超人:陀思妥耶夫斯基与尼采

Ubermensch in the Eyes of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche

超人诞生在上帝之死后由类是超强之人承担职责的历史空间内。在施蒂纳、尼采之后,陀思妥耶夫斯基对超人(“人神”)做了质疑性思考。(他笔下的)地下室人成长为拉斯柯尔尼科夫可视为思想成熟、要做大事的所谓“超人”之诞生。这种“超人”崇尚力量、超越法则,信奉“一切都是可允许的”。关心幸福、安宁、享受、财富,不关心真理、崇高意义(即尼采笔下的“末人”气象),恰是这种超人的精神追求。他们心中的上帝已死,找不到生存的意义,企图通过世俗功利的分配、靠凯撒的宝剑建构和维持秩序,并试图重建新巴比塔的这种“超人”,必定因此陷入虚无主义。他们是标准的现代犬儒主义者,往往会在“一切都是可允许的”信念中走向疯狂和死亡。这是陀思妥耶夫斯基和尼采共同的批判性洞见,而不同的是,陀思妥耶夫斯基的这种“超人”却被尼采视为“末人”。

The idea of bermensch was nurtured in a particular historical context:after the God of Christianity was found trem-bling at the edge of a worship crisis,the species[die Gattung]and the Obermensch became the higher forms of being attribu-ting meanings to human existence.Many great minds have made critical reflections on the subject of Obemensch.In addition to Steiner and Nietzsche,Dostoevsky,in his novel Notes from Underground,depicts an R askolnikovian Ubermensch growing from a spiteful underground man to a self-determining and ambitious non-conformist:he is a great admirer of strength and power,a fierce breaker of the established laws,and a passionate believer of‘everything is permissible'.The bermensch as such seeks only ease and comfort,indulging in a life of pleasure and wealth,and choosing to ignore and disvalue truth and meanings,which precisely characterize what Nietzsche calls‘the last man'.Since the God he worships is now dead,the bermensch fails to attribute meanings to his own existence,he thus turns to the re-distribution of material gain and violence to construct and maintain order,hoping for a remake of the Tower of Babel.This,however,leads to nothing but nihilism.People who follow the path of such ideal are nothing more than the preposterous cynics living in the modern age,and they would quite possibly tumble into madness and even death with the false belief of‘everything is pemissible'.Hence,it is argued here that,although Nie-tzsche and Dostoewsky differentiate the same category oppositely-one as‘last man’and the other as the higher being,there is a shared awareness of the most unsettling crisis of their age,and a mutual quest of unmasking and wrestling with it.