My Zarathustra

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1

Of The Born Again

Zarathustra had been walking for quite some time when he came across a swamp. Foul air assaulted his nostrils and the sounds of swamp animals reached his ears. Verily he came upon an old man sitting on a rock, stroking a frog.
The old man turned to Zarathustra and spoke thus:
‘Zarathustra, I know who you are. My animals and I have long awaited your visit- we may be pleased by what is rotten but we are still capable of tasting that which is sweet and ripe.’
Zarathustra looked the old man in the eye and spoke thus:
‘Old man, this swamp is your home, but you once lived amongst princes and breathed pure air. However, you lost sight of what was great in yourself. It was thus that you denied yourself and your path- and ended up in this swamp.’
‘It is true’ spoke the old man,
‘It is true that once upon a time I lived far from this swamp. There was beauty in my life and no small measure of adventure. But the old ideal whispered to me and seduced me, and thereafter when I looked at myself I saw something fit for a swamp.’
Zarathustra paused for a moment, thinking, then replied:
‘Old man, my wisdom speaks thus to me: you must learn again to love yourself. Only thus will you leave all swamps behind.’
Thus spoke Zarathustra, and contined on his way.

Of Those Who Dream the World

You dreamers, you would have it that all the world was a creation of yourselves, and that all things could be touched by a mere thought! Thus you imagine an all powerful God, able to bend the universe at a whim. However there is no divine will behind all events, no commanding gesture. Your will to power prevents you from recognising the illusion as illusion and your mind races with imaginary relationships linking all things as a dream.
The god Chance spares no-one. Chance is both terrible demon and author of the greatest beauty.
But Brothers, I teach you this: the world is not dreamed! You must throw off the shackles of millennia of error. Only thus will you cross the bridge to the superman.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Of Good Work

One can reasonably expect to at least recreate oneself via one’s work, but to seek to create something greater requires much hope or faith.
The little man considers it good work when the old ideals are exalted. He would build a prison for all free birds.
Much good work is untimely and few have ears for it. It is an experiment as well as a herald of the future and a looking away from the present- there is much of the creator in it.
But my brothers, I teach you this: the best work brings about the superman.
The superman grows from the best work like a great tree grows out of fertile soil- tall and strong and resilient.
Thus spoke Zarathustra.

2

With all due respect - your enthusiasm is commendable, and I think these writings are certainly inspired (written with blood) -, I don’t think you have the right to associate the name Zarathustra with your writings. Your inspiration is hardly of the level of Nietzsche’s when he wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra; moreover, if you’d call it “Thus Spoke [your name, or your handle]”, the connection would still be clear.

On the other hand, this is apparently how you perceive Zarathustra at this point - how you imagine Zarathustra. Without this focus, you could probably not envision these speeches. Perhaps this is a necessary stage in your development. I once wrote two speeches myself (in Dutch), “On Self-Pity” and “On Gravity”, of which one has been lost, and signed them with “Thus spoke Dionysus.” Ah, but Nietzsche could not have written a Zarathustra if he had been a Zarathustra. Become a Zarathustra; not a Nietzsche. Zarathustra is the ideal that shall replace the ascetic ideal.

3

I think that would be thoroughly impossible.

4

What I mean is: Nietzsche meant Zarathustra to take the place of the Christ; this is why he wrote in a letter to a friend, when he had just finished the first part of Thus Spake Zarathustra, that “it concerns the long-awaited Antichrist”. Nietzsche, who was an expert in ancient Greek, probably knew antichristos might also mean “in place of Christ” (and not just “opposite of Christ”). In the context of the eschatological Antichrist, Jung wrote:

“There can be no doubt that the original Christian conception of the imago Dei [image of God] embodied in Christ meant an all-embracing totality that even includes the animal side of man. Nevertheless the Christ-symbol lacks wholeness in the modern psychological sense, since it does not include the dark side of things but specifically excludes it in the form of a Luciferian opponent.”
[Christ, a Symbol of the Self, in Aion.]

Zarathustra, on the other hand, is the prototype of the Roman Caesar with the soul of Christ Nietzsche mentions in The Will to Power, section 983, which is symbolised by the lion with the flock of doves at the end of Thus Spake Zarathustra. Also in The Will to Power, in section 1027, Nietzsche emphasises that “[m]an is beast and superbeast; the higher man [not to be confused with the “higher men” in Thus Spake Zarathustra] is inhuman and superhuman: these belong together.”

Zarathustra is the Nietzschean counterideal to the Christian ideal, to “Christ”:

“The third essay [of the Genealogy of Morals] is the answer to the question whence the ascetic ideal, the priests’ ideal, derives its tremendous power although it is the very harmful ideal par excellence, a will to the end, an ideal of décadence. Answer: not because God is active behind the priests, as is supposed, but faute de mieux [lacking something better],—because it was the only ideal hitherto, because it had no rivals. “For man would rather will even nothingness than not will.”… Above all, a counter-ideal was lacking—until Zarathustra.”
[Ecce Homo, Genealogy of Morals.]

And in The Will to Power, section 1051, Nietzsche stresses that we have “to overcome everything Christian through something supra-Christian [ein Ãœberchristliches], and not merely to put it aside - for the Christian doctrine was the counterdoctrine to the Dionysian”. Dionysus, like “Christ”, was a symbol of the Self, to speak with Jung; but, unlike “Christ”, Dionysus accurately symbolised the true human Self:

“In the empirical self, light and shadow form a paradoxical unity. In the Christian concept, on the other hand, the archetype is hopelessly split into two irreconcilable halves, leading ultimately to a metaphysical dualism - the final separation of the kingdom of heaven from the fiery world of the damned.”
[Jung, ibid.]

In the Archaic period of Greece, Dionysus was depicted as a satyr (although, on the specific item I am referring to, he is the only satyr with clothes on); it was only later that he was depicted more and more feminine (but read Satyr’s excellent essay, “The Feminization of Man”, in the Essays and Theses forum!).

“The satyr and the idyllic shepherd of later times have both been products of a desire for naturalness and simplicity. But how firmly the Greek shaped his wood sprite, and how self-consciously and mawkishly the modern dallies with his tender, fluting shepherd! For the Greek the satyr expressed nature in a rude, uncultivated state: he did not, for that reason, confound him with the monkey. Quite the contrary, the satyr was man’s true prototype, an expression of his highest and strongest aspirations. He was an enthusiastic reveler, filled with transport by the approach of the god; a compassionate companion re enacting the sufferings of the god; a prophet of wisdom born out of nature’s womb; a symbol of the sexual omnipotence of nature, which the Greek was accustomed to view with reverent wonder. The satyr was sublime and divine—so he must have looked to the traumatically wounded vision of Dionysian man. Our tricked out, contrived shepherd would have offended him, but his eyes rested with sublime satisfaction on the open, undistorted limnings of nature. Here archetypal man was cleansed of the illusion of culture, and what revealed itself was authentic man, the bearded satyr jubilantly greeting his god. Before him cultured man dwindled to a false cartoon.”
[The Birth of Tragedy, chapter 8.]

Note the contrast Nietzsche draws between the satyr and the tender shepherd! Was “Christ” not a shepherd? Here is an image of “Christ” preaching to some sheep:

5

What I mean is that a although a man may have the instincts of Zarathustra, he would not actually be Zarathustra without an understanding approaching Nietzsche’s.

6

Zarathustra lives in a cave, in the mountains.

7

That is why I said “a Zarathustra”: a man of the type of Zarathustra; not his personality, of course.

8

I live in a cave in the Dutch mountains.

9

‘Be a man and do not follow me - but be yourself.’

  • This thread is pathetic.
10

“I need living companions, who will follow me because they want to follow themselves - and to the place where I will.”
[Thus Spake Zarathustra, Prologue, 9.]

Do you ever have anything substantial to say, Daybreak?

11

Here are two things I want to explain. That last remark of that quote from Ecce Homo might also mean that, until Thus Spake Zarathustra, a counterideal was lacking. Zarathustra himself might not embody this ideal, but only present it - thus Zarathustra is “an advocate of the lightning”, of the Superman, but not himself lightning - not himself a Superman. But Nietzsche later affirmed that Zarathustra did embody this ideal:

“Here man has been overcome at every moment, the concept of the “overman” has here become the greatest reality,—whatever was so far considered great in man lies beneath him [Zarathustra] at an infinite distance. The halcyon, the light feet, the omnipresence of malice and exuberance, and whatever else is typical of the type of Zarathustra,—none of this has ever before been dreamed of as essential to greatness. Precisely in this width of space and this accessibility for what is contradictory, Zarathustra experiences himself as the supreme type of all beings; and once one hears how he defines this, one will refrain from seeking any metaphor for it.”
[Ecce Homo, Thus Spake Zarathustra, 6, with added emphasis.]

Secondly, we have “to overcome everything Christian through something supra-Christian [ein Ãœberchristliches], and not merely to put it aside”, because “the Christian doctrine was the counterdoctrine to the Dionysian”. This means Nietzsche’s new Dionysian doctrine is not only anti-Christian but also supra-Christian - Zarathustra is not just the Antichrist, but also the Overchrist… He does not just symbolise the “dark side” of the Self, those aspects occluded in the ideal of the “Christ”, but the whole Self, the whole paradoxical unity of light and shadow. He is the Roman Caesar with the soul of Christ, whose clemency consists in being “merciless with men for the sake of a better future”, to speak with George Morgan - “better” of course in the sense beyond good and evil.

“Goodness and being a creator are not antitheses, but one and the same thing, but with near or far perspectives.”
[Nietzsche, Revaluation of All Values, my translation.]

12

First bit o sense in this debate!

kp

13

Not the first bit of sense by a long shot, but certainly sensible. However, Nietzsche said that the first part of Thus Spake Zarathustra was meant for strong men living in the city, in order to help them create kind of a citadel there (note that Nietzsche meant to give back the good conscience to the evil man!). One may ask whether it is necessary that someone of the type of Zarathustra live in a cave in the mountains. Certainly spiritually; and for this it is necessary that there is literally strong air where he lives. For the fire of the spirit needs air in order to burn; and for a great fire such as great spirits have, there is need of a constant supply of fresh air. And then there is the (related) matter of cleanliness. One should obviously not live in a city like Athens or Mexico City. I have the good luck to have been born in Holland, which has a sea climate, and not in Germany, which has a land climate. Nietzsche himself, of course, may have been in the mountains often but still always slept in a bed. Ah, but Nietzsche was no Zarathustra! There is nothing for it, we have to become cavemen…

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smile

15

I wonder was it this bracing climate that was responsible for them being one of the few countries to very bravely and publically resist the Nazi Occupation right from the get go - in fact I believe Nietzsche would have been very proud of them tho’ I doubt Sauwelios will agree…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nether … rld_War_II

“In February 1941 the Nazis deported a small groep of Dutch Jews to the concentration camp Mauthausen. The Dutch reacted with the February strike as a nationwide protest against the deportations, unique in the history of Nazi-occupied Europe. Although the strike did not accomplish much - the leaders of the strike were executed - it was a major setback for Seyss-Inquart as he had planned to both deport the Jews and to win the Dutch for the Nazi cause.”

The Netherlands are almost completely composed of flatland (polders) and lack dense forrests, which makes it difficult for people to hide. This meant the Jew needed to hide in other peoples homes, but the was punishable by death [1], despite the risks many Dutch people helped Jews. One third of the people who hid Jews did not survive the war.

krossie

16

“Resistance - that is the distinction of the slave. Let your distinction be obedience. Let your commanding itself be obeying!”
[Thus Spake Zarathustra, Of War and Warriors.]

So the Dutch were distinguished slaves, but slaves nonetheless. The Nazis were able to conquer Holland in four days - to stay there for five full years!

17

Can’t prove it - but I don’t think N Dawg would have seen these as slaves…and certainly they’d earn my respect.
I’ll let my distinction be disobedience and maybe the odd spot of trouble making into the bargain

  • Maybe force the commanders to descend towards me
    Where i can whip em that bit easier

kp

18

What I mean is that Holland did not have a warrior caste. The Dutch people were a people of traders and peasants (in Indo-Aryan terms: vaisyas). This accounts for their tolerance: they could not have their trade imperiled by petty theological disputes! In a way, therefore, the Netherlands could be the American ideal (money as God, positive attitude toward Jews, etc.). At the moment, Holland is governed by the so-called “polder model”, which sits somewhere between capitalism and socialism. It has pretty good social security.

19

Coooool

I’ll be over to ya next week - this job sucks :slight_smile:

Given the state of their army apparently the Nazis were surprised at the fight they encountered

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherland … rld_War_II

[i]
Initially the German advance seemed unstoppable but was eventually halted by the poorly equiped Dutch army, mostly fighting with weaponry made before 1900. At the Afsluitdijk, the Grebbeberg and Dordrecht the Dutch Army offered strong resistance. A German airborne landing at The Hague, intended to capture the Dutch royal family and the government failed and the troops that had not been killed were captured and shipped to Britain just before the Dutch surrender together with the Dutch royal family and government. The Dutch Queen, Wilhemina and her government stayed in Britain, but during the Battle of Britain her daughter Princess Juliana, and her children, proceeded to Ottawa, Canada.

On May 14 the Germans, unpleasantly surprised by the Dutch resistance as they expected to capture the Netherlands in 1 day, demanded the surrender of the city of Rotterdam, threatening to bomb the city. The city’s commander surrendered, but the German bombers that had already been sent were not called back by the German commanders and the city was heavily bombed despite its surrender.

After this bombardment, the German military command threatend to bomb the city of Utrecht as well if the Netherlands didn’t surrender. The Dutch army capitulated with the exception of the forces in Zeeland for a few days, until the bombardment of Middelburg forced Zeeland to surrender as well.

The invasion resulted in 7,500 dead, missing or wounded Dutch soldiers and the deaths of over 900 civilians. The German army lost 4,000 men, received 3,000 wounded, 700 troops reported missing and 1,400 were captured and shipped to Britain.[/i]

20

I can see them before me, with their hammers and pitchforks!