The Blame Game

The usual contemporary connotation of 'Superman' is a being with extraordinary physical powers, e. g. the ability to fly. The term derives from Nietzsche's concept 'Overman', which on its most prevalent interpretation, the Nazis', refers to traits that are physical, psychological, and racial. Neither of these have much in common with what Nietzsche had in mind, which is a being who has overcome 'ressentiment', or, on an alternative formulation, 'the spirit of revenge'. The Systematic significance to Nietzsche of such overcoming is based on his analysis that doctrines that privilege Spiritual realms, e. g. Platonism, or Afterworlds, e. g. Christianity, are all expressions of ressentiment, i. e. of revenge against the Natural world. Easily overlooked in his larger ambitions is the applicability of this analysis to the process of blaming. Blaming is so pervasive a phenomenon that perhaps only a constructivist doctrine, such as Pragmatism, can expose its true nature. According to Pragmatism, all activity is a solution to a problem, one important phase of which is identifying the cause of the problem, as a means to correcting the latter by an adjustment of some sort. In contrast, blaming is an identification of a cause of a problem, the main purpose of which is vengeance, with correcting the problem only an occasional consequence. As motivated by what is essentially hate, blaming is thus heteronomous behavior, the overcoming of which, is an Evolvement, and a psychological maturation that is hardly of the 'Super' magnitude of e. g. learning to fly.