|
Guest
|
To: Durland.fish at (no spam) yale.edu, Aag1 at (no spam) columbia.edu, gary_wormser at (no spam) nymc.edu,
scientificintegrity at (no spam) ostp.gov, pkrugman at (no spam) princeton.edu,
Stanley.fish at (no spam) fiu.edu, emcsweegan at (no spam) niaid.nih.gov, afauci at (no spam) niaid.nih.gov,
SpinLyme at (no spam) yahoogroups.com, kshepard at (no spam) calea.org, fitzmas at (no spam) gmail.com,
patrick.fitzgerald at (no spam) usdoj.gov, modelt1918 at (no spam) sbcglobal.net,
jdrazen at (no spam) nejm.org, letters at (no spam) courant.com, Jgerberding at (no spam) cdc.gov,
michael.cole at (no spam) po.state.ct.us, conndcj at (no spam) po.state.ct.us, executive-
editor at (no spam) nytimes.com, managing-editor at (no spam) nytimes.com, news-
tips at (no spam) nytimes.com, bizday at (no spam) nytimes.com, foreign at (no spam) nytimes.com,
national at (no spam) nytimes.com, dvbid at (no spam) cdc.gov, brigidcallahan at (no spam) optonline.net,
trvl at (no spam) hotmail.com, illinoislyme at (no spam) aol.com, jlender at (no spam) courant.com,
tinajgarcia at (no spam) yahoo.com, jhornberger at (no spam) fff.org, thomas.carson at (no spam) usdoj.gov,
thomas.ryan at (no spam) po.state.ct.us, kurtzh at (no spam) washpost.com,
georgewill at (no spam) washpost.com, pj at (no spam) allegorypress.com,
commissioner.dcf at (no spam) po.state.ct.us, bransfield at (no spam) comcast.net,
vtsherr at (no spam) comcast.net, oca at (no spam) po.state.ct.us, freethinker at (no spam) charter.net,
scott.murphy at (no spam) po.state.ct.us, governor.rell at (no spam) po.state.ct.us,
attorney.general at (no spam) po.state.ct.us, randall.samborn at (no spam) usdoj.gov,
Robert.shiller at (no spam) yale.edu, editor at (no spam) greenwich-post.com,
harold.koh at (no spam) yale.edu, sedmonds at (no spam) nswbc.org, rrmcgovern at (no spam) aol.com,
frich at (no spam) nytimes.com, dprice at (no spam) stmartin.edu
Cc: francam at (no spam) ucia.gov, dr-ahmadinejad at (no spam) president.ir,
eugenerobinson at (no spam) washpost.com, afauci at (no spam) niaid.nih.gov,
bmiller at (no spam) newstimes.com, trvl at (no spam) hotmail.com, rastro18 at (no spam) aol.com,
billcurryct at (no spam) gmail.com, amcguigan at (no spam) rms-law.com, rjmurzyn at (no spam) aol.com,
paulcraigroberts at (no spam) yahoo.com, sidney_blumenthal at (no spam) yahoo.com,
criminal.division at (no spam) usdoj.gov, karla.dobinski at (no spam) usdoj.gov,
christopher.christie at (no spam) usdoj.gov, richard.Levin at (no spam) yale.edu,
harold.koh at (no spam) yale.edu, james.phillips at (no spam) yale.edu, inquire at (no spam) aldf.com,
lyme at (no spam) idsociety.org, meganmcardle at (no spam) theatlantic.com,
bob.drogin at (no spam) latimes.com
Subject: Mr. Zarathustra and the Supermen
Date: Oct 26, 2009 6:57 AM
"And just as the old system of valuing, which only extolled the
qualities favourable to the weak, the suffering, and the oppressed,
has succeeded in producing a weak, suffering, and 'modern' race, so
this new and reversed system of valuing ought to rear a healthy,
strong, lively, and courageous type, which would be a glory to life
itself. Stated briefly, the leading principle of this new system of
valuing would be: 'All that proceeds from power is good, all that
springs from weakness is bad.'"
---Sayeth Mr. Zarathustra (below)
========================
Thank you.
Good topic.
The topic came from *everyone* being
ready to pillory Dick and run him out
of town.
Why do we have to put up with this
for years on end, and to the detriment
of hundreds of millions?
ARTICLES OF INTEREST:
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/10/empty-establishment-no-ones-home-in.html
^^^"No One's Home in USA's Empty-head Establishment"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/books/review/Chua-t.html?ref=books
^^^"Where is US Foreign Policy Headed?"
Yes, thank you. We have no foreign
policy except arrogance and stupidity.
The stupidity and arrogance are formalized
into what we call "policy," which is created
for us'n plain old folk hoos not allowed
ta have thinkingness:
http://www.actionlyme.org/GAUVIN_DEATH_PENALTY.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/BLUMENTHALS_MAIL_STOLEN_BY_JESSICA_GAUVIN.htm
CHECK; OKAY to steal the Attorney General's RICO
mail off of his desk, and give it to Yalie perverts
who are the defendants in the claim:
http://www.actionlyme.org/USDOJ_COMPLAINT_RICO.htm
and that's not a crime we call obstruction
of justice. Such is "dangerously intelligent
Unabomber Chemistry-ness," according to the
Yalie Psychotardal Elites, like James Phillips
who does not have to read:
http://www.actionlyme.org/PHILLIPS_JE_PERVERT.htm
James Phillips already ^^^ knows all, see. He has
secret knowledge  )) that transcends all scientific
facts.
Researching the subject (an archeological dig
and DNA analysis into from whence these nutballs
were resurrected), I ran into a character
named Zarathustra. Apparently Nietzche had an
alien abduction of sorts, much like today's
New Age Pleiadians and their Channelers and the
Deep-Breathers
http://www.actionlyme.org/Hilarious.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/DCF_NANCY_MARTIN_BLOW_ME_OFF_1996.htm
(Nancy Martin is a Deep Breather, now, making
her smarter than me, the plain old chemist:
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/slides/3680s2_11.pdf
because she is a Deep Breather and has that
secret knowledge, which makes her powerful
brilliant and insightful...)
And the Secret Knowledgers, like the George Greens:
http://www.actionlyme.org/091013.htm
who were CHOSEN, see. Chosen because they're
were special in the first place.
And Mr. "Zarathustra" gave Nietzche this Reverse
Christianity secret knowledge:
http://nietzsche.thefreelibrary.com/Thus-Spake-Zarathustra/1-1
The mindset of this self-alleged brilliant,
Nietzche, was clearly that ***there was something
special about himself,*** which is the ONE SINGLE
NECESSARY INGREDIENT in demonic possession as
described in the 5 cases of modern exorcisms
performed/recorded by Father Malachi Martin in
Hostage to the Devil:
http://www.actionlyme.org/SATANS_SICKOS.htm
and such a condition cross applies when we
see it in all former (ancient) and newer and
emerging philosophies, like the New Agers, the
self-hypnotizers (Deep Breathers), psychoanalysis
(which is almost like a brain-transplant because
the intention is to steal your brain, or rather,
put ideas in there that weren't there before,
or *is* a process of brain-washing-with-coercion;
They try to take over your life).
There are other such philosophies and
influences where the cult member is tempted
to believe he is Superman or "elite,' in some
way, such as Freemasonry, which retains members
because the members *enjoy* believing they're unique
and nearly, are approaching, Perfect.
Every false belief serves some self-flattering
purpose for the false-believer. Pride becomes
heavy like a lead octopus or a brain cancer
entangling the sufferer's brain and is nearly
impossible to extract.
Here are some more:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2748614967389038944#
"Most 'judges' are Penis-Loving Freemasons"- Bill Schnoebelen
http://www.viddler.com/explore/babylonfalling/videos/14/
"Freemasons worship penises" - Doc Marquis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAsmyQk3P3c
"Freemasons worship sex/penises" - Leo Zagami.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANooGJj6Ng8&feature=related
"Freemasons are the only enemies of the Catholic Church and
are behind the Vatican II Corruption Conspiracy"
- Fr. Malachi Martin
http://www.viddler.com/explore/babylonfalling/videos/15/ "Freemasons/
Illuminati wants a world religion where we all worship
Lucifer, as do the Freemasons"- Doc Maquis.
==========================
This, the following from Nietzche's sister, is
anotherwhere where the "Supermen" and "Weakness is
Bad, Might is Good" Doctrine came from. Christianity
says the opposite, of course: "The poor-in-spirit
(the depressed, the non-fighters, the 'weak') shall
see God." (Or "Blessed are the victims and damned
are their oppressors.")
These "MEEeee!" doctrines are demonic. And all
false doctrines or false belief systems have the
same component, underlying "'I AM' UNIQUE"
And that's how people get sucked into
them. It is so easy to tempt a human
to elevate himself above others, from the
petty, the neighborly, to the national, to
the so-called elite institutions.
The truth is that the only wisdom is
humility. It's a simple acknowledgement
that you'll *never* acquire all the facts.
Life is the Theory of Limits. We can
always be approaching a model or a system
of how stuff works, but we'll never capture
it all.
And anyone truly respectful of knowledge
would hardly make a move for fear of
upsetting some unknown balance; management
of earth would be extremely delicate.
http://nietzsche.thefreelibrary.com/Thus-Spake-Zarathustra/1-1
HOW ZARATHUSTRA CAME INTO BEING.
"Zarathustra" is my brother's most personal work; it is the history of
his most individual experiences, of his friendships, ideals, raptures,
bitterest disappointments and sorrows. Above it all, however, there
soars, transfiguring it, the image of his greatest hopes and remotest
aims. My brother had the figure of Zarathustra in his mind from his
very earliest youth: he once told me that even as a child he had
dreamt of him. At different periods in his life, he would call this
haunter of his dreams by different names; "but in the end," he
declares in a note on the subject, "I had to do a PERSIAN the honour
of identifying him with this creature of my fancy. Persians were the
first to take a broad and comprehensive view of history. Every series
of evolutions, according to them, was presided over by a prophet; and
every prophet had his 'Hazar,'--his dynasty of a thousand years."
All Zarathustra's views, as also his personality, were early
conceptions of my brother's mind. Whoever reads his posthumously
published writings for the years 1869-82 with care, will constantly
meet with passages suggestive of Zarathustra's thoughts and doctrines.
For instance, the ideal of the Superman is put forth quite clearly in
all his writings during the years
1873-75; and in "We Philologists", the following remarkable
observations occur:--
"How can one praise and glorify a nation as a whole?--Even among the
Greeks, it was the INDIVIDUALS that counted."
"The Greeks are interesting and extremely important because they
reared such a vast number of great individuals. How was this possible?
The question is one which ought to be studied.
"I am interested only in the relations of a people to the rearing of
the individual man, and among the Greeks the conditions were unusually
favourable for the development of the individual; not by any means
owing to the goodness of the people, but because of the struggles of
their evil instincts.
Ads by GoogleHealth Administration
Free Education Guide Instantly For Accredited Schools & Financial Aid!
Edu.SearchByDegree.com/HealthAdmin
"WITH THE HELP OF FAVOURABLE MEASURES GREAT INDIVIDUALS MIGHT BE
REARED WHO WOULD BE BOTH DIFFERENT FROM AND HIGHER THAN THOSE WHO
HERETOFORE HAVE OWED THEIR EXISTENCE TO MERE CHANCE. Here we may still
be hopeful: in the rearing of exceptional men."
The notion of rearing the Superman is only a new form of an ideal
Nietzsche already had in his youth, that "THE OBJECT OF MANKIND SHOULD
LIE IN ITS HIGHEST INDIVIDUALS" (or, as he writes in "Schopenhauer as
Educator": "Mankind ought constantly to be striving to produce great
men--this and nothing else is its duty.") But the ideals he most
revered in those days are no longer held to be the highest types of
men. No, around this future ideal of a coming humanity--the Superman--
the poet spread the veil of becoming. Who can tell to what glorious
heights man can still ascend? That is why, after having tested the
worth of our noblest ideal--that of the Saviour, in the light of the
new valuations, the poet cries with passionate emphasis in
"Zarathustra":
"Never yet hath there been a Superman. Naked have I seen both of them,
the greatest and the smallest man:--
All-too-similar are they still to each other. Verily even the greatest
found I--all-too-human!"--
The phrase "the rearing of the Superman," has very often been
misunderstood. By the word "rearing," in this case, is meant the act
of modifying by means of new and higher values--values which, as laws
and guides of conduct and opinion, are now to rule over mankind. In
general the doctrine of the Superman can only be understood correctly
in conjunction with other ideas of the author's, such as:--the Order
of Rank, the Will to Power, and the Transvaluation of all Values. He
assumes that Christianity, as a product of the resentment of the
botched and the weak, has put in ban all that is beautiful, strong,
proud, and powerful, in fact all the qualities resulting from
strength, and that, in consequence, all forces which tend to promote
or elevate life have been seriously undermined. Now, however, a new
table of valuations must be placed over mankind--namely, that of the
strong, mighty, and magnificent man, overflowing with life and
elevated to his zenith--the Superman, who is now put before us with
overpowering passion as the aim of our life, hope, and will. And just
as the old system of valuing, which only extolled the qualities
favourable to the weak, the suffering, and the oppressed, has
succeeded in producing a weak, suffering, and "modern" race, so this
new and reversed system of valuing ought to rear a healthy, strong,
lively, and courageous type, which would be a glory to life itself.
Stated briefly, the leading principle of this new system of valuing
would be: "All that proceeds from power is good, all that springs from
weakness is bad."
This type must not be regarded as a fanciful figure: it is not a
nebulous hope which is to be realised at some indefinitely remote
period, thousands of years hence; nor is it a new species (in the
Darwinian sense) of which we can know nothing, and which it would
therefore be somewhat absurd to strive after. But it is meant to be a
possibility which men of the present could realise with all their
spiritual and physical energies, provided they adopted the new values.
The author of "Zarathustra" never lost sight of that egregious example
of a transvaluation of all values through Christianity, whereby the
whole of the deified mode of life and thought of the Greeks, as well
as strong Romedom, was almost annihilated or transvalued in a
comparatively short time. Could not a rejuvenated Graeco-Roman system
of valuing (once it had been refined and made more profound by the
schooling which two thousand years of Christianity had provided)
effect another such revolution within a calculable period of time,
until that glorious type of manhood shall finally appear which is to
be our new faith and hope, and in the creation of which Zarathustra
exhorts us to participate?
In his private notes on the subject the author uses the expression
"Superman" (always in the singular, by-the-bye), as signifying "the
most thoroughly well-constituted type," as opposed to "modern man";
above all, however, he designates Zarathustra himself as an example of
the Superman. In "Ecco Homo" he is careful to enlighten us concerning
the precursors and prerequisites to the advent of this highest type,
in referring to a certain passage in the "Gay Science":--
"In order to understand this type, we must first be quite clear in
regard to the leading physiological condition on which it depends:
this condition is what I call GREAT HEALTHINESS. I know not how to
express my meaning more plainly or more personally than I have done
already in one of the last chapters (Aphorism 382) of the fifth book
of the 'Gaya Scienza'."
"We, the new, the nameless, the hard-to-understand,"--it says
there,--"we firstlings of a yet untried future--we require for a new
end also a new means, namely, a new healthiness, stronger, sharper,
tougher, bolder and merrier than all healthiness hitherto. He whose
soul longeth to experience the whole range of hitherto recognised
values and desirabilities, and to circumnavigate all the coasts of
this ideal 'Mediterranean Sea', who, from the adventures of his most
personal experience, wants to know how it feels to be a conqueror, and
discoverer of the ideal--as likewise how it is with the artist, the
saint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the devotee, the
prophet, and the godly non-conformist of the old style:--requires one
thing above all for that purpose, GREAT HEALTHINESS--such healthiness
as one not only possesses, but also constantly acquires and must
acquire, because one unceasingly sacrifices it again, and must
sacrifice it!--And now, after having been long on the way in this
fashion, we Argonauts of the ideal, more courageous perhaps than
prudent, and often enough shipwrecked and brought to grief,
nevertheless dangerously healthy, always healthy again,--it would seem
as if, in recompense for it all, that we have a still undiscovered
country before us, the boundaries of which no one has yet seen, a
beyond to all countries and corners of the ideal known hitherto, a
world so over-rich in the beautiful, the strange, the questionable,
the frightful, and the divine, that our curiosity as well as our
thirst for possession thereof, have got out of hand--alas! that
nothing will now any longer satisfy us!--
"How could we still be content with THE MAN OF THE PRESENT DAY after
such outlooks, and with such a craving in our conscience and
consciousness? Sad enough; but it is unavoidable that we should look
on the worthiest aims and hopes of the man of the present day with ill-
concealed amusement, and perhaps should no longer look at them.
Another ideal runs on before us, a strange, tempting ideal full of
danger, to which we should not like to persuade any one, because we do
not so readily acknowledge any one's RIGHT THERETO: the ideal of a
spirit who plays naively (that is to say involuntarily and from
overflowing abundance and power) with everything that has hitherto
been called holy, good, intangible, or divine; to whom the loftiest
conception which the people have reasonably made their measure of
value, would already practically imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at
least relaxation, blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness; the
ideal of a humanly superhuman welfare and benevolence, which will
often enough appear INHUMAN, for example, when put alongside of all
past seriousness on earth, and alongside of all past solemnities in
bearing, word, tone, look, morality, and pursuit, as their truest
involuntary parody--and WITH which, nevertheless, perhaps THE GREAT
SERIOUSNESS only commences, when the proper interrogative mark is set
up, the fate of the soul changes, the hour-hand moves, and tragedy
begins..."
Although the figure of Zarathustra and a large number of the leading
thoughts in this work had appeared much earlier in the dreams and
writings of the author, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" did not actually come
into being until the month of August 1881 in Sils Maria; and it was
the idea of the Eternal Recurrence of all things which finally induced
my brother to set forth his new views in poetic language. In regard to
his first conception of this idea, his autobiographical sketch, "Ecce
Homo", written in the autumn of 1888, contains the following
passage:--
"The fundamental idea of my work--namely, the Eternal Recurrence of
all things--this highest of all possible formulae of a Yea-saying
philosophy, first occurred to me in August 1881. I made a note of the
thought on a sheet of paper, with the postscript: 6,000 feet beyond
men and time! That day I happened to be wandering through the woods
alongside of the lake of Silvaplana, and I halted beside a huge,
pyramidal and towering rock not far from Surlei. It was then that the
thought struck me. Looking back now, I find that exactly two months
previous to this inspiration, I had had an omen of its coming in the
form of a sudden and decisive alteration in my tastes--more
particularly in music. It would even be possible to consider all
'Zarathustra' as a musical composition. At all events, a very
necessary condition in its production was a renaissance in myself of
the art of hearing. In a small mountain resort (Recoaro) near Vicenza,
where I spent the spring of 1881, I and my friend and Maestro, Peter
Gast--also one who had been born again--discovered that the phoenix
music that hovered over us, wore lighter and brighter plumes than it
had done theretofore."
During the month of August 1881 my brother resolved to reveal the
teaching of the Eternal Recurrence, in dithyrambic and psalmodic form,
through the mouth of Zarathustra. Among the notes of this period, we
found a page on which is written the first definite plan of "Thus
Spake Zarathustra":--
"MIDDAY AND ETERNITY."
"GUIDE-POSTS TO A NEW WAY OF LIVING."
Beneath this is written:--
"Zarathustra born on lake Urmi; left his home in his thirtieth year,
went into the province of Aria, and, during ten years of solitude in
the mountains, composed the Zend-Avesta."
"The sun of knowledge stands once more at midday; and the serpent of
eternity lies coiled in its light--: It is YOUR time, ye midday
brethren."
In that summer of 1881, my brother, after many years of steadily
declining health, began at last to rally, and it is to this first gush
of the recovery of his once splendid bodily condition that we owe not
only "The Gay Science", which in its mood may be regarded as a prelude
to "Zarathustra", but also "Zarathustra" itself. Just as he was
beginning to recuperate his health, however, an unkind destiny brought
him a number of most painful personal experiences. His friends caused
him many disappointments, which were the more bitter to him, inasmuch
as he regarded friendship as such a sacred institution; and for the
first time in his life he realised the whole horror of that loneliness
to which, perhaps, all greatness is condemned. But to be forsaken is
something very different from deliberately choosing blessed
loneliness. How he longed, in those days, for the ideal friend who
would thoroughly understand him, to whom he would be able to say all,
and whom he imagined he had found at various periods in his life from
his earliest youth onwards. Now, however, that the way he had chosen
grew ever more perilous and steep, he found nobody who could follow
him: he therefore created a perfect friend for himself in the ideal
form of a majestic philosopher, and made this creation the preacher of
his gospel to the world.
Whether my brother would ever have written "Thus Spake Zarathustra"
according to the first plan sketched in the summer of 1881, if he had
not had the disappointments already referred to, is now an idle
question; but perhaps where "Zarathustra" is concerned, we may also
say with Master Eckhardt: "The fleetest beast to bear you to
perfection is suffering."
My brother writes as follows about the origin of the first part of
"Zarathustra":--"In the winter of 1882-83, I was living on the
charming little Gulf of Rapallo, not far from Genoa, and between
Chiavari and Cape Porto Fino. My health was not very good; the winter
was cold and exceptionally rainy; and the small inn in which I lived
was so close to the water that at night my sleep would be disturbed if
the sea were high. These circumstances were surely the very reverse of
favourable; and yet in spite of it all, and as if in demonstration of
my belief that everything decisive comes to life in spite of every
obstacle, it was precisely during this winter and in the midst of
these unfavourable circumstances that my
'Zarathustra' originated. In the morning I used to start out in a
southerly direction up the glorious road to Zoagli, which rises aloft
through a forest of pines and gives one a view far out into the sea.
In the afternoon, as often as my health permitted, I walked round the
whole bay from Santa Margherita to beyond Porto Fino. This spot was
all the more interesting to me, inasmuch as it was so dearly loved by
the Emperor Frederick III. In the autumn of 1886 I chanced to be there
again when he was revisiting this small, forgotten world of happiness
for the last time. It was on these two roads that all 'Zarathustra'
came to me, above all Zarathustra himself as a type;--I ought rather
to say that it was on these walks that these ideas waylaid me."
The first part of "Zarathustra" was written in about ten days--that is
to say, from the beginning to about the middle of February 1883. "The
last lines were written precisely in the hallowed hour when Richard
Wagner gave up the ghost in Venice."
With the exception of the ten days occupied in composing the first
part of this book, my brother often referred to this winter as the
hardest and sickliest he had ever experienced. He did not, however,
mean thereby that his former disorders were troubling him, but that he
was suffering from a severe attack of influenza which he had caught in
Santa Margherita, and which tormented him for several weeks after his
arrival in Genoa. As a matter of fact, however, what he complained of
most was his spiritual condition--that indescribable forsakenness--to
which he gives such heartrending expression in "Zarathustra". Even the
reception which the first part met with at the hands of friends and
acquaintances was extremely disheartening: for almost all those to
whom he presented copies of the work misunderstood it. "I found no one
ripe for many of my thoughts; the case of 'Zarathustra' proves that
one can speak with the utmost clearness, and yet not be heard by any
one." My brother was very much discouraged by the feebleness of the
response he was given, and as he was striving just then to give up the
practice of taking hydrate of chloral--a drug he had begun to take
while ill with influenza,--the following spring, spent in Rome, was a
somewhat gloomy one for him. He writes about it as follows:-- "I spent
a melancholy spring in Rome, where I only just managed to live,-- and
this was no easy matter. This city, which is absolutely unsuited to
the poet-author of 'Zarathustra', and for the choice of which I was
not responsible, made me inordinately miserable. I tried to leave it.
I wanted to go to Aquila--the opposite of Rome in every respect, and
actually founded in a spirit of enmity towards that city (just as I
also shall found a city some day), as a memento of an atheist and
genuine enemy of the Church--a person very closely related to me,--the
great Hohenstaufen, the Emperor Frederick II. But Fate lay behind it
all: I had to return again to Rome. In the end I was obliged to be
satisfied with the Piazza Barberini, after I had exerted myself in
vain to find an anti-Christian quarter. I fear that on one occasion,
to avoid bad smells as much as possible, I actually inquired at the
Palazzo del Quirinale whether they could not provide a quiet room for
a philosopher. In a chamber high above the Piazza just mentioned, from
which one obtained a general view of Rome and could hear the fountains
plashing far below, the loneliest of all songs was composed--'The
Night-Song'. About this time I was obsessed by an unspeakably sad
melody, the refrain of which I recognised in the words,
'dead through immortality.'"
We remained somewhat too long in Rome that spring, and what with the
effect of the increasing heat and the discouraging circumstances
already described, my brother resolved not to write any more, or in
any case, not to proceed with "Zarathustra", although I offered to
relieve him of all trouble in connection with the proofs and the
publisher. When, however, we returned to Switzerland towards the end
of June, and he found himself once more in the familiar and
exhilarating air of the mountains, all his joyous creative powers
revived, and in a note to me announcing the dispatch of some
manuscript, he wrote as follows: "I have engaged a place here for
three months: forsooth, I am the greatest fool to allow my courage to
be sapped from me by the climate of Italy. Now and again I am troubled
by the thought: WHAT NEXT? My 'future' is the darkest thing in the
world to me, but as there still remains a great deal for me to do, I
suppose I ought rather to think of doing this than of my future, and
leave the rest to THEE and the gods."
The second part of "Zarathustra" was written between the 26th of June
and the 6th July. "This summer, finding myself once more in the sacred
place where the first thought of 'Zarathustra' flashed across my mind,
I conceived the second part. Ten days sufficed. Neither for the
second, the first, nor the third part, have I required a day longer."
He often used to speak of the ecstatic mood in which he wrote
"Zarathustra"; how in his walks over hill and dale the ideas would
crowd into his mind, and how he would note them down hastily in a note-
book from which he would transcribe them on his return, sometimes
working till midnight. He says in a letter to me: "You can have no
idea of the vehemence of such composition," and in "Ecce Homo" (autumn
1888) he describes as follows with passionate enthusiasm the
incomparable mood in which he created Zarathustra:--
"--Has any one at the end of the nineteenth century any distinct
notion of what poets of a stronger age understood by the word
inspiration? If not, I will describe it. If one had the smallest
vestige of superstition in one, it would hardly be possible to set
aside completely the idea that one is the mere incarnation, mouthpiece
or medium of an almighty power. The idea of revelation in the sense
that something becomes suddenly visible and audible with indescribable
certainty and accuracy, which profoundly convulses and upsets one--
describes simply the matter of fact. One hears-- one does not seek;
one takes--one does not ask who gives: a thought suddenly flashes up
like lightning, it comes with necessity, unhesitatingly--I have never
had any choice in the matter. There is an ecstasy such that the
immense strain of it is sometimes relaxed by a flood of tears, along
with which one's steps either rush or involuntarily lag, alternately.
There is the feeling that one is completely out of hand, with the very
distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and
quiverings to the very toes;--there is a depth of happiness in which
the painfullest and gloomiest do not operate as antitheses, but as
conditioned, as demanded in the sense of necessary shades of colour in
such an overflow of light. There is an instinct for rhythmic relations
which embraces wide areas of forms (length, the need of a wide-
embracing rhythm, is almost the measure of the force of an
inspiration, a sort of counterpart to its pressure and tension).
Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in a tempestuous
outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity. The
involuntariness of the figures and similes is the most remarkable
thing; one loses all perception of what constitutes the figure and
what constitutes the simile; everything seems to present itself as the
readiest, the correctest and the simplest means of expression. It
actually seems, to use one of Zarathustra's own phrases, as if all
things came unto one, and would fain be similes: 'Here do all things
come caressingly to thy talk and flatter thee, for they want to ride
upon thy back. On every simile dost thou here ride to every truth.
Here fly open unto thee all being's words and word-cabinets; here all
being wanteth to become words, here all becoming wanteth to learn of
thee how to talk.' This is MY experience of inspiration. I do not
doubt but that one would have to go back thousands of years in order
to find some one who could say to me: It is mine also!--"
In the autumn of 1883 my brother left the Engadine for Germany and
stayed there a few weeks. In the following winter, after wandering
somewhat erratically through Stresa, Genoa, and Spezia, he landed in
Nice, where the climate so happily promoted his creative powers that
he wrote the third part of "Zarathustra". "In the winter, beneath the
halcyon sky of Nice, which then looked down upon me for the first time
in my life, I found the third 'Zarathustra'--and came to the end of my
task; the whole having occupied me scarcely a year. Many hidden
corners and heights in the landscapes round about Nice are hallowed to
me by unforgettable moments. That decisive chapter entitled 'Old and
New Tables' was composed in the very difficult ascent from the station
to Eza--that wonderful Moorish village in the rocks. My most creative
moments were always accompanied by unusual muscular activity. The body
is inspired: let us waive the question of the 'soul.' I might often
have been seen dancing in those days. Without a suggestion of fatigue
I could then walk for seven or eight hours on end among the hills. I
slept well and laughed well--I was perfectly robust and patient."
As we have seen, each of the three parts of "Zarathustra" was written,
after a more or less short period of preparation, in about ten days.
The composition of the fourth part alone was broken by occasional
interruptions. The first notes relating to this part were written
while he and I were staying together in Zurich in September 1884. In
the following November, while staying at Mentone, he began to
elaborate these notes, and after a long pause, finished the manuscript
at Nice between the end of January and the middle of February 1885. My
brother then called this part the fourth and last; but even before,
and shortly after it had been privately printed, he wrote to me saying
that he still intended writing a fifth and sixth part, and notes
relating to these parts are now in my possession. This fourth part
(the original MS. of which contains this note: "Only for my friends,
not for the public") is written in a particularly personal spirit, and
those few to whom he presented a copy of it, he pledged to the
strictest secrecy concerning its contents. He often thought of making
this fourth part public also, but doubted whether he would ever be
able to do so without considerably altering certain portions of it. At
all events he resolved to distribute this manuscript production, of
which only forty copies were printed, only among those who had proved
themselves worthy of it, and it speaks eloquently of his utter
loneliness and need of sympathy in those days, that he had occasion to
present only seven copies of his book according to this resolution.
Already at the beginning of this history I hinted at the reasons which
led my brother to select a Persian as the incarnation of his ideal of
the majestic philosopher. His reasons, however, for choosing
Zarathustra of all others to be his mouthpiece, he gives us in the
following words:-- "People have never asked me, as they should have
done, what the name Zarathustra precisely means in my mouth, in the
mouth of the first Immoralist; for what distinguishes that philosopher
from all others in the past is the very fact that he was exactly the
reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the
struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of
things. The translation of morality into the metaphysical, as force,
cause, end in itself, was HIS work. But the very question suggests its
own answer. Zarathustra CREATED the most portentous error, MORALITY,
consequently he should also be the first to PERCEIVE that error, not
only because he has had longer and greater experience of the subject
than any other thinker--all history is the experimental refutation of
the theory of the so-called moral order of things:--the more important
point is that Zarathustra was more truthful than any other thinker. In
his teaching alone do we meet with truthfulness upheld as the highest
virtue--i.e.: the reverse of the COWARDICE of the
'idealist' who flees from reality. Zarathustra had more courage in his
body than any other thinker before or after him. To tell the truth and
TO AIM STRAIGHT: that is the first Persian virtue. Am I
understood?...The overcoming of morality through itself--through
truthfulness, the overcoming of the moralist through his opposite--
THROUGH ME--: that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth."
ELIZABETH FORSTER-NIETZSCHE.
Nietzsche Archives, Weimar, December 1905.
===========
KMDickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci |
|
|
