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/lit/ - Literature

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10651300 No.10651300 [Reply] [Original]

Nietzsche's most famous quote to ever would be "God is dead," but he wasn't really saying that God literally choked on a pretzel. What he was really trying to say was that there is no objective morality, and without that, concepts like good, evil, equality, and human rights kind of go out the window. Nietzsche wasn't a big fan of democracy for this reason, because he thought all people aren't created equal, and ideally we'd be ruled by our betters -- supermen.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is about how this is actually a terrible idea. Part of what makes the Avengers franchise popular is that it gives depth to superheroes and portrays them as flawed people. The problem is that they're flawed people with superpowers, which makes them a danger to the rest of us, even while they're trying to protect society. The Avengers are striving for a Nietzschean ideal, but every so often their efforts just wind up turning New York into a pile of rubble while they eat shawarma like a bunch of assholes. Nietzsche would actually have been critical of most comic superheroes as an expression of the ubermensch, because they limit themselves with a moral code. Superman and Batman have a policy against killing because they think it's just morally wrong, but Nietzsche believed that any policy that relied on higher morality was a weakness for any self-respecting ubermensch because he believed higher morality did not exist -- a true superman would only live by his own rules.

This is where Ultron comes in, because Ultron really is the ubermensch, and in case you didn't know, he's the villain. When Tony Stark becomes disillusioned about the Avengers' ability to truly protect mankind, he creates Ultron, who immediately decides that the only way to achieve world peace is to kill, just, everyone. As soon as he appears, Ultron quotes the famous philosopher Pinocchio: "There are no strings on me." It's a succinct way of declaring that he's bound by no laws of man or God, just the way Nietzsche would have wanted it, and basically it's taking a huge shit on his entire philosophy.

What other parallells can be drawn between the MCU and the philosophy of Nietzsche? Are there any Marvel/DC films with a different take on it?

>> No.10651303

>>10651300

Nice blog post faggot

>> No.10651307
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10651307

>comics

>> No.10651310

>>10651300
Check out watchmen OP

>> No.10651381

>>10651300
Superheroes are the Iliad of our generation

>> No.10651391

>What he was really trying to say was that there is no objective morality, and without that, concepts like good, evil, equality, and human rights kind of go out the window.

That's a totally misguided way to put it.

>> No.10651394

>>10651300
I didn't read any of what you wrote, but you're wrong

>> No.10651410

>and in case you didn't know, he's the villain
kek'd

>> No.10651482

>>10651394
My sides.

>> No.10652574

>>10651300
>What he was really trying to say was that there is no objective morality, and without that, concepts like good, evil, equality, and human rights kind of go out the window.
That isn't what that quote means.

>> No.10652660

>Nietzsche is wrong because superpowers

>> No.10652674
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10652674

>>10652660
I mean kinda. The embodiment of an actual ubermensh, Dr. Manhattan, is not exactly some Nietzsche would agree with

>> No.10652682
File: 5 KB, 235x215, FD4D7C32-AB9E-4D6F-A8AB-90959CAF87A4.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
10652682

>>10652674

>> No.10652690

>>10652674
Dr. Manhattan isn't an ubermensch at all. Goethe is closer.

>> No.10652699

>>10651300
Superhero movies are military industrial complex propaganda. This has been true since the 40s, and even now, blockbusters benefit from de-facto MIC subsidies. superheroes can't but reproduce the hollow morality of neoliberal society, the state as a 'rational' commerce warfare machine that runs on merchandise and nonstop hitech violence. The eternal 12 year old, Joss Whedon type is the perfect drone for neoliberal empire. Elon Musk cracks reddit approved jokes while building ICBM missile technology for WWIII.

>> No.10652728

>>10651381
Superheroes will be the Illiad of a generation 3 millenia from now in order for this analogy to work. In other words there's no Illiad for this generation except the Illiad.

>> No.10652766

>>10651300
i think this was a higher level meta bait post and tbqhfamalam lmao you did a good job

>> No.10652859

This thread was moved to >>>/co/98517335