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?
Full Version: A bit o' philosophy.
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.
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.
So... 95% last man.
..then there's Divided Poland. (SoE) where the common Joe became sick & tired of the New Soviet occupation and did something about it.
Solidarnask!
Solidarnask!
| QUOTE (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! |
What did he do? Steal the generals car?
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.
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.
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.
Then what's your take on the last man, WyrmFanboy? I'd be interested to hear that.
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
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
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.
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.
| QUOTE |
| 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. |
But if you lived through that isn't that how you'd want to be too? Hell, that basically the 20th Century.
This sort of gets me to Frank's point. I really like this point:
| QUOTE |
| You can be the Übermensch and the Last Man at the same time. It's not evn a dichotomy any more. |
Although, I take something different out of it. I like the whole "we're all asleep" view of the world. We've all got a lot of potential. It's just that we're all sleep, and we never use that potential. But we all sort of "wake up" sometimes, and achieve greatness.
There's a lot I think Frank gets wrong, though.
| QUOTE |
| 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. |
"Outdated religious order:" Usually when most people saying things like this, they're referring to the Roman Catholic Church. Nietzsche's dad was a Lutherin minister, So maybe Frank refers to Christianity in general, which is a point that has a lot of traction. Old Nietzsche was definately "Post-
Christian" in the sense he kinda returned to Nordic paganism. (Kinda like today's Wiccans). But considering the post Luther state of Germany, I don't think any particular denomination had any stranglehold.
"Stranglehold on what people valued:" As a general point, I think this is wrong too. There certainly was no stranglehold over what people believed during Nietzsche's lifetime. If anything, there's the exact opposite: a breakdown of authority.
Between 1848-1900 (Roughly his lifetime), Europe was rocked by the advent of Communism, Socialism, abstract art, bohemianism, and material science. The
strange thing about this time is that the exceptionalism of individual progess in the arts and sciences creates heroic-cultural icons (Ubermensch) at the same time that communism, the rise of the worker, and growing class awareness creates "the masses" (Last Men). Along with these materialistic philosophies, this era was also the great era of Europen mysticism and supersticion. So we can definately see key trends behind Nietzsche's analysis.
Thus, I think Frank's right in identifing his specific example. He identifies a key trend, but gives it way too much credit.
*Edited to remove weird line breaks*
| QUOTE (Wyrm Fanboy) |
| And you've got to remember that Nietzsche drove himself insane too. |
I thought it was syphillis. Going insane from a disease =/= driving yourself insane.
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) | ||
I thought it was syphillis. Going insane from a disease =/= driving yourself insane. |
But going insane from the disease you contracted from having sex with hookers that remind you of your sister who is a Nazi is pretty much the same thing.
-Frank
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.
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Sep 27 2006, 01:53 PM) |
| 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. |
The corporations can do a lot to mitigate those options you refer to. Live in Atzlan and want to leave so you can stop sacrificing to the blood gods?
- Good luck getting past the militarized border.
- Even if you could manage it, your pesos aren't any good there.
- And the Yanquis will treat you like they think you're a spy.
- How will you get a job without a CAS SIN? You'll end up starving in the street.
- The corp/state-sponsored media tells you all the time how it's really worse up north than it is in Atzlan - what if it's true?
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman) | ||||
But going insane from the disease you contracted from having sex with hookers that remind you of your sister who is a Nazi is pretty much the same thing. -Frank |
A sister who later became interested in Fashism but was most likely never a Nazi. (Nazi - Member of the NSDAP, everybody else is a Faschist!)
Nietzsche died more than two decades before the first Nazi came into existence, was NOT totally in love with his sister and actually seperated from her philosophically and personally in the early 1880s when she married a german nationalist and anti-semite
Just so you know, it's "fascism."
The syphilis diagnosis is extremely questionable, as are all attempts at diagnosing historic figures decades after their deaths.
~J
~J
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!!!
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!!!
What's with you and Ranma self-insert fics?
| QUOTE (Wyrm Fanboy) |
| Those who Nietzsche described as the uber-men can universally be describe as extremely mentally imbalanced. (Napoleon, Peter the Great, etc.).... So basically, ubermensch is more likely to be extreme narcacissm than anything real. |
This continues to support my long-held theory that Nietzsche was a total dickweed.
| QUOTE (Darkwalker) | ||
What did he do? Steal the generals car? |
..no, morel like torched it with a molotov.
| QUOTE (EMO SAMURAI) |
| What's with you and Ranma self-insert fics? |
I hear that I'm pretty well portrayed in them.
....What?
-Frank
| QUOTE (TheNarrator @ Oct 2 2006, 03:26 PM) |
| ...Nietzsche was a total dickweed. |
All right! Now THIS is philosophy!
| QUOTE (Moon-Hawk) | ||
All right! Now THIS is philosophy! |
*holds up hand in "philosophical" pose*
But WHY was he a dicweed?
All we are is dust in the wind, dude.
Where did that cliche originate?
If you're talking to me, I was quoting Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and in the movie he was quoting the song Dust in the Wind by, who was it, Kansas?
| QUOTE (EMO SAMURAI) |
| What's with you and Ranma self-insert fics? |
I like Ranma fanfics, but a lot of them are garbage (same as in any genre, really), and Ranma as a godboy is one of the more annoying recurring cliches. So "self-insert Ranma fic" is one of my favored characterizations whenever I come across Mary Sues or their equivalent.
And Nietzsche seems like the same type of writer. He annoys me, like all of these pedantic windbags who go on about how most of humanity is supposedly "sheeplike", except for a few heroic specimens - and of course, they always number themselves among the gifted ones. But they're not - they're just useless, elitist twits, and deep down they know it. But meh, TheNarrator said it more perspicuously.
I don't read Ranma self-insertion fics that often, but I was under the impression that the most common cliche was Ranama getting split into a male Ranma and a female Ranma and maving sex with him/herself.
Admitedly I have been driven insane by reading Artemis' Lover so it might just be my imagination. (Incidently, killing the dude who wrote Artemis' Lover for the good of humanity would make a nice Shadowrun).
Did Nietzsche style himself as a Ubermench, really? It seems to me that the concept is presented as something to strive for rather than something one could even become. Nietzsche was more likely in the position of Zaratustra, a teacher and a guide but not necessarily the thing itself.
Admitedly I have been driven insane by reading Artemis' Lover so it might just be my imagination. (Incidently, killing the dude who wrote Artemis' Lover for the good of humanity would make a nice Shadowrun).
Did Nietzsche style himself as a Ubermench, really? It seems to me that the concept is presented as something to strive for rather than something one could even become. Nietzsche was more likely in the position of Zaratustra, a teacher and a guide but not necessarily the thing itself.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| Admitedly I have been driven insane by reading Artemis' Lover so it might just be my imagination. (Incidently, killing the dude who wrote Artemis' Lover for the good of humanity would make a nice Shadowrun). |
...Although having the group encounter Oscar would be a good way to discourage players from playing surged lesbian ex-pornstar catgirls.
"As the spikey-haired young hermaphrodite approaches you with a disturbing grin on his face, his Aura of Smooth hits you... roll your Willpower vs. a TN of 15, please."
What's everyone's definition of ubermensch, anyway? We're pretty clear on what a Last Man is.
I'll take Alexander the Great for $500 Emo
Yeah, that's an example, but what is your definition? Possessing the will to conquer? The ability to stand up for a good intellectual conscience in the middle of bullshit?
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| Admitedly I have been driven insane by reading Artemis' Lover so it might just be my imagination. (Incidently, killing the dude who wrote Artemis' Lover for the good of humanity would make a nice Shadowrun). |
You said the words!
Make the hurting stop!
-Frank
I don't even want to know. 
| QUOTE (Moon-Hawk) |
| All we are is dust in the wind, dude. |
Don't say that in the presence of Emo. It runs the risk of making him say something irritating and incorrect about Japanese culture, like claiming that cherry blossoms are symbolic of general emoness whereas in reality they're symbolic of impermanence, and only someone who has watched too much dubbed Sailor Moon would claim the former.
| QUOTE (EMO SAMURAI @ Oct 2 2006, 10:41 PM) |
| Yeah, that's an example, but what is your definition? Possessing the will to conquer? The ability to stand up for a good intellectual conscience in the middle of bullshit? |
Nietzsche would probably say ubermensch had the will to conquer, but I doubt good conscience entered into it at all. Certainly the examples given were not people who cared much about conscience. They were greedy, power-hungry people who conquered stuff. In other words, assholes.
The impression I've always gotten (and maybe I'm mistaken about this) was that Nietzsche's philosophy was about these ubermensch being such awesome and special supermen that they were above needing to have consciences. There's a way to describe people who think that they're better than everyone else, so right and wrong don't apply to them: narcissism bordering on sociopathy. Serial killers are usually narcissistic sociopaths.
So, yeah. Like I said. Nietzsche's always struck me as a jerk. I don't really put much stock by his views on... well, anything.
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman) | ||
You said the words! Make the hurting stop! -Frank |
Not a fan, I take it.
| QUOTE (TheNarrator) |
| Nietzsche would probably say ubermensch had the will to conquer, but I doubt good conscience entered into it at all. Certainly the examples given were not people who cared much about conscience. They were greedy, power-hungry people who conquered stuff. In other words, assholes. |
Not the will to conquer so much as the will to seize power. The two are not mutually inclusive.
Admitedly, I have only read a very uncomfortable translation of Thus Spake Zatatustra, but what I got from it wasn't will to force one's rule onto others so much as the will to conquer oneself, to force one's own will on oneself instead of passivly conforming to the will of others or the will of society. Violent conquest is not a necessary result of this, it is simply the most stark and dramatic. However, it is also possible for violent conquest to be percipated by social expctations rather than the wills of the conquers, so violent conquest is not at all a measure of this.
The biggest issue for refusing to bow to authority just because it is the authority. Sure, there may be many logical reasons to bow to authority, but when there are none why should anyone do so?
| QUOTE (TheNarrator) |
| Serial killers are usually narcissistic sociopaths. |
Serial killers are also disproportionately homosexual. Correlation is not causation. Sociopathy is, compared to serial-killerism (or whatever you want to call it), fairly common—and the traits it gives, while certainly not wholly adaptive, can be quite advantageous in a number of modern occupations (the genuine inability to feel fear or empathize with someone else helps in anything requiring negotiations, for example, particularly negotiation from a position of strength).
~J
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) | ||
Don't say that in the presence of Emo. It runs the risk of making him say something irritating and incorrect about Japanese culture, like claiming that cherry blossoms are symbolic of general emoness whereas in reality they're symbolic of impermanence, and only someone who has watched too much dubbed Sailor Moon would claim the former. |
Are you mad at me, Wounded Ronin? :.(..
Anyway, what I mean by good intellectual conscience is the ability to maintain logic in the midst of bullshit, not conscience in general.
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) | ||
Don't say that in the presence of Emo. It runs the risk of making him say something irritating and incorrect about Japanese culture, like claiming that cherry blossoms are symbolic of general emoness whereas in reality they're symbolic of impermanence, and only someone who has watched too much dubbed Sailor Moon would claim the former. |
emoness, inpermanence? i dont realy see the wrongness in that connection.
ok, so emoness may be only a subcategory of inpermanence but still
No no, see, emoness is all about permanence. In particular, the permanence of emoness.
~J
~J
| QUOTE (EMO SAMURAI @ Oct 3 2006, 06:19 PM) |
| Are you mad at me, Wounded Ronin? :.(.. |
I'm only mildly annoyed because you have boldly made an incorrect statement. Had your statement been correct I would not have been annoyed.
PROTIP: Tokugawa period =/= all of Japanese history
If we're going to pretend that emo still exists (not Emo, emo the musical style), we may as well go the whole hog and imagine that Japan is still in a fantastical version of the Tokugawa bakufu.
~J
~J
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
| No no, see, emoness is all about permanence. In particular, the permanence of emoness. ~J |
and here i thought emoness was an effect of understanding the inpermanence of it all...
| QUOTE (Wyrm Fanboy) |
| Although, I take something different out of it. I like the whole "we're all asleep" view of the world. We've all got a lot of potential. It's just that we're all sleep, and we never use that potential. But we all sort of "wake up" sometimes, and achieve greatness. |
Sorry I've arrived late, but this was/is a great discussion. I can't wait till someone brings the TV show "Heroes" into it...
Anyway, I like the "waking up" reference. To me, Ubermensch have awakened, and are rising against that which has awakened them, be it politics, social injustice, or the fat content of fast food. All these people really are, are "Last Men" who have had enough of being last, enough of keeping their head down, and are finally looking up at the world and seeing that they can be more than they are told.
Just my 2¥...
| QUOTE (ronin3338) | ||
Sorry I've arrived late, but this was/is a great discussion. I can't wait till someone brings the TV show "Heroes" into it... Anyway, I like the "waking up" reference. To me, Ubermensch have awakened, and are rising against that which has awakened them, be it politics, social injustice, or the fat content of fast food. All these people really are, are "Last Men" who have had enough of being last, enough of keeping their head down, and are finally looking up at the world and seeing that they can be more than they are told. Just my 2¥... |
Havent people been fighting against things they dont like since the dawn of time?
I mean we had the sufferage movement, prohibition, civil rights, the rosenbergs giving russia the bomb, the Ludidtes fighting against the Industrial revolution, the mirgrant workers that fought for Unionization in the 60's just to name a few. Hell you could even say Hitler killing the jews was his version of fighting against the wrongs, along with Pol Pot, Lenin, Ho Chi Min and Mao Zedong.
So when have these Ubermensch ever been asleep unless you mean they are a last man waking up, but that happens, its nothing special. The whole idea and the little bit I have seen here about this subject has been a waste of time, but I should have known philosophy is a waste of time.
I'm so glad you've arrived to dismiss the foundations of modern logic with such brilliance.
~J
~J
See, I don't think of Richard Villiers or other conquerors as ubermenschs. Ultimately, they're the creations of bland, slavish social structures more than they are the creations of self-mastery. These straw supermen aren't.
I challenge you to present me with an ubermensch who breaks that "Veni Vidi Vici" mold.
I challenge you to present me with an ubermensch who breaks that "Veni Vidi Vici" mold.
Can't. Until we nail down a hard, fast, and generally agreed-upon list of criteria for unambiguously determining who is or is not an übermensch, you're going to reject everyone proposed precisely because they break the veni vidi vici mold, which appears to be part of your personal definition. You won't even be wrong to do so, because of that bit about agreed-upon criteria or the current lack thereof.
~J
~J
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