Nietzsche and Ayn Rand: The Overman’s Psychological Problem

In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche reflects on the Overman’s psychological problem: “The psychological problem in the type of Zarathustra is how he that says No and does No to an unheard of degree, to everything that one has so far said Yes, can nevertheless be the opposite of a No-saying spirit; how the spirit who bears the heaviest fate, a fatality of a task, can nevertheless be the lightest and most transcendent…” 

Nietzsche is acknowledging that to influence society, the Overman should be capable of both affirming and denying—he should have the integrity to stand for his ideals, and the wisdom to compromise, collaborate, and cooperate. Thus, Nietzsche’s Overman has an antinomic character—he is a man of ideals and a man of wisdom. He is not like the individualistic, single minded, and alienated protagonists in Ayn Rand’s novels—Howard Roark and John Galt—who will walk over corpses to transform their society into a Randian utopia.

Ayn Rand was a naive and totalitarian thinker. She believed that history is moved through the actions of the Overmen who would dominate the less capable humans. Her conception of the Overman is more extreme and unworkable than the Overman of Nietzsche’s conception.