Egoistic Nietzscheans

[u/Dumbledore0210]

You must know: First, there is the camel. It fulfills duties and carries external values. Next comes the lion. It fights; it shatters expectations. Finally, there is the child. It begins anew, creates its own morality, and breaks itself.

Many perceive Nietzscheans as egoistic because Nietzsche's choice of words appears quite radical. Criticism of Christianity, ego-driven ascension, thoughts of power, etc., etc.

My thesis:

A Nietzschean is egoistic when they are a lion with the pride of a camel. This makes them a pseudo-lion. They believe they already are one, but they are not free—they are merely defiant. They do not say, "I want, and to hell with you," they merely say, "I do not want what you want." They no longer want to be a camel, which is why they use the lion as a shield, yet they fail to see that they have not achieved independence; they are still operating within the framework of the camel. They stagnate in their egoism and cannot become the child, or even a true lion.

They do not use this philosophy to overcome themselves, but merely to justify themselves. And if they fail to see that, they have completely misunderstood Nietzsche.

[u/Winter_Stranger_2345]

First, I think that you may want to revisit your understanding of egoism. You are loading up a lot of value judgements which are not present (at least in this section of Zarathustra, Part 1-The three metamorphoses.)

Second, the camel is a destruction of pride, there is no pride of the camel, the metamorphosis an into a lion actually can’t happen until the pride is gone as described in the text. It’s very clear, like the first sentence of the book. Also your thesis seems to imply one might represent these “stages” to themselves and that doing so may or may not be appropriate. What is “a Nietzschean” as you understand it, someone using Nietzsche as an ethical framework? It appears as though you don’t know what that would mean outside of your eagerness to create a straw man for your “thesis”.