Lenin: Below the Nietzschean Bar
...that Lenin didn’t really have such a creative mind; he just had a drive for power. He used Carl Marx’s socialist theory and decided that it needed to be pursued immediately. Whether he was trying to take power for the sake of the people or not, he was still a man controlled by the desire for power. Nietzsche’s ideal was entirely apolitical, and Lenin had manly political intentions. He had the political control yet lacked the self-control required to be an Ubermensch. Further more, an Overman, Beyondman, and superman all have to do with overcoming the powers of society and the world and becoming a natural, romantic, and passionate human being. Lenin was a rational thinker, where as an Ubermensch is irrational. In the World Book it says “This superior human being channels the energy of instinctual drives into higher, more creative, and less objectionable forms.” Lenin had more objective thoughts than subjective. Proper reality to him was communist life. He needed to be more open to his surrounding and be less self-centered. If one looks at Lenin’s motives, he is merely trying to fulfill his needs of power and desires of gaining control. These drives are what takes him away from the Ubermensch way of thinking, which entails neglecting the ideas that society forces upon us, and forces us towards our individualism. Lenin was too manipulated and influenced by the standard way of living, which is that everyone has the desires of control and significance. Nietzsche’s ideal seemed to be one who creates its own desires and doesn’t follow the usual path of the ordinary human. Nietzsche reiterates this by saying “All–too–similar are they still to each other. Verily even the greatest found I—all–too–human!” Nietzsche thought that there were no true Ubermenschs that have existed so far in our world and merely saw them as a hope for the future. He wrote in his book We Philologists “Never yet hath there been a Superman. Naked have I seen both of them, the greatest and the smallest man”. The Greeks were a population that he admired because of their individualistic characteristics. He was also a good friend and had a l...