Simply Nietzsche by Peter Kail

Author:Peter Kail [Kail, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781943657513
Publisher: Simply Charly
Published: 2019-12-10T05:00:00+00:00

More on Zarathustra

Thus Spoke Zarathustra comprises a prologue and four parts. The first two parts were published in 1883, and the third in 1884. Part 4 was completed the next year, but only 45 copies were printed for private circulation, an inauspicious end to the writing of what would be his most famous work. I mentioned in the previous chapter that in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche stated that the “basic idea” of Zarathustra is “the thought of the eternal return.” We shall come to that, but there is another connection to The Gay Science. If the madman of The Gay Science is Nietzsche, so too is the character of Zarathustra. This is to say that Zarathustra is Nietzsche and the madman. Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains, the same way Nietzsche came down to the marketplace from his room in Sils Maria. On the way, he encounters a saint, and Zarathustra is surprised to learn that the saint has yet to hear of the death of God. Like the madman, Zarathustra proclaims the death of God in the marketplace, but this time instead of his single lantern, Zarathustra claims a different source of illumination or meaning—the Übermensch. This is a term that used to be translated as “superman,” but I will stick to the now commonly accepted “Overman” “I teach you the Overman,” Zarathustra declares. But what is the “Overman?”

The first clue lies in the fact that when Zarathustra mentions the Overman, he also states that “man is something that should be overcome.” The Overman is something that corrects some flaw or deficiency in human beings as they are now. What concerned the madman of The Gay Science was that the death of God leads inexorably to the loss of an overall meaning for, or interpretation of, human existence. The Overman is supposed to embody a new meaning for human existence. In an attempt to see what content that might have, let us work back from what Nietzsche took to be the flaw or deficiency in human nature that the Overman is supposed to overcome. This deficiency is exemplified by a figure Zarathustra refers to as “the last man,” who is supposed to be the inevitable outcome of humanity without meaning, and who is “the most despicable figure.” The last man is the inventor of “happiness,” meaning a certain docile contentment and freedom from suffering. But this “happiness” is an aimless state of existence. “What is a star?” asks the last man. “What is creation? What is longing?” Without a guiding sense of purpose or meaning, humanity is reduced to the level of a herd of docile animals, avoiding discomfort. So, somehow, the Overman is supposed to offer an alternative interpretation of human existence. But how? It is not that the Overman preaches a substantial overarching meaning for human nature, as Christianity does. It is rather that the Overman is one that possesses an aim or goal which shapes and directs their lives, and that involves, necessarily, discontentment with circumstances and life.

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