The Nietzschean Odyssey: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

"I teach you the Übermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?"

This question begins the teaching, the journey, the birth of Zarathustra the prophet. Nietzsche's magnum opus without a doubt. His best work according to Nietzsche himself. Mankind's best work in centuries according to Nietzsche himself. What, then, is it? Who is Zarathustra?

First of all, this book is an epic, in the sense of the literary tradition. It is a gospel, or more technically a parody of a gospel. It is the story of a man's development. It is also very good at what it does, and in following the above styles, is so full of interpretations and information and allusions that it would be perhaps impossible to write a thorough description of the book that would itself be of lesser length than the book in question. However, we will do what we can.

So who is Zarathustra? Zarathustra is, as he describes himself, teacher of the Übermensch. What is the Übermensch? Perhaps Nietzsche's most important concept, the Übermensch is our future, our goal, and what we must strive for. He is the end point of human evolution.

Specifically, the Übermensch is a man completely independent, fully aware of reality and how limited our understanding of it is, one who is tied down by nothing except that which he chooses to tie himself down with (creator of his own reality).

The Übermensch is creator. To create one must destroy. What must one destroy? All the old prejudices. The moralities of the weak in society (especially and specifically utilitarianism) degrade humanity. They reverse the evolution of man into what he should become. That shallow contentment that man seeks must also be avoided. Safety from harm should be laughed at. Now should be mentioned the opposite of the Übermensch, the "Last Man". The Last Man is, essentially, the average do-nothing couch potato American. Lazy, no sense of purpose, doesn't strive to really "do" anything. Just sits there and sighs ("blinks" according to Nietzsche). A waste of living tissue that brings about nothing, the Last Man is the exact opposite of the Übermensch, who creates his own values. "But he has discovered himself who says: That is my good and evil..." Thus the Übermensch is he who will "smash the old tablets" of virtues and morals and values, and create new tablets of his own choosing. "Man must be overcome."

The Übermensch is also a dancer. Recall that in his early, Schopenhauerian youth, Nietzsche saw music as part of a means for tolerating life. The reality brought about by music combined with the images of story, dialog, and illusion brought one close to life itself without destroying life in the process. This new music, however, this dancing music that would occupy Nietzsche for the rest of his life, while still Dionysian in character, is seen through a whole new lens. Nietzsche drops off the pessimism of Schopenhauer and instead says yes. To what? To everything. The Übermensch says yes to life itself. To the good moments that bring happiness, to the bad moments that create character. Nietzsche becomes an optimist of the most incredible type, and this is exemplified in the dancing and singing of Zarathustra. Zarathustra dances frequently, and the music and dance are always lighthearted and pleasant in tone. Joy is the message, joy about life. The only good god, says Zarathustra at one point, is a god that can dance. A god, that is (or a person), that can take utter joy in life, even when life is at its lowest moment.

But like any wisdom, what is important, Zarathustra discovers, lay in not only announcing the path but living it. As Thus Spoke Zarathustra progresses through four parts it becomes less and less a series of speeches about the Übermensch and more and more about the character of Zarathustra himself. Zarathustra is not the Übermensch, after all, but is only here to announce his future arrival. Yet Zarathustra finds that he still has trials to overcome, highest of all being the next to last aphorism in the first published edition of The Gay Science: eternal recurrence.

"I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all things..." This is Zarathustra's true purpose, and his hardest truth. How can life be worthwhile if the exact same path will be taken again, with the exact same results? It is here that we take a turn for the existential. Here is Camus' absurd. What does Zarathustra do? Why, he learns to love life so much, that indeed he comes to understand the wisdom of his own teachings, that we must change every "thus it was" to "thus I willed it": that is, no regrets, no matter how bad life is. Even if every mistake, every victory, all of it comes back the exact same, if you can reach a point where you would will it again and again, for eternity, you are truly a lover of life. And that person is the Übermensch.

To call this a gloss over the story is a severe understatement. I have only given a cursory treatment to some of the most important ideas in the book, and not even all of the central ones at that. Then there are countless asides, references, and other tidbits that could be elaborated to no end (to make this point, I actually considered doing a section by section review of this book (each section is anywhere from 2-20 pages, the whole book being about 280)). The only way to serve justice to this book is to read it yourself. Then you can decide if this one is worthy of the praise Nietzsche gives it.

Next, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. The first nonfiction book where I got psychologically irritated at what I was reading at one point. We'll see how a re-read seven months later has changed me.