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The Allure of Being Awake
From red pills to woke ideologies, why do concepts meant to awaken us end up dragging us into dogmatic ideologies?
A century-and-a-half ago, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) wrote one of his most popular ideas. The concept of Übermensch — which means “superman” or “beyond human” in German — describes someone who has transcended the conditioning imposed by society and reached a higher state of existence.
Similar concepts have sprung from writers and philosophers throughout history. A few decades earlier, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) wrote about the Man Thinking, who thinks by himself instead of parroting someone else’s thinking.
It is hard to know the extent to which these two concepts are related. In contrast to Emerson’s sharp and precise discourse, Nietzsche’s prose can appear to be vague and obscure.
From a broad perspective, both authors criticize the state of mind of most people in society, going through the motions and following social conventions. Compared to the Übermensch or the Man Thinking, we (mere humans) are not too different from ants or sheep. In other words, these concepts illustrate an “awakening” from the social norms and conventions of the time to a higher state where one thinks independently.
