Nietzsche’s Superman || Acharya Prashant

Full Video: Why do superhero movies work? || Acharya Prashant, with Delhi University (2023)

Transcript

00:00Why people fantasize about superheroes so much?

00:02It is that Superman that Friedrich Nietzsche talked of as the end goal of all evolution.

00:11He said we live so that ultimately one day the Superman can emerge.

00:16That's how deeply we love the Superman.

00:18We exist for the sake of the Superman.

00:20Not a Superman like Spider-Man or Batman or Steel-Man or whatever.

00:24No, no, no, not that kind of Superman.

00:26That Superman is somebody of the beyond, somebody who has conquered the normal human fallibilities.

00:32Somebody who has conquered himself is the Superman.

00:35And Nietzsche said it's that Superman that entire existence is living for.

00:39So that one day he might be born.

00:41We all love that Superman.

00:43But we do not know who is it that we really love.

00:46So instead of that real Superman, we create, draw, imagine caricatures of Superman in the form of superhero movies.

00:54And then we fall in love with those movies and those movies become blockbusters.