Oliver Naper, Nydalen videregående skole, Norway
Weronika Brzechffa, 3 High School, Gdynia, Poland
Oliver Naper, Nydalen videregående skole, Norway
“At the turn of the 20th Century, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that God was dead
David Bowie (1947–2016), Moonage Daydream (2022), Universal Pictures, directed by Brett Morgen, 00:56:00.
and that man had killed him. This created an arrogance within man that he himself was
God. But as God, all he could seem to produce was disaster. That led to a terrifying
confusion: for if we could not take the place of God, how could we fill the space we
had created within ourselves?”
In this quote, David Bowie uses what is arguably Friedrich Nietzsche’s most famous quote to describe the psychological state of man as it unfolded after the assertion of God’s death. Bowie argues that the arrogance created by humans realizing they had the ability to murder God led to them attempting to become gods themselves. However, Bowie states that this existence as God was hollow and destructive, and concludes with the assertion that the death of God had created an empty space in our existence. In this essay, I will attempt to interpret Bowie’s claims through a lens of philosophical tragedy, as well as providing an answer to Bowie’s question. How do we find our place in existence without God?
On the road to finding our place and purpose in existence, we must first define with what our existence truly is. Existence, as defined by the ancient Greek philosophers, is a positive ability to change both yourself and objects around you. The act of being itself is therefore active and positive, as it is something requiring change. In this way, non-existence is defined as being something passive, non-changing. One potential argument against this definition of existence might be the fact that inanimate objects seemingly do not have the capacity to change anything. However, a rock erodes with time, and even mountains move. As such, even inanimate objects can be said to exist, in this way.
After the death of God, it was up to man to find his place in existence. Some, as Bowie described, tried becoming God themselves, but they were unsuccessful in replicating what God had done previously. This could be interpreted as commenting on Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch, the idea that humanity needed a new ideal to strive towards. The Übermensch is someone who can choose what to want and truly control their own will. Now, it seems to me that Nietzsche’s intention with the ideal of the Übermensch never was for it to be achievable, and I think this is part of what Bowie is commenting on here: Some people throughout history thought they achieved the ability to control their will, but instead they only created disaster in their wake. One only needs to look to Hitler for confirmation of this. The Nazis used the Übermensch ideal a lot in their propaganda, and Hitler might be interpreted as having thought he was an Übermensch, and as such, having thought that he replaced God. While some people may have felt a sense of belonging and identity in the Nazi ideology, as others do with religion, Hitler was never able to totally replace God. As such, we see that no matter how hard we try, humans cannot become Übermenschen and replace God. How do we interpret the conclusion that we cannot become Übermenschen ourselves, and do we not seem to be moving further away from our goal of finding our place in existence?
Some certainly might call this conclusion tragic, to which I agree. The fact that we spend our life striving towards an unachievable ideal is certainly tragic. It is here I turn to the definition of the word “tragic” and argue that it might help us in finding our place in existence. Tragedy, according to the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe, is defined as a destruction of opportunity based on an overabundance of ability. Let us now look at this definition in relation to Bowie’s quote: The overabundance of ability, I propose, is humanity’s ability to “murder” God, or to dispose of God as an idea and therefore also the purpose in life that believing in such a god may give. After disposing of God, humanity struggles for a purpose, and, as we have seen, tries to become the overman. It is here the destruction of opportunity occurs: Humanity has murdered God and tried and failed to become the overman. We are now “naked under the cosmos” as Zapffe puts it. Devoid of any end goal.
While it may seem that this conclusion is the polar opposite of this essay’s original premise, it is here I present the synthesis of these ideas to attempt to provide a comprehensive answer to Bowie’s question. As previously mentioned, the point of Nietzsche’s overman ideal was not to be it, but rather the act of becoming it. Being is static, but becoming is ever-changing. As such, given our definition of existence, the purpose in this ideal seems to be located not within the ideal, but in the struggle towards it. We fill the space within ourselves with change. With our definition of tragedy in mind, it is at the end of this struggle, when we have realized that the ideal of the overman is unachievable, that we can fully embrace the tragedy of life. Given that accepting life’s tragedy is an action that implies being static, this would make us nonexistent, according to our definition of existence. Hence, we also achieve a fulfilling, static end to our existence of change. By fully living out the tragedy of human existence, we may not have lived a happy life, but we have lived an interesting, ever-changing life. It is then, and only then, we can say that we have lived.
Weronika Brzechffa, 3 High School, Gdynia, Poland
“At the turn of the 20th Century, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that God was dead
David Bowie (1947–2016), Moonage Daydream (2022), Universal Pictures, directed by Brett Morgen, 00:56:00.
and that man had killed him. This created an arrogance within man that he himself was
God. But as God, all he could seem to produce was disaster. That led to a terrifying
confusion: for if we could not take the place of God, how could we fill the space we
had created within ourselves?”
The issue with divinity: A Guide to Becoming God
When looking at David Bowie’s musical career, what springs to mind is the worldwide star’s prominent pondering on various philosophical questions. One of such is the quote presented in the stimulus, in which Bowie brings forward Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of God being dead. Bowie arrives at the conclusion that the starting of this debate by the German philosopher unleashed an unsettling feeling in humans – a feeling of uncertainty about what to do in a world where we act as our own God.
Bowie claims that with the realization of man that he is God, all that he does is “produce disaster.” With the current knowledge of the events of the 20th century, such as the two World Wars and the mass destruction of myriads of people and societies, it is clear to see that man indeed cannot function with the awareness of his own, self-proclaimed divinity. Yet the question remains: why is that? Why cannot man make use of the seemingly infinite possibilities of being God? What is it about ourselves that stops us from achieving something Nietzsche thought to already be in our possession?
To introduce the issue, it is crucial to mention the ways in which man tries to achieve the Godly state. With no existence of God (which will be the stance taken in this essay), man tries his best to mirror the attributes of the idea of God that he created. This means achieving the three most prominent qualities of God: the beauty of his pure existence, the idea of ever-present responsibility, and God’s pure loving nature. It is necessary to mention, that other “godly” attributes, such as his eternity and self-existence, will not be touched upon, as the idea of man being his own God does not refer to some supernatural characteristics, but rather the idea of ruling oneself with no greater power above us – something man ought to potentially be able to achieve. Therefore, with the investigation of the three aforementioned attributes, the true possibility of man’s becoming God arises.
The idea of a beautiful life of God can be easily linked to the ever-famous theory of eudaimonia – a Greek phrase stemming from Aristotelian ethics, meaning a state of welfare due to a happy and prosperous way of living. God, (or here, man) in his very existence possesses a pulchritudinous life – he is, after all, a divine creature able to do all which he desires. This beauty is what Aristotle refers to as the flourishing life – the one thing man strives towards. If, then, one treats man as God, it follows that man already possesses eudaimonia – a life of virtue, wisdom, and all-consuming beauty. This, however, is not the case at hand. Eudaimonia is very limited for the common man because it is positively unachievable. One of its most coherent counter-arguments is that it, to some degree, is not attainable – the way to achieve eudaimonia is through being virtuous, but no virtue is actually able to guarantee us eudaimonia. This is not the same in the case of God, who possesses it in his very essence, and simply through being. There are certainly ways for man to strive towards eudaimonia – the entirety of contemporary “wellness culture” (whose goal is to attain a better quality of life) is one of them. Meditation, the practice of yoga, or even journaling methods are all widespread in culture, yet their true meaning for achieving eudaimonia is debatable.
The second qualification for a God is the various spheres of his rule – which is a righteous one. With the actions of a prospective God come people’s reactions – God’s rule is all-knowing and just, yet it is also cruel in its justice. God, despite an often dissatisfaction of people being subjected to his decisions, does not suffer real consequences – he is God, after all. This is where he differs from the new man-God. The notions of responsibility and blame, as put forward by the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, come into play with the death of God. Kant claimed that responsibility is unquestionable in any given situation caused by a person. There is no getting away from it, no matter what outside pressure one may be under – consequences of man’s actions are always inevitable when dealing with a well-functioning society. This is different in the case of God, who has positively no responsibility. His actions hold no consequences since he is simply above consequences. As a divine power, there does not exist a way for God to be held responsible by anyone. On the other hand, what God can be is be blamed. And he often is – the “will of God” is commonly used as an excuse for humans not to take blame for their wrongdoings. With no God as the scapegoat of man, it is man who receives responsibility, and, simultaneously blame. There arises a sudden urge to be all that God stood for – righteous and omniscient. This, in turn, appears to be a burden for man constantly running from responsibility, which then proves him unfit for being God.
The last, and possibly the most unattainable of the godly qualities is the ever-lasting love of all and everything. One of the first attributes that come to mind when saying God’s name is exactly that – mercy, graciousness, goodness, love. This happens to be the most difficult for man to achieve since he is not inherently or at the very least infinitely, good at heart, which is what Thomas Hobbes claims about humans. According to the philosopher, we are intrinsically selfish and too focused on self-preservation to pay any mind to others, not to mention love them unconditionally. Hobbes can be criticized for his overtly radical approach to human nature and disregard for qualities which can be acquired through socialization, yet his belief is justifiable when looking at a person in a life-or-death situation. A Hobbesian thought experiment states that in the case where person B is washed up on the shore of a desert island (with no hope of being saved) previously inhabited by only person A, person A will sense danger in the invader and, in the spirit of self-preservation, immediately murder the newcomer. This scenario is an entirely plausible one and serves as an argument for man not possessing the love for another man as God does. With the few exceptions of martyrs, human always chooses themselves as the first to survive. While innate goodness can still exist, it is nowhere near the pureness of God’s love – love for the sake of love – proving yet another way, in which man does not have what it takes to take on the role of the divine.
Returning to the stimulus, “the space we had created within ourselves” in the shape of God cannot be filled by the man-made one. The idea of a God humanity created centuries ago was formulated in order to stand for all that we cannot be, and at the same time be the one thing we can blame our faults on. All of the previously mentioned qualities of God are ones that man clearly lacks himself, therefore when the God we know disappears, man is still not able to take his place. His biggest efforts remain futile because the state of godliness in its very essence is not supposed to be achievable unless we give it an entirely new meaning. The problem then circles back to the reality of the mysterious human nature being the very core of our impossibility to become God. It is our nature that explains and justifies our numerous imperfections, as well as keeps us at arm’s length from the excellence of a divine being.
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