Author: Yuval Klein
Title image: Yoel Klein
This second part of The (In)inevitability of Freedom will discuss Friedrich Nietzche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Thus Spoke Zarathustra stands out in Nietzche’s philosophical works because it is a work of fiction… that follows an ancient Persian prophet! It is in the “Western” tradition of the New Testament and The Republic in that the visionary’s ideas are being preserved and disseminated by another writer’s posthumous tribute to a prophet. Zarathustra, also known as Zoroaster, founded the monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism, which is often credited with influencing the Abrahamic religions. It introduced the idea of a supreme–though not necessarily single–god. He also created a dichotomy between good and evil. Though Nietzche believed that good and evil were rooted in culture not cosmos, Zarathustra was nonetheless an object of admiration, an opportune protagonist. Interestingly, the role of this theological forefather to Christian thought in the book is to be Nietzche’s propagator of atheistic beliefs; one of the character Zarathustra’s famous quotes is “god is dead,” meaning humanity must turn inwards, not towards the elusive upwards, if it wants to move past irrationality and superstitiousness.
Thus begins the story. At the age of thirty, Zarathustra retreats to the woods for ten years, contemplating the metaphysical. In this time, he is able to acquire a lot of wisdom such that his revelations weigh heavily upon him. He releases the load by sharing it with others, i.e. pontificating to a crowd of ignoramuses. On his way to town, Zarathustra encounters a priest. They argue about whether humanity is deserving of love and wisdom. Zarathustra maintains that it is.
A crowd gathers to watch circus acts. Waiting for a tightrope walker to alight overhead, the crowd instead finds that Zarathustra has jutted his head from a mountain ridge above. They mistake him for another street performer; he seizes the opportunity of their gazing at him to impart his wisdom. The masses gape as he does semantic coercion to their ears.
The opening speech introduces many of the ideas at the core of the book’s philosophy. First, Nietzsche introduces the übermensch/superman/overman. He employs an amusing and intense hook: “I teach you the übermensch. Man is something that should be overcome.” Intellectually, the übermensch is to a human what a human is to an ape. Of what value is the orator's rant? Many of the ideas are relevant and foundational, including, in my opinion, some of the more eccentric ones.
The stages of life: Many great thinkers outlined rungs on the ladder of human development (e.g. Kohler’s moral development, Erikson’s psychosocial, Piaget’s cognitive, Freud’s psychosexual, and Buddha’s eightfold path), but Nietzche’s is the most quirky and also quite compelling. There are three “metamorphoses”: the camel, the lion, and then the child.
The camel carries any and every load complacently, passively shouldering burdens. From the day a person is born, they are coerced into carrying metaphorical weights–those being every demand and reality imposed upon them. He provides a number of examples of people ascetically bearing burdens such that they’re rendered human camels. These people downplay their wisdom in order to appear humble, masochistically send off consolers when suffering, “starve” their soul for the sake of knowledge and truth, and befriend those deaf to their wishes. Nietzche claims that the weights impressed upon oneself by tradition/the previously determined order–more specifically, those which others impose–must be shed. An inability to rid yourself of such a burden will render you a camel according to Nietzsche-ism. Does that mean living in a vacuum? Not necessarily; it’s important to deconstruct and reevaluate the conventions that, for or better or worse, weigh a lot.
So many actions and thoughts are had without inquiry into their inherent value. Conventions and intersubjective evocations of reality are accepted as facts. Often, people act and think as they think they "should" act. To take too many social expectations upon oneself is a covert redacting of authenticity. There has to be a mature awareness of a need to toss aside certain baggage, otherwise, we end up living like camels. When you toss aside the weight of conventions and values, your camel soul yields to that of a lion (please don’t quote me on that).
In George Orwell's Politics and the English Language, he writes about the importance of precision in language–how we must avoid “hand-me-downs” in speech. Vague and superfluous diction allows the manipulator to manipulate the manipulated (very manipulatively, I might add). There are many phrases employed as a means of becoming disengaged with a somewhat tedious situation. At the core of such interactions is an evasive attitude towards self-expression. The current use of language can make our interactions inauthentic, says Orwell. All of the formalities and phrases that feel right are mindless. Perhaps Newspeak in 1984 exaggerated so as to highlight this linguistic impasse and the callous of oblivion that conceals it. You may presently feel your camel hump and rhinoceros horn softening, but you’ve yet to overcome man, have you?
Onwards, what happens when the camel becomes a lion? Having rid itself of shackles the lion is able to pounce at freedom, catching it like “prey,” thereafter, becoming an autonomous being. The lion doesn’t succumb to the whims of predators, it seeks to defeat all. Anything that seeks to hinder its freedom is fought against–no acquiescence, no passivity–the lion sees the weights that fall on it and devours it.
Think about this metamorphosis as a revolutionary movement and coup. The first stage is the coercion and silencing of the masses by a regime; many conform, many are complacent, or stagnate. Then, there is the stage of dissidence, in which people fight to rid themselves of the grip of an established government. The protesters or revolutionary fighters are lions. They have toppled the weights that weighed on them, making space and freedom to make something new, establishing a new government. Think, for example, of the recent uprising in Bangladesh. The problem that the lion must overcome is the void it created. It has too much of what Erich Fromm calls “freedom from.” A framework must be created anew in order for the lion to rid itself of nihilism.
The lion becomes dejected and cynical towards the social framework that once consoled and distressed it simultaneously. The way out of this abyss is becoming a child. A child is innocent and able to learn; it has an ability to approach new ideas without prejudice. The child is able to accept or reject ideas about how to live its life. This doesn’t mean a mature adult-child should have a child’s knowledge of art and science, merely a similar mindset. I find it reasonable to say that a child’s outlook is a high pedestal of maturity. Like Fromm, Nietzche thinks that the child has superior qualities. The child has a desire to learn and create, a tempestuous passion that realizes the Western Romanticism’s ideas of fulfillment and freedom. This is presence, this is self-actualization. Conversely, there is Nietzche’s notion of The Last Man.
The Last Man is perfectly content, never challenging himself, living in a perpetual state of blissful complacency. He is desireless and inactive, utterly void of any functionality in purpose, decision-making, etc. The happiness that this person has is superficial, ultimately unrewarding. Avoiding this is simple; you must have something to strive towards. Man shouldn’t end. Nietzche’s Zarasutra says, “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.” But what happens at the end of his-story? Francis Fukayama has an idea.
Fukayama acknowledges a paradox in his “end of history” thesis, that of the “last man.” If or when society will have finally become capable of eliminating the need to struggle in human beings, will humanity become obsolete? Will people be without identity? Even if this homogenizing process were to occur, I’m not convinced that these questions are of any importance. More likely, post-historical people will infuse dynamism and identity into their lives, bored by monotony, longing for thrills. There is a restlessness in boredom. This part of his book is often dismissed because although the idea that in a refined society, a spiritual crisis may arise precisely because all needs are met is compelling, the described permutation is implausible, and the outcome somewhat predictably different... Are there no last men in the world? Are there no people who have their needs met comfortably by society? There are many such examples, but they don’t resemble the “last man.”
Neither the last man nor first nor middle, can be content to such a dulling extent. Solid socioeconomic status and liberal freedom provide a certain comfort, but not “happiness,” at least not in the sense that Nietzche and Fukayama discuss. In a thought-provoking interview, the late author of Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace describes well-off Americans and how they tend to relate to their socioeconomic comfort. Paradoxically, wealth in America doesn’t increase happiness. The U.S. is a country that has embraced liberal democracy as its “end,” and yet even those wealthy to an extent of superfluity aren’t necessarily able to reach the satisfaction of last men. This can be attributed to a culture of consumerism, says Wallace.
Much like the Last Man, he says that American culture is infected by an ethos of shallow pleasure and self-advancement–the idea that you must gratify every desire and heed to your every whim. He describes this impulsivity and the superficial “happiness” as childish. He uses the child as a pejorative term, one which describes a malaise of superficiality similar to Nietzche’s Last Man. Conversely, Nietzche uses the child to embody a proactive and idealistic way of interacting with the world. This American culture that Wallace describes is compatible with the type of healthy consumerist market that neoliberal political scientists strive for, but on a personal level, the benefactors aren’t necessarily content. The liberal rights to freely spend and act as one wants to are ineffective in their campaign against discomfort. Many people have some desire to become last men. They believe that freely acting upon their whims and gratifying their desires will afford them a sense of bland happiness. Fukayama and Nietzche insist that this is a prospective danger–that this route will not lead to consolation, rather a hollowness that must be avoided. Rather than discussing the danger of the last man, Wallace’s remarks on consumerism show the infeasibility of a last man under the prevailing neoliberal paradigm. Comfort cannot exist independent of desire and desire cannot exist independent of occasional discontent. Freedom and economic prosperity do not forge a secular Eight Fold Path to a state of desirelessness. Modernity and freedom aren’t so simple. Moreover, a state of unwanting should not be equated with happiness.
The Last Man is a cartoonish embodiment of unthinkingness, though not without value. To me, both the last man and the übermensch are tangent lines, boundaries that should be observed and used to orient oneself to either side–towards deep or shallow “satisfaction.” They don’t characterize actual people; post-historical men and women can never have a mild enough temperament to be hollowed by a perpetual state of comfort.
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