Shout It from the Mountain: Zarathustra Overcoming Humanity


There is a running joke in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1979 black comedy The Third Generation in which a mobster family consecutively uses a Schopenhauer saying as a codeword: “The world as will and idea” they’d absurdly say back and forth to one another in a very nonchalant fashion. Whenever a family member would speak to another, in person or on the phone, he would always both start and end his conversation by saying this phrase. When the grandfather of one of the protagonists mentions that the phrase is actually the title of Schopenhauer’s central work, he finds that the protagonist is completely oblivious to this fact and also that he attributes absolutely no meaning to the phrase, only accepts it as a saying and relays it through his discourse. This anecdote acts as an allegory for one of the core ideas which Friedrich Nietzsche attempts to reveal: when generalized or standardized, the meaning of an idea is lost completely. Instead of accepting and relaying taught behaviors and traditions, we ought to reinvent ourselves beyond the limits of our social structure.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, what he believes to be the “profoundest work of the German tongue,” Nietzsche takes on the task of showing how meaning is created and is then distorted by the mass “herd” (Ecce Homo, 520). Nietzsche uses the character Zarathustra, the historical prophet of the Zoroastrian religion— a name almost unheard of in the Western world— to illustrate this process. But why did he choose Zarathustra? In his pseudo-autobiography, Ecce Homo, Nietzsche addresses the reason why he chose Zarathustra. He says that “Zarathustra was the first to consider the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things” (Ecce Homo, 327). And in Zarathustra’s recognition of this binary dichotomy, he has also “created this most calamitous error, morality; consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it” (327). While Zarathustra imposed metaphysical meaning into morality, he hypothetically — being the brilliant man that he was — must have also been the first to notice that this was a fatal error. Zarathustra saw that people act as if they are a herd and operate through a herd mentality. His intentions were to help society by revealing the idea of morality to them; he attempted to do this by loosely distinguishing the concepts of good and evil. In this, Zarathustra intended to help people create their own paths in understanding the world, but instead, the metaphysical entity of the binary overpowered the mind of the society, and everything became branded with either good or evil. This embedding of good and evil was unintended by Zarathustra; all Zarathustra really did was make basic, vague distinctions, the kind where no finite distinction is really even made. Instead of defining these distinctions, society projected these two loosely defined metaphysical auras onto everything, creating an abstract moral structure in the world. While Zarathustra wanted to help people be more defined and functional in society, his message fell on deaf ears as generations were conditioned into believing in these perversions of his unfinished concepts of good and evil.

Nietzsche notes that Zarathustra, above all, was truthful, as the Persians value truth as the highest virtue; Nietzsche too is like this. While Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is not the historical Zarathustra, Nietzsche does not stray from the historical Zarathustra’s pursuit: to teach the individual ways in which he can create his own path and understand the world. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra does not combat the metaphysical aura of good and evil, but more broadly, he opposes the slave/master relationship that can be found functioning throughout the very matrix of society. And in doing so, he hopes to help bring about a way in which concrete meaning can be better understood. In this sense, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is carving the same path that the historical Zarathustra started—and similarly in end, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra also fails to enlighten the herd. But there is hope in Nietzsche’s eyes: the hope that the reader will see beyond the narrative and thus become inspired with a logocentric Dionysian drive to overcome his human limitations.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra begins with a 30 year old Zarathustra who leaves his home to go into the mountains. In the duration of time he spent in the mountains, he reaches a sort of blissful enlightenment through his solitude — that is, until one day. In a conversation with the Sun, Zarathustra decided that he had grown weary of his wisdom, and like the great star, he too must “go down”— this phrase, here, takes on three meanings: one being to go down to the people below the mountain; another being to go down like the sun, as in to set; and the last being to go under, or to be destroyed (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 251). The mountain also acts as a signifier for enlightenment, as a mountain is literally on a higher plane of existence versus the valley below where all the humans live.

In this short section alone lies a tremendous amount of symbolism and reference. It reads almost biblically, though Nietzsche intends Zarathustra to embody his views on conventional atheism. How exactly is he combating religion though? It is through the references underlying the narrative. Zarathustra is acting as a counterpart to the heroes of the Western world; he is taking on both Jesus and Plato from the very beginning. Just as Jesus leaves his home at age 30 to take on the burden of solitude in the desert, so does Zarathustra. But whereas Jesus gains enlightenment and then hurries back to spread his word, Zarathustra bastes himself in enlightenment for ten years. The passage also parodies Plato’s allegory of the cave, as Zarathustra leaves the humdrum routines of the world around him and thus receives enlightenment only to be doomed to have to go back and try to tell others who have not transcended. But again, Zarathustra differs from the characters of the allegory. Zarathustra becomes enlightened in the cave, not outside, and the Sun to Zarathustra does not symbolize the Good — an ethereal absolute which shines down onto people, bringing happiness — as it does in the Platonic Dialogue. Zarathustra instead asks the Sun, “Great Star! What would your happiness be, if you had not those for whom you shine!” showing that, in the eyes of Zarathustra, rather that the Sun shining brilliance and happiness onto people, the Sun has no meaning other than the meaning ascribed to it by the ones on whom it shines (254).

And straight from the beginning, Zarathustra takes on the tasks of both prophet and philosopher, tackling both Jesus and Plato. He is attempting to understand the important questions which both religion and philosophy try to answer, but he is attempting to do so in a different way: through grounded understanding and wisdom, free from ethereal metaphysics. It is for this reason that Nietzsche believes that his novel, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a fiction, is the most important work of the modern era—it combats both The New Testament and The Republic, aiming to reinvent the values of the contemporary world.

The method through which Nietzsche chooses to teach is the allegory of Zarathustra to humanity. Zarathustra, throughout the novel, attempts to teach the meaning of the earth. He descends from the mountains and enters the village claiming to bring a great message with him. He falls short in front of a crowd awaiting a circus show. The audience, expecting the circus show, mistakes Zarathustra’s identity for the circus master’s, so from there, any message which Zarathustra attempts to convey is completely misunderstood. He proclaims, “I teach you the Overman… Overman is the meaning of the earth,” meaning that while the metaphysical is not of the earth, the Overman is (256). The Zarathustra is aware that the metaphysical ideologies that are not “of the earth” are meaning that humans have ascribed, resulting in an abstract and chaotic world. This old metaphysical dependency is the way of man, but not of the Overman. For this reason, the people of the world should abandon the ways of man, the systems of man, and should will themselves to become Overmen, to overcome man. This striving to become an Overman means the transcendence of slave and master mentalities, since in order to become an Overman one must first be a slave, then a master, and only from there can one conceive of the Overman.

Zarathustra explains this process in another allegory: “I name you three metamorphoses of the spirit: how the spirit shall become a camel, and the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child” (263). Nietzsche chooses these three animals for the significance of their attributes. A camel carries, a lion is bold and ferocious, and a child is constantly learning. The camel stage of the soul regards the person who takes on the burden of the adopted tradition. The camel is willing to carry the tradition, thus the camel is the starting point for the development of the soul. The camel then can become a lion, signifying that the soul is now proud and ready enough to attack the camel. As a lion, a person can combat the foundations and functions of the adopted tradition, even kill the tradition entirely, leading to nihilism. But Nietzsche stresses that the transformation of the soul does not end here. The final stage of the metamorphosis of the soul is the transformation of the lion into a child. Nietzsche is entertaining a notion of evolution here, saying not only that animal can become man, but also that man is an animal, too, one born out of the pride of a lion. The child stage in the metamorphosis signifies the Overman; he radiates a boundless amount of energy for experimenting and trying to understand new things. The child has a new sense of innocence, since nothing he does has intent other than the pursuit of knowledge, though this does not mean the child is not serious in his pursuit. The child is Zarathustra’s ideal which he attempts to teach to the world. He teaches that the Overman is the meaning of the earth, that he is like humanity, but more capable since he has transcended human limitations. And in this transcendence, he does not find calm tranquility, only the boundless vitality of a child. The Overman approaches everything in a new way and does not fall under any adopted tradition; rather, the Overman’s actions, to the herd of men who have not transcended, become the new tradition. Nietzsche stresses in this that if the entire herd was to will themselves to become Overmen, they too could evolve beyond human. And likewise, the Overman wills himself to strike down the ways of humanity, thus helping humanity transcend. Man should be reaching for the Overman as the Overman must violently come down to the level of man, also. Thus Zarathustra proclaims, “Behold, I teach you Overman: he is this lightning, he is this madness!” (257). Zarathustra shows that while the herd of man may still view the Overman as insane, he is still above man, like storm clouds in the sky, and he is still dangerous and destructive, coming down from above to destroy the world of man below.

In acknowledgement of the Overman, Nietzsche shows a definite favoring towards keen intellect, for in order to transcend to the mentality of the Overman, one must first be fully nurtured by his adopted tradition. In the past, in societies ran by the Church, such as the society of the Dark Age, there was no access to information by the common, powerless person. A common person could not read— let alone read a complex text like the Bible— and thus a priest was trained and educated in interpreting not only the Bible but also how to deal with his community. He taught his sermons in Latin, forced observance of ceremony, and was quick to judge heresy; these were the old, fascist ways of control. But with the death of God — the end of a time in which a society’s survival is based on the metaphysical systems brought by religion — comes an era in which a person has access to information. But humanity now falls into a different sort of control, one in which popular societal discourse becomes the new cannon. Nietzsche, in his call for the striving of the Overman, is urging everyone not to fall under societal discourses and not to unconsciously sleepwalk through life. In the contemporary era, people have access to information, thus everyone can fully carry the burden of their tradition like a camel, attack it like a lion, and perchance transcend to the childlike vitality of the Overman; the least they can do is will themselves to try. For example, in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the protagonist of the story, Stephen Dedalus, could not transcend to the consciousness of an artist until he had fully grasped the Catholic religion, attacked it, and then developed his own alternative. When he was offered to consider becoming a priest, he began to combat the societal foundation of the Catholic religion in his mind, thus starting his soul’s metamorphosis from camel to lion. His full abandonment of the Catholic religion subsequently gave birth to his system of aesthetics. This system came from an epiphany he witnessed as he re-evaluated the beauty of a woman on a beachside, seeing her as a living metaphor — a bird in his mind as well as a human in his eyes. He did not feel the shame or guilt that the tradition had taught him to feel or even think that he ought to feel shame or guilt because he had already transcended past the dialectic animal drives of the camel and the lion. At that moment, he began seeing things through his own eyes and in his own mind, bringing to life a new system that solves the problems of the old without relying on faith; thus the metamorphosis is complete and the lion becomes a child.

For Zarathustra, humanity is not the be-all-end-all. Humanity ought to constantly be evolving, willing towards overcoming its limitations. The Overman is the meaning of the earth because the Overman is the overcoming of real social limitations. One who has gone through the process of camel and lion but feels no need to pursue the overcoming of the limitations — a nihilist — is the antithesis of the Overman. Zarathustra calls this person the Last Man. The Last Man does not want to grow rich or poor or rule or obey — he thinks all desires “are too much of a burden” (259). Since wisdom makes him weary and since he believes that nothing is worth while in the end, he professes that all should desire nothing instead. He has no ambitions, takes no risks, and still he has the audacity to call this the “true” way of living, proclaiming “we have discovered happiness” (259). Zarathustra notes that the Last Man’s utilitarian approach to minimizing pain involves minimizing action altogether, making their happiness not happiness at all, just a lack of pain. This feeble happiness cannot see past the present time and therefore neither can the Last Man. He is the Last Man because he is the end of the road. He is Schopenhauer’s ideal, someone who recognizes that the systems imposed in life only set the stage for despair, and thus recognizes that he is doomed to suffer far more than enjoy. Any route to the Last Man is first and foremost a route to death. Unlike the Last Man, Zarathustra decides to “go under”, to die trying to make a difference. Even if he is unsuccessful in enlightening the world, the important thing to him is that he tries. If he stops trying, he is no better than the Last Man.

This fundamental difference is what separates Nietzsche from Schopenhauer as well. Instead of accepting nihilism as the only answer, and thus becoming a docile body, he desperately attempts to show the potential value of life, the value of consciousness, and the value of the world. While attempting to teach the crowd the Overman and the Last Man, Zarathustra is interrupted by shouting: “Give us the Last Man, O Zarathustra” they cry to him, “make us into this Last Man! You can have the Overman” (259). Although he has failed in teaching his ideal, Zarathustra does not give up in attempting to enlighten the crowd. After meditation and contemplation, he returns to the crowd with the intention “to lure many away from the herd”, not “to be a herdsman or gravedigger” but to be an inspiration to artists, staying true to Nietzsche’s initial Dionysian and Apollonian dialectic introduced in The Birth of Tragedy (262). The message of the Dionysian will give birth to Apollonian artistry, which will in turn act as “the rainbow and the stairway to the Overman” (262). For Nietzsche, society is born out of the creative drive, so, like Joyce, the artist is naturally Nietzsche’s choice as a link between the Overman and the common person. Instead of viewing art as a religious artifact embedded with an aura that illuminates, like the Church’s view of art in the Dark Ages, the death of God means that people can now see art for what it really is: an aim toward enhancing human life, thus an aim to will transcendence from man to Overman.

This book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is exactly this; it is a work of fiction, a work of art, which aims to help bridge the gap between Nietzsche and the reader. In this sense, Zarathustra’s quest to find an audience is parallel to Nietzsche’s quest to find a reader; the ultimate purpose of both is to help social evolution go beyond the confines of the fallacious human existence. The Overman is an ideal, but not a metaphysical ideal like those of Platonism or Christianity. It incorporates the practical aspects of both — the urge for self-control found in Christian thought combined with the pursuit of understanding life and the world found in Platonic thought — but it also rejects the limitations of both, stressing that the truths in which these systems are embedded are man-made, not divine. They are not brought by the Good or by a heavenly figure from above who looks down on his subjects every now an then; they are brought about by human discourse, and thus limited by humanity. But humans have the ability to rise above their limitations. Humanity does not need to fall into a herd mentality; not in this era. With the death of God comes the rise of freedom, and in this sense, Nietzsche stresses to his audience the necessity of overcoming the logos, of overcoming the binary, and constantly reinventing the systems of the world. He stresses that the people ought to will themselves beyond themselves, will themselves to become Overmen—that is, to transcend humanity itself.