[ Post a Response | The Nietzsche Channel Message Board ]
Posted by Shannon
on 5/14/2008, 11:11 am, in reply to "Zarathustra book 2: The Night-Song"
123.200.210.X
Zarathustra may be expressing the tension that inheres in the responsibility of being a creator of values, of being a sun. Thus the light of other suns is not the light of Zarathustra, for Zarathustra lives by his own light, by his own values, which are the active product of his creative will, which provides the orbit of his values. Those who are not creators of values, the receivers, may all too readily disappear before Zarathustra, insofar as they feed upon his light and not their own. Just as the Hegelian slave is firstly a mere capitulation to and extension of the master's will, never able to give the master the recognition he yearns for, so too those who merely receive without resistance blend into Zarathustra's bestowing light: the danger of ever-bestowing is that it is easy to do as did the Greek gods, and out of boredom play with those who receive. It is only shame- not wanting to shame those upon whom one bestows- that may protect against this proclivity, and allow some empathy.
If other suns are mute, part of this muteness is Zarathustra's knowledge of their createdness in-another. One can see that they are suns, but they are suns that have been born from the depths of another creator, and a necessary, irreconcilable heterogeneity mutely sits between the two. There are a few lines of Beckett's that remind me of this condition of the creator-
what would i do what i did yesterday and the day before/ peering out of my deadlight looking for another/ wandering like me eddying far from all the living/ in a convulsive space/ among the voices voiceless/ that throng my hiddenness (from Mort De A.D)-
Upon my first reading of The Night Song, i was almost brought to tears, although i could not say why. Is there maybe not in here a reference to lost hopes regarding Lou Salome, or did the early references to lovers and Zarathustra's soul being a 'lover's song' get the better of my imagination.
As to the references to theft, one could read especially the first as suggesting that at least the thief asserts a kind of active autonomy when he steals that which a receiver passively receives. This reminds me of Aristotle's assertion, in The Politics, pertaining to pirates- because they actively win that which they steal- being more respectable than those who earn money through usury- a passive way of earning a livelihood.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread