Nietzsche

by Roy Jackson

  a Socrates

  b Aristotle

  c Kant

  d Thales

  9 What does it mean to see the world as ‘Darwinian’?

  a A world made up of components fighting for dominance over one another – that is, governed by natural selection

  b A world in which all creatures live at peace with one another

  c A world in which all life derives from Noah’s Ark

  d A world in which all life has been created by a deity

  10 Which one of the following is not a possible interpretation of the will to power?

  a The will to power as presenting an objective, metaphysical picture of the world

  b The will to power as a subjective interpretation of the world that has psychological implications

  c An empirical, scientific explanation of the physical world

  d The view that the world should be ruled by Supermen who enslave those with less power

  Dig deeper

  Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, trans. David Farell Krell (New York: HarperCollins, 1991)

  Rudiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (London: Granta, 2003)

  Rex Welshon, The Philosophy of Nietzsche (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004)

  7

  Zarathustra, the Superman and the eternal recurrence

  In this chapter you will learn:

  • about the story of Thus Spoke Zarathustra

  • what Nietzsche meant by the ‘Superman’ (Übermensch)

  • about the eternal recurrence

  • about Nietzsche’s views on nihilism

  • about amor fati.

  Although not considered his best philosophical work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s most widely read book. In many respects, the foundations for that book can be found in Human, All Too Human and Dawn, especially in the introduction of the concept of the will to power (see Chapter 6). The importance of Thus Spoke Zarathustra rests not only on its literary style but also on the fact that it contains the fullest exposition so far of his theories on the will to power, the Superman and the eternal recurrence.

  Thus Spoke Zarathustra

  ‘My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all eternity.’

  Ecce Homo, ‘Why I Am So Clever’, 10

  The original Zarathustra invented the concept of good and evil as an eternal war of battling opposites. However, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra aimed to show that we must go beyond the concepts of good and evil. For Nietzsche, the historical Zarathustra represents what can be achieved through the will to power, and his belief that every person is responsible for his or her own destiny would have struck a chord with Nietzsche.

  Thus Spoke Zarathustra is in four parts, the first part being penned in 1883 and the fourth part completed in 1885. When Nietzsche started writing this work, he had recently lost his ‘family’ of Lou Salomé and Paul Rée, and he now, more than ever, felt alone in the world. Zarathustra is about solitude and the hero of the book is the loneliest of men. Zarathustra the prophet has returned with a new teaching, having realized the ‘error’ of his old prophecy.

  The book is written in a biblical style, with a narrative, characters, events, setting and plot. In these respects, it is very different from Nietzsche’s other works and helps to explain its more popular appeal.

  Case study: Zarathustra

  Zarathustra was a prophet, a historical figure also known by the name the Greeks gave him, ‘Zoroaster’. The dates of his life are uncertain: he is thought to have lived at any time time between the eighteenth and sixth centuries BCE. Zoroastrianism was the official religion of the mighty Persian Empire for around a thousand years, and small groups of Zoroastrians still exist in Iran and among the Parsis in India.

  Zarathustra is regarded as the author of the religious texts known as the Gathas, which consist of 17 hymns. Some of these hymns are devoted to singing the praises of Ahura Mazda, the highest deity, while others are autobiographical, describing the prophet’s mission to promote the teaching of Ahura Mazda, only to be ignored – leading the prophet to doubt that he was the right one for such a mission. These autobiographical hymns must have particularly inspired Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, who has similar experiences bringing a ‘new teaching’. Equally, Nietzsche would have been sympathetic towards the prophet’s emphasis on the individual’s own responsibility for his or her destiny and freedom to choose right or wrong.

  Zorastrianism also influenced Greek philosophy, especially that of the Presocratic thinker Heraclitus, who inspired Nietzsche’s own thoughts, as he says in Ecce Homo:

  ‘I have not been asked, as I should have been asked, what the name Zarathustra means in precisely my mouth, in the mouth of the first immoralist … Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the actual wheel in the working of things: the translation of morality into the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, end-in-itself… Zarathustra created this most fateful of errors, morality: consequently he must also be the first to recognize it… His teaching, and his alone, upholds truthfulness as the supreme virtue – that is to say, the opposite of the cowardice of the “idealist”, who takes flight in face of reality; Zarathustra has more courage in him than all other thinkers put together.’

  Ecce Homo, ‘Why I Am Destiny’, 3

  A brief summary of Thus Spoke Zarathustra

  The Zarathustra of the Persians was the first prophet to talk of the Day of Judgement, of time reaching a final end. However, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra provides a very different teaching.

  At first choosing solitude in the mountains, Zarathustra grows weary of his own company and descends to seek companions and to teach his new philosophy. But, even when surrounded by disciples, he retreats once more to his solitude and praises its virtues. The new teaching that Zarathustra presents is based upon the foundation that God is dead, and, subsequent to this, the teachings on (and striving to become) the Superman, the will to power and the eternal recurrence.

  PART I

  ‘ “All gods are dead: now we want the Superman to live” – let this be our last will one day at the great noontide’.

  Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ‘Of the Bestowing Virtue’

  Zarathustra descends from the mountains after ten years of solitude and expresses the need for a new teaching to replace the old teaching of a belief in God and morality. The new teaching, ‘God is dead’, will be brought by another teacher: not Zarathustra, but a ‘Superman’. However, the masses laugh at Zarathustra and so he sets out to find followers. In this first part, it is Zarathustra who perhaps learns more, rather than actually teaches, as he realizes that concepts such as the Superman cannot easily be taught. It is not enough simply to tell the people about the Superman through a series of statements. By the end of Part I, he has instead gathered together a small band of disciples rather than attempt to preach to the masses. It is a realization on the part of Zarathustra – and Nietzsche, too – that his words are not for Everyman.

  PART II

  ‘I go new ways, a new speech has come to me; like all creators, I have grown weary of the old tongues. My spirit no longer wants to walk on worn-out soles.’

  Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ‘The Child and the Mirror’

  Having told his disciples to leave him and to find their own way, Zarathustra now looks within himself for enlightenment, returning once more to the mountains. After the passing of years, Zarathustra once again descends among his disciples with a ‘new speech’. In the section ‘Of Self-overcoming’, he talks of the will to power and states that the highest human beings, those who know how to utilize the will to power in the most positive sense, are philosophers. These philosophers, these Supermen, will destroy the values that people have cherished and replace them with new values. They will teach humankind how to love the earth.

  PART III

  ‘Behold, we know what you teach: that all t
hings recur eternally and we ourselves with them, and that we have already existed an infinite number of times before and all things with us.’

  Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ‘The Convalescent’

  This part acts as the climax for the previous two parts. Zarathustra separates from his disciples and takes a long sea voyage, for he no longer needs disciples. In solitude once more, Zarathustra wills for eternal recurrence, for his ‘redemption’.

  Spotlight

  Writing Part III, for Nietzsche, was, he reported, the happiest time of his life. For Nietzsche, writing was a form of therapy, but also he believed that reading his works could be therapeutic for the reader. Philosophy as therapy may seem a relatively new idea, but it was something Nietzsche acknowledged.

  PART IV

  ‘If you want to rise high, use your own legs! Do not let yourselves be carried up, do not sit on the backs and heads of strangers!’

  Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ‘Of the Higher Man’

  In this part, Zarathustra’s solitude is broken by a series of visitors, including a soothsayer, two kings, a scholar, a sorcerer, the last Pope who also believes that God is dead, the ‘ugliest man’, the beggar and Zarathustra’s own shadow. Zarathustra has a ‘last supper’ with his visitors, preceded by a speech about the Superman. He then engages in question-and-answer conversation on such issues as the Superman and the death of God.

  Part IV deals with a major concern of Nietzsche: redemption. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche argued that humankind could be redeemed through the revival of Greek tragedy and the renewal of German culture. However, as he became disillusioned with the possibilities of Art to achieve this, Nietzsche still avoided the pessimistic response and believed that there still can be redemption, that there is still a need to revalue all values and overcome decadence. However, Part IV is less naive, as the ironic realization dawns that affirming life can be achieved only by resenting life as it presently is.

  Spotlight

  Nietzsche had originally intended Part III to be the final one. When he wrote a fourth part he distributed it to only around 20 people and it was not added to the book until 1892, when Nietzsche had gone insane and was in no position to object to its conclusion. Many scholars have argued that Zarathustra is a better book without the fourth part. However, although the work is certainly more consistent with only the first three parts, the fourth part is very important in terms of understanding Nietzsche’s development as a philosopher.

  The eternal recurrence

  A central theme of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the eternal recurrence. In fact, for Zarathustra, embracing the concept was, for him, salvation. What did Nietzsche mean by this? This doctrine of the eternal recurrence only gets a few mentions in his later works, although Nietzsche does hint at it in The Gay Science, where he presents a ‘what if’ image. He asks: What if a demon were to creep up to you one night when you are all alone and feeling lonely and were to say to you that the life you have lived and continue to live will be the same life you will live again and again for infinity? This life will be exactly the same: no additions and no omissions, every pain, every joy, every small and great event. If this were the case, would you cry out in despair over such a prospect, or would you think it to be the most wonderful outlook ever?

  Though not mentioned specifically, this ‘what if’ scenario sums up the eternal recurrence: whatever in fact happens has happened an infinite number of times in exactly the same detail and will continue to do so for eternity. You have lived your life an infinite number of times in the past and will do so an infinite number of times in the future.

  Importantly, like, seemingly, the doctrine of the will to power, Nietzsche presents the eternal recurrence as a thought experiment, not a provable truth. You do not have to believe the demon is telling the truth, merely to consider the prospect of it being true and the psychological effect this has upon you. Consider the possibility yourself: does it make you happy or fill you with despair? Like the will to power, the aim is to provide an insight into the way we live our lives and, perhaps, even to change the way we live our lives. If indeed we experience despair at the prospect of living this life again and again, then it logically follows that we are not happy with the way we live our lives.

  Nietzsche considered that merely thinking of the possibility was the greatest of thoughts and would have an impact on how you perceive yourself and how you live the rest of your life. This is why he gave it such central importance in Zarathustra. Proof of the doctrine is not important here; it is sufficient to consider it as simply a possibility. Nietzsche’s aim in presenting the eternal recurrence was to present a positive doctrine of an ‘afterlife’ – one that would not devalue this life. In this way, it is much more powerful than the religious view of Heaven. The Christian view of the afterlife, Nietzsche thought, acts as a consolation and causes people to accept their lot in this life with the prospect of a better life when they die (provided they are not destined for Hell, of course!).

  Nietzsche was not original in presenting the idea of the eternal recurrence. In his Untimely Meditations, he had criticized the doctrine of eternal recurrence that existed in the ancient Greek philosophy of Pythagoras. Nietzsche’s criticism of it at that time was that events do not and cannot recur within the span of known history. If Nietzsche did not accept eternal recurrence as understood by Pythagorean philosophy, then can we speculate over what he did mean by it? Apart from the ancient Greek philosophers, Nietzsche came across the theory in a more contemporary sense in a writer he much admired, the great German poet Heinrich Heine (1797–1856). In one of his works, Heine refers to time being infinite whereas the things in time – concrete bodies – are finite. He then speculates that if this is the case, given an infinite amount of time, the atoms that have dispersed will eventually reform exactly as before. Therefore, we will be born again in the same form. However, the real impetus for the eternal recurrence was Schopenhauer, who considered it to be the most terrible idea possible, an image of endless suffering.

  Is this some basis for Nietzsche’s belief in the eternal recurrence? The reader must be reminded that, as with the will to power, Nietzsche was not primarily setting out to prove his doctrine, yet, also like the will to power, it is important to consider the problems with it and what foundational basis, if any, there can be for such a doctrine. Although Nietzsche did not present a proof in his published writings, he wrote a great deal about it in his notes. However, in making use of Nietzsche’s notes, we need to be very careful and not equate the idle and often careless scribbling with what Nietzsche was prepared to present as the final work. It is largely because Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth, proceeded to publish his notes after he went insane that people accepted them as his own philosophy, which led to a misunderstanding of his ideas.

  Bearing this cautionary note in mind, Nietzsche’s own speculations on the doctrine can be presented as a useful intellectual exercise. Taken from his notes, we can summarize an attempt at a proof as a series of premises with a conclusion:

  1 The sum total of energy in the universe is infinite.

  2 The number of states of energy is finite.

  3 Energy is conserved.

  4 Time is infinite.

  5 Energy has infinite duration.

  This summary bears a strong resemblance to Heine. We can see what Nietzsche is getting at here: it is rather like the classic example of a monkey in front of a typewriter who, given an infinite amount of time, will eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare. The monkey is typing away in a random manner but, in time, the correct combination of letters will be achieved. Likewise, the states of energy are random but, given an infinite amount of time, will reconstitute themselves.

  However, there are a number of problems with this:

  • Nietzsche relies upon two basic assumptions: that time is infinite (it has no beginning or end) and that the ‘states of energy’, the matter of the universe, are finite. These, of course, are assumptions that may not in fact be t
he case and are yet to be proven one way or the other. Much of modern cosmology argues that the universe began with a ‘Big Bang’ and does have a limited timespan; however, it is anybody’s guess what existed before the Big Bang or what will occur once this universe ceases to exist.

  • It may well be the case that you would live this life again and again for infinity, but this would not motivate you to live this life to the full because, if such a theory were true, it would also mean that every conceivable combination of events would also occur. You can imagine the worst life possible: the most miserable, deprived and painful existence that you could live, and you will live it again and again, no matter what you do in this life. Nietzsche can only get around this by accepting a deterministic view that not all possible combinations can occur, only a return of those combinations that have actually occurred in human history. On this issue, Nietzsche does seem to present both possibilities in his notes.

  • Georg Simmel presented an elegant rejection of the view that states must recombine given an infinite amount of time. Imagine three wheels of the same size rotating on the same axis. On the circumference of each wheel a mark is placed so that all three wheels are aligned. The wheels are then rotated, but at different speeds. If the second wheel is rotated at twice the speed of the first and the third wheel was 1/Π of the speed of the first, the original alignment would never recur, no matter how much time elapsed. Nietzsche, however, may retort that his ‘states of energy’ are random, whereas Simmel’s wheels maintain a constant speed. If they ran at random speeds, then they would eventually realign.