Over the past few days I have discussed with two good friends Nietzsche’s notion of the Superman. Both friends, who are extraordinarily well informed, were of the opinion that the hypothetical, infamous individual proposed by the German philosopher was an ego-driven, imperious, and intoxicated with will-to-power. I disagreed with their opinion though such a negative view of Nietzsche’s writings is widely held.

Reading Martin Heidegger’s series of lectures delivered in 1954, I believe Heidegger offers a clear description of Nietzsche’s presentation of the Übermensch.  (We Americans typically render Nietzsche’s Übermensch as Super-man.) Heidegger offers that Nietzsche’s over-man is understood by juxtaposition with the last-man. What or who is Nietzsche’s “last man”? Nietzsche goes at length to “flesh out” a description of this final edition of the men and/or the women — shaped by conveniences, conditioned by life-ways of our modern civilization. Only by contrasting the over-man, the man and/or woman who  “passes over” with a hypothetical last man, the “man on the street” of modernity, can we gain an estimation of the over-man.

That is to say these words from Martin Heidegger are intended two friends. And for you as well, if you are reading this. Allow me to introduce – “the last man”.

The superman goes beyond man
such as he is till now,
and thus goes away from him.
What kind of man is he
whom the superman leaves behind?

Nietzsche describes man so far as the last man.
“The last man” is the type of man
that immediately precedes
the appearance of the super-man.
The last man, therefore, can be seen for what he is
only with reference to the superman,
and only after the superman’s appearance.

But we shall never find the super-man
as long as we look for him
in the places of remote-controlled public opinion
and on the stock exchanges of the culture business
–all those places where the last man,
and none but he, controls the operation.
The superman never appears
in the noisy parades of alleged men of power,
nor in the well-staged meetings of politicians.

The superman’s appearance is likewise inaccessible
to the teletypers and radio dispatches of the press
which present-that is, represent
events to the public even before they have happened.

This well made-up and well staged manner
of forming ideas, of representation,
with its constantly more refined mechanism,
dissimulates and blocks from view
what really is.
And this dissimulation and blocking
is not just incidental,
but is done on the principle
of a way of forming ideas
whose rule is all-pervading.

What Is Called Thinking by Martin Heidegger trans. by J. Glenn Gray

No doubt a reader thinks to him/herself, precisely what is Nietzsche saying about this final iteration of “man”? This quotation provides a direct response to that question.

Behold. I show you the last man… The earth has then become small, and on it there hops the last man who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest. “We have invented happiness”, say the last men, and they blink.

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Thomas Common, Prologue

What is life without music? One of the rock anthem’s of all time is Won’t Get Fooled Again by Pete Townshend and The Who.