The notion of the Overman, a superhuman individual endowed with powers and abilities, which greatly surpasses those of ordinary human beings, is one of the most enduring and popular tropes of human culture. The myths of ancient Greece, the Icelandic sagas, the epic poems of the middle ages, the 20^th century comic book, and the hugely successful contemporary movie franchises based on comic book superheroes like Spiderman, X-Men and Batman, all testify to the enduring appeal of the Overman.

Ishay Landa's book provides an interesting and provocative analysis of the development of this notion, and raises a number of important questions concerning the ways in which popular culture, politics and philosophy interact. Drawing on the literary theories of Northrop Frye and Friedrich Jameson Landa argues that the development of the heroic figure of the 18^th and early19^th century can be seen as a cultural and ideological consequence of the need of the bourgeois to establish and justify their newly acquired political and social position. Just as the aristocracy had to give up their power and privileges to the burgeoning middle class, so aristocratic heroism, focusing on innate qualities of unique individuals, had to give way to the bourgeois "anti-hero"; the ordinary everyman whose abilities and competences are acquired and earned, in Landa's story exemplified by Robinson Crusoe (Landa pp. 130-133).

The basic thesis of Landa's book is that the latter half of the 19^th century brought about a fundamental change in the common understanding of heroism; that this change was (if not evoked by then at least) intellectually justified through the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, and that the main ideological point of this revised notion of heroism was to provide a philosophical justification of laissez faire economic liberalism and of a social order defined by and through capitalism. Having firmly established their political and social primacy, the bourgeois quickly found that they once again had to defend these newly acquired positions. This time however, the opponents were not, or at least not primarily, the aristocracy, but rather the growing working class — and this is where Nietzsche enters the story.

The first part of Landa's book, "A Blueprint for the Nietzschean Hero" introduces Landa's interpretation of Nietzsche and of Nietzsche's social, political and cultural importance. According to Landa Nietzsche's philosophy can be seen as a sophisticated attempt to vindicate bourgeois economic liberalism, "the unfettered accumulation of capital" Landa p. 26), by ontologizing a particular economic-liberal understanding of human beings and human society. Nietzsche's notion of "the will to power" and his criticism of the ways in which modern societies stunt and limit the natural human pursuit of power, glory and honour, are, so Landa argues, precisely what is needed to justify a social order in which the economy is freed from all social and political obstructions and limitations.

Nietzsche also insisted that only people who are no longer (pre)occupied with procuring the bare necessities of life are capable of producing great art; an idea which subsequently leads him to argue that for such a class of people to exist, the overwhelming majority of the human race "has to be slavishly subjected to life's necessity in the service of the minority" (Landa p. 27, quoting Nietzsche). This notion, so Landa argues, provides an aesthetic and cultural justification for the structure of capitalist society, where a minority class owns the means of production and thus does have to work to support themselves, whereas the rest of the population has to toil and sweat to secure their own existence.

The combination of the philosophical justification of a laissez faire, liberal economy and the aesthetic and cultural justification for the inequalities of a capitalist society gives rise to what Landa terms heroic (or romantic) capitalism. If human beings are allowed to exercise their will to power unfettered by social and political hindrances, then those in possession of the strongest, most capable, minds will naturally come to dominate the world. The privileged class in control of the means of production thus owes their position not to inheritance or chance or historical coincidence, but to their natural superiority, their extraordinary capacities and abilities. Heroism becomes equated with economic success, and the positions and privileges of the bourgeois is justified by reference to the natural superiority of the members of this class. As Landa puts: …what we find is not an attempt to replace the bourgeois with an aristocracy, but to 'aristocratize' the bourgeois; not to retreat to a pre-capitalist stage in order to regain the heroic qualities predating the imperative of the market, but rather to invest the market with heroism." (Landa p. 70).

The Nietzschean Overman, so Landa argues, thus provides a philosophical justification of a rather extreme sort of laissez faire, elitist capitalism. But Nietzschean heroism does not merely offer an intellectual justification for capitalism. It also provides a cultural and ideological matrix, which actively reinforces and strengthens capitalism. Part 2 of Landa's book thus analyzes and exemplifies how Nietzsche's concept of the Overman has infiltrated 20^th century popular culture and replaced the earlier (egalitarian) bourgeois notion of heroism, and discusses the ideological consequences of this development. Applying the ideas and conceptual apparatus developed in the first part of the book Landa here provides interesting discussions of literary figures such as Tarzan, Hannibal Lecter, Howard Roark and James Bond; he analyzes the ideological underpinnings of James Clavell's "Asian Saga", attempts to explain the (post)modern fascination of serial killers and supplies a chapter length discussion of "the hero as evil genius" (Landa p. 212).

The Overman in the Marketplace thus provides provocative and stimulating insights into Nietzsche, the cultural and ideological background to and justifications of the contemporary neo-liberal economic system and the relationship between philosophy and popular culture and should be of interest to anyone with an interest in these topics.

As is the case with every provocative book there is much to disagree with. Most contemporary Nietzsche-scholars are thus bound to be provoked by Landa's claim that Nietzsche's philosophy contains a determinable essence or kernel; that this essence amounts to a defence of economic liberalism, and that even the most radical and extreme of Nietzsche's elitist statements concerning exploitation and slavery should be taken seriously. One may also question whether Landa succeeds in establishing his more extravagant claims; that the Nietzschean notion of heroism has achieved some kind of hegemonic status in contemporary popular culture  for instance, or that "for better or for worse, our civilization is fundamentally — rather than coincidentally, tangentially or arbitrarily — Nietzschean" for instance (Landa p. 266). Another problematic feature of Landa's book is the curious absence of any systematic discussion of comic book superheroes. As the longevity and continued popularity of characters such as Superman and Batman illustrate, and as clearly demonstrated by the enormous success of recent blockbuster movies such as Spiderman 1-3, Batman Begins and Iron Man, the superhero figure is and continues to be one of the most popular and influential heroic figures of the 20^th  century. Landa, however, manages to almost completely avoid any discussion of the superhero figure, confining himself to a few, brief remarks on Superman at the very beginning of the book. This is a regrettable and unfortunate lack in an otherwise excellent discussion of Nietzsche's influence on contemporary popular culture.

© 2008 Carsten Fogh Nielsen

Carsten Fogh Nielsen, MA, post graduate student, University of Aarhus. Main interests: Kant, moral philosophy and the philosophy of popular culture

Comment on this review