Zarathustra Flashcards
Time away
Zarathustra spent 10 years in the mountains
-biblical reference/ jesus/moses
“walks like a dancer”
- positive motif of expression of the body
- saint tells this to Zarathustra
comparison to a child
positive: because it means full of life and creativity
Time in town
one day he felt enlightened, and decided to tell the human race about how they could become better, become the overman. People did not appreciate and boo-ed him off the stage.
The tight-rope walker
The tight-rope walker starts a performance in the town but a joker comes out and topples him, making the walker fall to his death.
Zarathustra/ The tight-rope walker
Zarathustra tells the tightrope walker that he had nothing to be ashamed of, since he lived a life of constant threat. He wants to bury the man and carries him around, speaking his wisdom. He realizes that speaking wisdom to a dead corpse is pretty useless, so he buries him and looks for an apprentice.
Zarathustra/ apprentice
He goes up a mountain and finds a young man who is reluctant but curious, and he begins to lecture the youngin
Zarathustra goal
Zarathustra wants us to come out of our comfort zones and make humanity better. He doesn’t want people to be so focused on the afterlife that they refuse to make the life on earth better
‘I love man.’ (p. 37)
I love the human race (also what he thinks the human race can become)
‘Could it possible, the old saint has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead?’ (p. 38)
Need for the individual (the individual must start to create his own destiny/place in the world rather than depend on God)
‘remain faithful to the earth;’ (p. 39)
The last man is a philistine (people who are willfully ignorant, typically associated with the arts and culture) the last man is the type of person who doesn’t leave their comfort zone; they’re happy with whoever they are and don’t try to change for the better, aka stagnant.
-Zarathustra is afraid that if we don’t start trying to become the overman now, the human race will become unable to keep changing and will become this ‘last man’. He is convinced the time to ‘evolve’ is now, otherwise we will regress.
The OVERMAN
The overman has experienced the hour of great contempt.
Last man vs. the overman.
- The overman has experienced the hour of great contempt.
- The Last man is where we are and what we can improve from, and the overman is what we can strive towards
‘the three metamorphoses’ (p. 48)
how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel a lion; and the lion finally a child
Camel
bears the burden…we have the capacity for endurance. The camel walks through the water that has hot toads and cold frogs, which is essentially hard times
Key terms: Carries burden, is strong, and enduring
“Stepping into filthy waters when they are the waters of truth, and not repulsing cold frogs and hot toads” (p. 49)
Camel
Lion
Lion represents strength and courage “spirit of a lion who would conquer his freedom and be master in his own desert”
- Defeats the dragon that has biblical verses/societal rules on its scales
- Thou shalt
- The lion says no (“I will”) and breaks the rules; he rebels in the face of society’s constructs
- Key terms: Bravery, slayer of dragons, accumulated wisdom, “Thou shalt” vs. “I will”
Child
-innocence, a new beginning, a game, “yes”, represents creativity and accepts humans with all aspects. Starts fresh and creates their own ideals instead of depending on society to tell them what to think.
Key terms: Creativity (unregulated), “Yes”- needed for creativity, fresh start, innocence
“your wild dogs want freedom”
We all have good and bad in us, and rather than trying to repress the bad things in us, we should accept that that is who we are and work towards making ourselves better.
‘preachers of death;’ (p. 55)
religion: Life is only suffering; the good stuff happens when you die and the rest of life is just something you bear.
–>Z says if that’s what you want then just die.
He rejects this idea
Religious leaders are the preachers of death because they say to focus on the afterlife.
The new idol
nationalism, state of allegiance
“It bites with stolen teeth”
The state uses people… questions the legitimacy of the state.
-The state is different than the people. The state is it’s own being, and doesn’t actually have the interests of the people in mind, even though it uses those people in it’s own self interest.
The state represents itself, not the people.
“flies of the marketplace”
celebrities and their fanboys, not inventors of new values. The people who want to create new values should leave the marketplace and think for themselves instead of looking for fame.
“Flee my friend, into your solitude”
Go away from the fake “greatness” of the marketplace and make your own ideas on what’s right
The marketplace
commerce, business, city, society at large
Celebrity culture
people who are famous for being famous and typically for doing things that are relevant only as long as those people are alive, aka doesn’t help us evolve into the overman
“Masters of the hour”
people would be forgotten soon celebrities
What will society do
People in society will tell you what you want to hear…don’t let them steal your innocence even though it is easy
‘On the thousand and one goals’ – espec. para. 1-4 on page 64 and para. 4-5 on p. 65. →
There is nothing better than values and the human urge to create values
good and evil
no greater power. “Verily, men gave themselves all their good and evil… therefore he calls himself ‘man’, which means: the esteemer
Self-creation
what it means to be human
“First, peoples were creators; and only in later times, individuals. Verily, the individual himself is still the most recent creation
Humanity is still lacking
“1000” is accumulated values “and one” is what we are still searching for
Differing Values
No matter where he goes the values are different, and yet the urge to create values that are hard for people to achieve is really respectable. People only think it’s worth writing down in religion and laws if they believe it’s hard to achieve and the people who follow those rules the most are respected. For example: not drinking alcohol.
Writing in blood
reading should be an active process and passionate, he won’t spell it out for you and neither should other writers. He thinks of himself as an artist but not an entertainer.
God who could dance
we are supposed to be spontaneous If there was a god, he would dance. Zara thinks that the only god worth worshipping is one that likes sensuality.
Devil
gravity, seriousness, and religion as practiced. Very bitter towards the religion he grew up with.
