Can You be "Great?"

Is “Greatness” possible today? One of my acquaintances had asked this hypothetical question in response to his recent review of Freidrich Nietzsche’s  Beyond Good and Evil. On focusing on the greatness of human ability, Nietzsche focuses his opinions and examinations on humanity in an aphoristic style with wit, nerve, and often shocking result. I know many might think Nietszche was supporting the path to Nazism but that was farther from the truth due to his works being entirely bastardized and manipulated by his own family (one sister and her husband both wrote their own such drivel of collectivism while Nietzsche himself) but apart from that, Nietzsche does himself delve into the idea of Greatness with his concept of the Ubermensch.

I have not read much Nietzsche other than the beginning parable of Thus Spake Zarathustra where The Prophet Zarathustra goes to announce the beginning of the Superman, the Ubermensch. But from the article itself, and my own reasoning. I came to conclude a sad but yet fortunate fact that, not everyone can be great. In fact, when we think of greatness, we often give very subjective ideas of what this is so we’ll stick with the ideas of Nietzsche for the time being.

Greatness for him is the Ubermensch’s style of life. He is a passionate man who loves life for beauty and misery. A culture hero who charges history in a new direction and carves his own path separate from the ethical norms of religious thought. He envies others for their talents but also relishes them seeing them as a mirror of what he can be but also pride himself in his talents and abilities. He can be selfish to achieve ends. In other words, the Ubermensch is highly individualistic. Creating their own story from beginning to end. But in order to achieve such, one must suffer according to Nietzsche. And that is the most difficult thing for many, many people to understand.

In an age of Social Justice Warriors, Postmodernism, and Religious Fundamentalism countering  any individualistic ideas, merit, or thought, this brings about the age of Ressentiment. Such resentment comes from those who can’t accept they aren’t as valuable as they thought of, are insignificant in the world, or seeing others better off than them in a multitude of ways. It’s then they wish to strengthen their nihilistic tendencies for destruction, primacy, and (to be on the extreme side) death. There is no love of life or accepting reality as it is. They don't enjoy their freedom or wish to make something of it to triumph. They are just driven by destruction of others before themselves.

The Social Justice Warrior claims they are pushers for equality and diversity but diversity of opinions other than left or left-center are always criticized. No Libertarians, Conservatives, Republicans, Left-Right, Objectivists, Liberalists, ... the list goes on and on. The Postmodernist wishes destruction on all the foundations of a civilization's intellectual and cultural achievements, all lying under a guise of oppression of thought and the so called "illusion of truth." They claim because the truth is all forsakeable, anything can go. But this is simply untrue. They hate civilization and culture because it's elevated man to higher potential and that they themselves can't comprehend it so they must make their own values to justify their hatred. They use such claims like "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder" to claim all art is equally good when art that follows and respects form, style, substance, matter, symmetry, story, and most importantly BEAUTY is respectable. Because there is no truth, emotion is now truth because any reason, fact, or evidence is seen as counterproductive to a postmodernists' ideals. Religious fundamentalists claim the world is to be left to hell and pray in vain to a God that still leaves a silent answer. Instead of seeing beauty in our natural world, a Platonic paradise is seen as they grasp for it. But yet allowing that shows apathy to us who really see the world as it is. But the worse of their lot is the Islamic Fundementalists who demand all must convert or die in the name of their God. Religious sacrifice and killing infidels is seen as the highest form of flattery to God.  I know what I'm saying is cold but it's true. No prayers have been answers, our enemies still exist, these whackaloons I just mentioned still wander around making everyone's life hell.

But it goes psychologically, they can never be great so they make others just as un-great as they are. So yes, no one can be great and those who just can't except it or at least try to put up a good fight to try to be great wish only to destroy us. I ask of this of all of you, and I say this honestly, Even if you can't be great, that's no excuse to stop people from being great. Strive to be great, live dangerously "Build your homes on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius!" In other words, the difficulty of being great is to go through the suffering of what makes a man great! No one is willing to suffer to strive for that greatness, but I say I will. Even if it be a long road and I don't get my recognition til I die or 2000 years after, I will strive for greatness! I may suffer but I will get stronger! Life may be suffering at many points but I can understand it is difficult and I must pursue on.

It's a difficult thing but people need to make "greatness" great again. And the first step is to stop vilifying greatness.