A bit o' philosophy., Ubermensch or last man? Options

[emo samurai]

This is inspired by my SR fiction, in which Shen talks about the world being in the age of the Last Man.

Nietzsche's Last Man was the opposite of his Ubermensch, taking no risk, seeking nothing but solace and comfort. All things he does are for the sake of prudence, and he is capable of nothing great.

The Ubermensch, on the other hand, spurns traditional morality and fights for himself and his passions.

Which one best characterizes the SR world? Sure, you have a great meritocracy, a moon base, and furious R&D. On the other hand, everything seems to be driven by profit, which in itself is hardly heroic.

What do you think?

[Backgammon]

I don't think SR is so differant than today, except people keep their heads down more than they do today. What I mean is, those that are out there taking risks for what they believe in, be it an entrepreneur starting a business, an artist following his passion or an activist fighting for someone's right, are still there, and probably as numerous as before.

However, Joe Without A Cause, the "Last Man", keeps his head down much more. Today, the average citizen can get upset and indignified by events properly brought to his attention.

In SR, those that don't care DON'T CARE. Having lived through plagues, wars, mutations, and countless other upheavals, people just want a little peace and quiet. They have sold freedom for a consisten system, that includes mindless bliss from their entertainment industry. People are no longer prepared to be roused a little by other people's plights. They've had enough.

[emo samurai]

So... 95% last man.

[Kyoto Kid]

..then there's Divided Poland. (SoE) where the common Joe became sick & tired of the New Soviet occupation and did something about it.


Solidarnask!

[Darkwalker]

[emo samurai]

Cool. And that's exactly my point. There's the corporate sheep and the profit motive motivating human endeavor on one hand, then there's crazy ideologically motivated policlubs on the other.

[Wyrm Fanboy]

Damien Knight, Richard Villiers, Lucien Cross, Wu Lung-wei...

Men who spurn traditional morality and fight for themselves and their own passions. Sounds kind of familiar, no?

I think you're on the wrong track when you ask what characterizes the 6th world more. All ages are ages of the "Last Man." That's kind of Nietzsche's point. Ubermensch really only stand out in contrast to the Last Men. So even if all those uber-men define the era, you're still 99.999999999999% Last Men.

Ubermensch only exist in the imaginations of Nietzsche, roleplaying game writers, and those with an overromaticized view of history. Those who Nietzsche described as the uber-men can universally be describe as extremely mentally imbalanced. (Napoleon, Peter the Great, etc.)

Dostoevsky hit it best in Crime and Punshment. In that book, his main character ascribes to a theory of "great men." Basically, if you're great, you can do whatever the hell you want. But in the end, he couldn't sustain it, and it drove him insane. The kid thought he was a "great man" though cuz he thought he was so well educated, and so much smarter than anyone else. So basically, ubermensch is more likely to be extreme narcacissm than anything real.

And you've got to remember that Nietzsche drove himself insane too.

So, to sum up. Yeah, we're perpetually in the age of the Last Man, and there is no ubermensch, only narcacissts.

[emo samurai]

Then what's your take on the last man, WyrmFanboy? I'd be interested to hear that.

[FrankTrollman]

Nietzsche's views don't really apply to the Shadowrun world. At the core of his assumptions is that there is a traditional moral system that is arbitrary and makes requirements of everyone that are as often against their interests as with them. It presupposes that the greatest challenge of mankind is to break lose from that mold and take control of one's own life and blah blah blah...

Well, Shadowrun is a multicultural world. People in Aztlan don't give a flying fuck whether you kick back sufficient pieces of silver to the diocese to make sure your children are properly blessed in the eyes of the Church. Seriously, they don't. They live in a world in which Order is of paramount importance - those who disrupt Order have their blood spilled to feed the gods, and those who support Order are rewarded with the highest quality consumer goods the world has ever seen. People in the Carribean League don't give a rat's ass whether you go to church every Sunday. They value leisure time above all and they are willing, no eager to put work loa into human bodies in order to get the sugar cane cut without disrupting the leisure time of the honest Jamaicans.

Nietzsche lived in a time and place in which a single hopelessly outdated religious order had a stranglehold on what people valued, what they believed in, and what they were "allowed" to do. And he raged against it. And that's only a problem for people in Shadowrun in isolated areas. Generally speaking, if the worldview that surrounds you does not mesh with what you want out of life you can just go somewhere else, where the values match your own.

You can be the Übermensch and the Last Man at the same time. It's not evn a dichotomy any more. You can just keep your head down, go with the flow, and find a new traditional morality that matches what ever it is that you want to do. Nietzsche lived in a world which was isolated and a culture that could not see the values of others. But people in Shadowrun don't have that problem and they don't have to choose between the expectations of societiy and the advancement of their own goals. They can just have both.

-Frank

[Wyrm Fanboy]

The Last Man?

That's a lot harder. I kind of think of Bruce Springstein's "Glory Days." Most people do have dreams of doing really, really great things. But life's hard, and it just sort of beats you down. Most Last Men are probably like how Backgammon describes them.

[Wounded Ronin]

[FrankTrollman]

[fistandantilus4....]

A lot of the Last Man types you're talking about are generally the desensitized type that just wants the safety and security of the everyday. People will take a LOT of shit if they can go on with their normal lives. Look at a lot of the regimes that were over thrown throughout history. It 's usually a lot of work to get someone to actively overthrow an order. People generally want to stay in their routine, whatever that may be (like Frank's post illustrates). 'V' For Vendetta's an example. People will take a lot, but they'll only take so much before they'll change things. French Revolution, American Revolution, etc. Last Man is, I guess you could say , more a natural state of things, than a result or stage.

[Apathy]

[Darkwalker]

[emo samurai]

Just so you know, it's "fascism."

[Kagetenshi]

The syphilis diagnosis is extremely questionable, as are all attempts at diagnosing historic figures decades after their deaths.

~J

[Glyph]

Nietzsche'S philosophy doesn't impress me that much. His contradictory and incoherent notions seem to be a mix of the power fantasies of an invalid, and the petulance of an elitist watching his gilded age being transformed by a new egalitarianism. If he were alive today, he would be on ffnet, writing godboy Ranma self-insert fics, and bitching off all of the bad reviewers in his blog.

His only saving grace is that he wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for All and None, which inspired the music, which was used in the film 2001, A Space Odyssey, which became the entrance theme for the one, the only, the nature boy, Ric Flair! Whoo!! Whoo!! Whoo!! Whoo!! Whoo!! Whoo!! WHOOOOOOOOO!!!

[emo samurai]

What's with you and Ranma self-insert fics?

[TheNarrator]

[Kyoto Kid]

[FrankTrollman]

[Moon-Hawk]

[emo samurai]

[Moon-Hawk]

All we are is dust in the wind, dude.