Zarathustra

Question 1

Time away

Answer 1

Zarathustra spent 10 years in the mountains

-biblical reference/ jesus/moses

Question 2

“walks like a dancer”

Answer 2

• positive motif of expression of the body

- saint tells this to Zarathustra

Question 3

comparison to a child

Answer 3

positive: because it means full of life and creativity

Question 4

Time in town

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

The tight-rope walker

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

Zarathustra/ The tight-rope walker

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

Zarathustra/ apprentice

Answer 7

He goes up a mountain and finds a young man who is reluctant but curious, and he begins to lecture the youngin

Question 8

Zarathustra goal

Answer 8

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

Question 9

‘I love man.’ (p. 37)

Answer 9

I love the human race (also what he thinks the human race can become)

Question 10

‘Could it possible, the old saint has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead?’ (p. 38)

Answer 10

Need for the individual (the individual must start to create his own destiny/place in the world rather than depend on God)

Question 11

‘remain faithful to the earth;’ (p. 39)

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

The OVERMAN

Answer 12

The overman has experienced the hour of great contempt.

Question 13

Last man vs. the overman.

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

‘the three metamorphoses’ (p. 48)

Answer 14

how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel a lion; and the lion finally a child

Question 15

Camel

Answer 15

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

Question 16

“Stepping into filthy waters when they are the waters of truth, and not repulsing cold frogs and hot toads” (p. 49)

Answer 16

Camel

Question 17

Lion

Answer 17

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”

Question 18

Child

Answer 18

-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

Question 19

“your wild dogs want freedom”

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

‘preachers of death;’ (p. 55)

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

The new idol

Answer 21

nationalism, state of allegiance

Question 22

“It bites with stolen teeth”

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

“flies of the marketplace”

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

“Flee my friend, into your solitude”

Answer 24

Go away from the fake “greatness” of the marketplace and make your own ideas on what’s right

Question 25

The marketplace

Answer 25

commerce, business, city, society at large

Question 26

Celebrity culture

Answer 26

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

Question 27

“Masters of the hour”

Answer 27

people would be forgotten soon celebrities

Question 28

What will society do

Answer 28

People in society will tell you what you want to hear…don’t let them steal your innocence even though it is easy

Question 29

‘On the thousand and one goals’ – espec. para. 1-4 on page 64 and para. 4-5 on p. 65. →

Answer 29

There is nothing better than values and the human urge to create values

Question 30

good and evil

Answer 30

no greater power. “Verily, men gave themselves all their good and evil… therefore he calls himself ‘man’, which means: the esteemer

Question 31

Self-creation

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Humanity is still lacking

Answer 32

“1000” is accumulated values “and one” is what we are still searching for

Question 33

Differing Values

Answer 33

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.

Question 34

Writing in blood

Answer 34

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.

Question 35

God who could dance

Answer 35

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.

Question 36

Devil

Answer 36

gravity, seriousness, and religion as practiced. Very bitter towards the religion he grew up with.