Chapter Five – Death of the Western God

Basic Definitions of Nietzsche’s Main Concepts

Basic Definitions of Nietzsche’s Main Concepts

God is dead: Death of the Western god, its meanings and values. By  announcing the death of god, Nietzsche allows us to open our thinking to a diversity of new ideas, new ways of relating to each other, to the earth, and to People of Color, Non-Western people colonized by Western armies and Christianity

Perspectivism: Perspectivism precedes the postmodern concept that truth is a social construction built through a multiplicity of perspectives in the context of complex power dynamics

Will to Power: Humans are driven to fulfill their own will, not by an aim at happiness or a survival instinct

Slave-Master: Humanity has changed for the worse. Greeks admired fierce masters. Christianity taught us to envision the meek sheep as a positive, to develop a slave mentality. Nietzsche calls us to overcome the slave/master dynamic, overcome both victimization and victimizing others, to be strong, free standing individuals in our communities. This is the ideal of the Overman (see definition below).

Overman: No other-worldliness, a body in this world, not a slave, not a master, a new person with new values to overcome nihilism after the death of [the Western] god,  humans as a project, a constant struggle to overcome the flaccid, self-complacent destruction of the environment and of the self, last man of modernity (Christianity), the weak sheep, who follow the herd. The concept of the overman is important for those who struggle for social change as they strive for a world without oppression.

Body: One body, against separation of soul and body, against the Cartesian idea that our mind is separate from our body. Strongly against the idea that we will transcend our bodies after death to ascend to heaven. We can achieve happiness on this earth.

 

 

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