How to Be Better Than Human - Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Part 3)
These can be read in any order or singularly. Summaries included.
Summary up to now: So far, Zarathustra and his bird and snake have come down from solitude in the mountains to teach to the people about the Overhuman - a superior human (or maybe post-human) that is supposed to appear through the human.
He goes into a town and watches a tight rope walker attempt to cross a wire strung between two buildings. A jester comes up behind the tightrope walker when the walker is in the middle of the rope and jumps over him, thus upsetting the tight rope walker's balance and causing him to fall to his doom. Zarathustra promises to bury him right before he dies, and is currently sitting next to the corpse.
Zarathustra sits next to the corpse in the empty city street at night. He wonders about human existence:
Strange indeed is human existence and still without meaning: a jester can become its fatality.
I want to teach to humans the meaning of their Being: that is the Overhuman, the lightning from the dark cloud of the human.(Zarathustra, 18)
For Zarathustra the human is merely a pathway to something greater. But what? As Nietzsche writes he dances around the answer, letting us know by slowly carving out what is not the Overhuman.
Zarathustra, however, is hurried out of the town - his presence has ruffled too many feathers. The jester tracks him down and issues a threat:
"Go away from this town, O Zarathustra," he said. "Too many people here hate you. You are hated by the good and the righteous and they call you their enemy and dispiser. You are hated by the believers of right belief, and they call you a danger to the multitude. It was lucky for you that they laughed at you: and verily you were talking just like a jester. It was lucky for you that you made company with the dead dog; by abasing yourself like that, you saved your own skin for today. But now go forth from this town - or tomorrow I shall jump over you, a living man over a dead one." (Zarathustra, 19)
Why do they hate him so much? Why is the idea of the Overhuman so threatening? Based on the fact that it is now being made clear that the jester is a protagonist and stand in for all of the groups of people who hate Zarathustra, and that all of the people for whom the jester is speaking are probably not the Overhuman.
These people are 'the righteous' and the 'believers of right belief'. What is it about these groups that Zarathustra despises so much? The answer is hopefully coming in upcoming chapters, but what do you think?
I take this to mean that many spend their existence concerned with frivolity, distracted by entertainment, and guided by past idols. Anyone who attempts to point this put, will be hated.
"People dont want to hear the truth because they dont want their illusions destroyed" -- Nietzsche
This, too, is a very interesting point. And his quote seems very appropriate here.
I'm not super familiar with Nietzsche, but perhaps he means those who believe in their own perspectives or realities so blindly that they are unwilling to consider those of others?
Nietzsche definitely hates people who are like that. In fact, he seems to hate people who do this as badly as people who blindly accept any perspective.
And hey, man! It's good to see you on my blog :). Thanks for reading and commenting!
Thanks! Great content- hope to see more!
Standing for what is actually right, and not supporting w hat is actually a wrong, while the rest of people and society think the opposite, well get people to dislike or hate that person. People falsely believe in wrong they think is "right", and falsity they think is "true". When someone speaks in contrast to oppose the false beliefs of false righteousness, they are not liked by those who have aligned with falsity. That is an affront to the attachment to falsity to use as basis for who they are, their way of life, their choices, their being, etc.
Know what is a false way (apophasis) and not doing false ways is the path to regenerating (snake) ourselves into better, truer, realer, and higher (bird) versions of ourselves. Those who challenge the falsity in the status quo are always opposed and disliked. That has been my story where I go lol. People don't like having their illusions challenged, let alone destroyed ;)