Nietzsche has been vilified for declaring that God is dead. His writings on the overman has been criticized as a precursor to Hitler's attempt to make the Aryan race master of the world.
Reading Nietzsche, however, I strangely find his work positive and empowering. Instead of a Christian morality that preaches acceptance of one's lot as God's will and an outlook that is centered on the afterlife, he reminds man of his innate will to power, the will to life and to growth, the will to master oneself and one's environment. The true philosopher, he argues, creates his own values. If these ideas sound similar to self-help books that tell us to be proactive rather than reactive, that we make our own choices and create our own lives instead of surrendering to circumstances, then perhaps that is the best proof that Nietzsche has triumphed.
A logical consequence of the will to power is the overman, one who is beyond good and evil. This idea is threatening for those reared with Christian and democratic concepts, which exalt equality, perhaps even mediocrity - brotherhood before God, equality before the law. Yet for those who do not settle and are never complacent, those who see no limits to their achievement, it is but a description of what they can become.
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