SUPERMAN

German bermensch, in philosophy, the superior man, who justifies the existence of the human race. Superman is a term significantly used by Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly in Also sprach Zarathustra (188385), although it had been employed by J.W. von Goethe and others. This superior man would not be a product of long evolution; rather, he would emerge when any man with superior potential completely masters himself and strikes off conventional Christian herd morality to create his own values, which are completely rooted in life on this earth. Nietzsche was not forecasting the brutal superman of the German Nazis, for his goal was a Caesar with Christ's soul. George Bernard Shaw popularized the term superman in his play Man and Superman (1903).