". In 1909, Thomas Common translated it as "Superman", following the terminology of George Bernard Shaw's 1903 stage play Man and Superman. Walter Kaufmann lambasted this translation in the 1950s for two reasons: first, the failure of the English prefix "super" to capture the nuance of the German über (though in Latin, its meaning of "above" or "beyond" is closer to the German); and second, for promoting misidentification of Nietzsche's concept with the comic-book character Superman (whom Fredric Wertham described[1] as "un-American and fascist"). Kaufmann and others preferred to translate Übermensch as "overman". A better translation like "superior humans" might better fit the concept of Nietzsche as he unfolds his narrative. Scholars continue to employ both terms, some simply opting to reproduce the German word.[2][3]

The German prefix über can have connotations of superiority, transcendence, excessiveness, or intensity, depending on the words to which it is attached.[4] Mensch refers to a human being, rather than a male specifically. The adjective übermenschlich means super-human: beyond human strength or out of proportion to humanity."

Given [4], we can see that women are not excluded. My argument is that as with man and mankind in English, also women are not excluded, but at the same time they are not men. We need evidence, then, that Nietzsche, in his usage, beyond referring to men and maybe humanity, also included by direct reference women as (possibly) ubermenschen. Have you got that?

"Mensch" only gets translated as "man" when "man" is erroneously and outdatedly meant to stand for "human." It's as absurd as claiming "human" means "man." Your quoted Wikipedia entry confirms this. :roll:

I'm taking Nietzsche by his literal word. You are not. You're therefore the one who needs to provide evidence that he did not mean the word that he explicitly used. To quote you:

Have you got that? — tim wood

Since we are using Wikipedia now:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche%27s_views_on_women

Some biographical context:
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/06/exploding-nietzsche-myths-need-dynamiting?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=15836245562294&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2018%2Foct%2F06%2Fexploding-nietzsche-myths-need-dynamiting

And a paper explaining in depth his very non-simplistic views of women--note that the paper suggests Nietzsche thought there may be differences between the sexes, but not these necessarily meant superiority of one over the other.
https://philarchive.org/archive/HATNOW-2v1

From these it can be inferred that Nietzsche very much thought about women and women's rights and that it is highly unlikely that his use of "Mensch" was either exclusionary of women, or not a purposefully gender-neutral term.

You mean he wanted to destroy what other people once believed, instead of expressing his own opinion accurately? — Rystiya

This is not what I meant, but to answer your question, you cannot create unless you destroy, with accuracy playing second fiddle, one cannot be a great creator without being a great destroyer.

Ok, I understand

How to become an overman?

If I’m understanding Nietzsche right, his overman would essentially throw out all previous moral systems and restart from scratch; creating his own values.

Assuming no new developments in human nature, wouldn’t he be recreating the old systems but in new expressions?

The problems I see with the overman concept are two:

• His throwing out of old moral systems and values, while creating his own; and acting irregardless of these old systems and their adherents create conflict between this hypothetical overman and the rest of humanity that cling to the old systems.

• Conflict between multiple overmen and their own idiosyncratic systems. These overmen would be hashing out between themselves, as well as other humans. Assuming they’re not biologically superior to baseline humans; these overmen would be overpowered by the larger mass of humanity.

My question would be for a potential overman would be: Assuming you could throw out all of the old moral value systems and start with a clean slate; what epistemology would you use in order to discern these new and superior moral value systems?

Step 1) Re-evaluate all values in the palatial capacity of your wisdom.
Step 2) Live as a mild mannered office clerk.

From these it can be inferred that Nietzsche very much thought about women and women's rights and that it is highly unlikely that his use of "Mensch" was either exclusionary of women, or not a purposefully gender-neutral term. — Artemis

Ok. Nietzsche as Betty Friedan/Gloria Steinem c. 1845. I'm just not buying it. I know of nothing in Nietzsche that suggests he thought of women - any women - as women, in any special or distinctive way.

An illustration: Most folks today accept the idea of women as battle-able military personnel. That is, we can think of a woman with a rifle or piloting a jet fighter. But soldier usually defaults to male. The underlying reason being that soldier is always already a male role. But it's not for women. So while we can think of a woman as a soldier, woman-as-soldier is far more problematic.

I'm just not buying it. — tim wood

Well, that's your business then.

I've proved my point. I can't do more than lead the stubborn mule to water.

My overman relay on his self awareness and will to power to know what he should or shouldn’t do.

In a world of overman, there still needs to be office clerks.

No matter how strong the will to power; will alone cannot grasp truths anecdotes self awareness can be mere self absorption.

Perhaps I should clarify my question:

How would a hypothetical overman know which moral truths are superior and to all of the old master/slave Apollonian moralities Nietzsche criticized and thought foolishness?

I managed to read the whole of your OP, wasn't easy, I must tell you, you need to improve your english mate, if you want to reach out to people, presentation is everything. As for content, you discriminate between good hate and bad hate, healthy and unhealthy; seeing hate as one, just hate, will make your overman fall back on N. overman, I think. As for accuracy, you could look for a pro, a gun for hire.

An overman will not be concerned with morality. Nor do he need morality, as he is not interested in hurting or dominating others and he don’t like doing so. What he concerns about is what seems meaningful to him.

Ok... Thanks for figuring that out. I wrote it all by myself and I haven’t written something this long about philosophy before. By the way, what do you mean by ‘N.’? Does that mean ‘None-‘?

Nietzsche's I meant, but now that I think of it, since N. was writing for all and none, it could equally mean None. :smile:

Anyway, seeing that you are a Lovecraft fan, I suggest you watch "In the mouth of madness", if you haven't already that is, I think you'll like it.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113409/

Ok, thanks

Are we saying that Nietzsche (**N) was a mysogynist? I don't know if we are saying that. It is not a claim. It is a question.

But if we indeed are saying that, then please consider that his sister ALLEGEDLY did a lot of editing of N's writings, after his death and before the first publication of his work(s).

Is it possible that his own sister was a woman-hater?

His sister hates Jews, perhaps women too? I’m not sure whether her editing has been corrected or not.

The story I heard is that his sister was a Nazi sympathizer and edited his work and concept of the 'overman' to make it something overtly white or racial supremacist. As far as women go, i'm not sure.

Ok.