Nietzsche - The Ubermensch and the Will to Power

• The Ubermensch is Nietzsche's best-known invention, although he only appears in one book, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"
• Nietzsche conceives of it in terms of "spiritualized" master morality (free of resentment, independent of the herd) but also as an evolutionary possibility, although Nietzsche doesn't pursue Darwin and fears that any such improvement of humanity's implausible, coz one can't become something so much more than one is
• It's the highest manifestation of the "will to power (power of creativity and imagination)"/self-mastery/inner strength/self-esteem; energised by your own talents and what distinguishes the higher from the lower. It provides a serious theory of motivation, as opposed to the hedonic theory that people act to pursue pleasure and avoid pain
• Thus, such passions such as love and pity often have ulterior and sometimes dubious moves ex. love is possession, pity is feeling ghigher and more fortunate
• Both the Ubermensch and the will to power represent passion/passionate attatchments and the love of life, as opposed to the slave morality of cutting attatchments and losses
• The metapohor of energy pervades Nietzsche's works. Excitement and adventure become the keys to good human life, not (as in many philosophers) resignation and contemplation. Passion represents energy
• "Nothing great is ever done without passion" - Hegel
• Passions are not simply irrational forces
• The ultimate passion is the love of life
• At the same time, Nietzsche introduces "the last man", the ultimate bourgeois consumer/couch potato, the self-contented, self-satisfied utilitarian modern man. It's the counter-ideal
• The though of eternal recurrence is an affirmation of life and the test of this love of life : would you repeat your life an endless number of times?