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Posted by allen on 3/2/2007, 4:18 am, in reply to "Zarathustra Prologue 3" "The hour when we say: 'What good is my pity! Is not pity the cross
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I really don't think Zarathustra implied that he "didn't love man after all" when he was speaking to the other hermit (QUITE the contrary, actually). What happened in that passage was a little of Nietzsche's humor: Zarathustra had let the weighty word LOVE slip in front of the wrong kind of person--one with a poisoned idea of "love"--and realized it as soon as the fellow started talking -- "Wow! uh, did I say "love"? What I meant was..well, suffice it to say I have a GIFT for man".
on which he is nailed who loveth man? But my pity is not a
crucifixion.'" -- the essential thing here is that pity is more likely to end up being a self-serving martyrdom (see Matthew 6:1) and, yes, if anything only to INCREASE suffering by adding just one more sufferer (Antichrist 7); but it is never constructive unless it is a "tough love" that licks like lightning and forces change or death.
--Previous Message--
: [My ideas are in brackets. Thomas]
:
: When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest
: town which adjoineth the
: forest, he found many people assembled in
: the market-place; for it had
: been announced that a rope-dancer would give
: a performance. And
: Zarathustra spake thus unto the people: I
: teach you the Superman.
: [Ich lehre euch den Übermenschen: amazingly
: Stanley Rosen (The Mask of Enlightenment)
: got his German grammar all wrong I think:
: because he translates: "I teach you
: about the supermen" and comments:
: "The use of the plural Übermenschen
: shows that Zarathustra is not prophesying
: the coming of a single superior being, but a
: new human type."
: But "den Übermenschen" is a
: singular masculine accusative (the object of
: the teaching); the accusative plural would
: be:
: Ich lehre euch die Übermenschen." So
: Rosen is wrong from the very start,
: Nietzsche is NOT calling for "a new
: human type".
: In fact the text does not yet tell us what
: the Superman could be.]
:
: Man is something that is to be surpassed.
: What have ye done to surpass man?
: All beings hitherto have created something
: beyond themselves: and ye
: want to be the ebb of that great tide, and
: would rather go back to the
: beast than surpass man?
: What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock,
: a thing of shame. And just
: the same shall man be to the Superman: a
: laughing-stock, a thing of
: shame.
: Ye have made your way from the worm to
: man, and much within you is
: still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet
: man is more of an ape than
: any of the apes.
: Even the wisest among you is only a
: disharmony and hybrid of plant
: and phantom. But do I bid you become
: phantoms or plants?
: Lo, I teach you the Superman!
: The Superman is the meaning of the earth.
: Let your will [Wille in German] say: The
: Superman shall he the meaning of the earth!
: [With the call towards a Superman, Nietzsche
: is invoking the voice of our Will to bring
: it about.]
:
: I conjure you, my brethren, remain true to
: the earth, and believe
: not those who speak unto you of superearthly
: hopes! Poisoners are
: they, whether they know it or not.
: Despisers of life are they, decaying ones
: and poisoned ones
: themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so
: away with them!
: Once blasphemy against God was the
: greatest blasphemy; but God died,
: and therewith also those blasphemers. To
: blaspheme the earth is now
: the dreadfulest sin, and to rate the heart
: of the unknowable higher
: than the meaning of the earth!
: Once the soul looked contemptuously on the
: body, and then that
: contempt was the supreme thing:- the soul
: wished the body meagre,
: ghastly, and famished. Thus it thought to
: escape from the body and the
: earth.
: Oh, that soul was itself meagre, ghastly,
: and famished; and
: cruelty was the delight of that soul!
: But ye, also, my brethren, tell me: What
: doth your body say about
: your soul? Is your soul not poverty and
: pollution and wretched
: self-complacency?
: Verily, a polluted stream is man. One must
: be a sea, to receive a
: polluted stream without becoming impure.
: Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that
: sea; in him can your
: great contempt be submerged.
: What is the greatest thing ye can
: experience? It is the hour of
: great contempt. The hour in which even your
: happiness becometh
: loathsome unto you, and so also your reason
: and virtue.
:
: [What follows looks to me like a remake of
: Jesus sermon on the mountain,
: Nietzsche is continuously reversing values.]
:
: The hour when ye say: "What good is
: my happiness! It is poverty
: and pollution and wretched self-complacency.
: But my happiness should
: justify existence itself!"
: [Happiness should be this-worldly, embracing
: concrete existence ("Dasein" in
: the text),
: not seeking other-worldly happiness.]
:
: The hour when ye say: "What good is
: my reason! Doth it long for
: knowledge as the lion for his food? It is
: poverty and pollution and
: wretched self-complacency!"
: [The lion as symbol for eagerness, not
: lukewarm wisdom.]
:
: The hour when ye say: "What good is
: my virtue! As yet it hath not
: made me passionate. How weary I am of my
: good and my bad! It is all
: poverty and pollution and wretched
: self-complacency!"
: [Advocating passion, rather than Aristotle's
: virtuous mean?]
:
: The hour when ye say: "What good is
: my justice! I do not see that
: I am fervour and fuel. The just, however,
: are fervour and fuel!"
: [Fire as an image of passion...]
:
: The hour when we say: "What good is
: my pity! Is not pity the cross
: on which he is nailed who loveth man? But my
: pity is not a
: crucifixion."
: [Nietzsche seems to connect pity to
: suffering, and his pity is not such a pity,
: just as he told the hermit that no, he
: didn't love men after all.]
:
: Have ye ever spoken thus? Have ye ever
: cried thus? Ah! would that
: I had heard you crying thus!
: It is not your sin- it is your
: self-satisfaction that crieth unto
: heaven; your very sparingness in sin crieth
: unto heaven!
: Where is the lightning to lick you with
: its tongue? Where is the
: frenzy with which ye should be inoculated?
: Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that
: lightning, he is that
: frenzy!-
: When Zarathustra had thus spoken, one of
: the people called out: "We have now
: heard enough of the rope-dancer; it is time
: now for us
: to. see him!" And all the people
: laughed at Zarathustra. But the
: rope-dancer, who thought the words applied
: to him, began his
: performance.
:
:
:
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