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The topic of this essay is the philosophy of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. In this work, we are going to examine the ideas of Nietzsche exemplified by the thoughts he expressed in his masterpiece book “Thus Spoke Zaratustra” and supported by the data of his life and work.
The main topic of this very essay is the consideration of the three metamorphoses of the human spirit developed by Nietzsche in his book and their influence on the whole work and outlook of the world by Nietzsche. To achieve this goal, we are going to resort to the help of scholarly articles and reputable online sources that assist in the interpretation of Nietzsche’s ideas and get us acquainted with the life views of this philosopher.
To understand the ideas of “Thus Spoke Zaratustra”, let us take a look at the life and work of Nietzsche. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born in Röcken bei Lützen near Leipzig on October, 15th, 1844 in a family of a Lutheran minister. At the age of 21, Nietzsche first came across the works by Arthur Schopenhauer, and his views became greatly affected by this philosopher for the rest of his life.
As a talented philology student, Nietzsche soon became a teacher at the University of Basel, but the deterioration of health made him leave the office and start wandering throughout Europe without doing any job except writing numerous scientific and philosophical works, among which the most famous are the following: “The Birth of Tragedy”, “On Truth and Lies in an Unmoral Sense”, “Human, All-Too-Human”, “Reflections on Moral Prejudices”, “Gay Science”, and, of course, “Thus Spoke Zaratustra”, which is considered to b the work where all the basic and fundamental views of Nietzsche upon the culture, morals, and ethics of his contemporary society were concentrated (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008).
As for the works by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, and respectively the views and ideas of this German philosopher expressed in his numerous books, there is still no uniform opinion about them. Some scholars consider them to be the most progressive works of the respective time which brought the change to the minds of people and to their perception of the world, including day-to-day life, religion, culture, and principles of morals.
On the other hand, some scholars keep to the point of view that works by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche are blasphemy and should be forbidden for reading and studying as those that destroy the existing organization of human thought, culture, and the whole society. In any case, the ideas by Nietzsche left great traces in the history of philosophical thought, as well as influenced to a great extent the social and political events that took place in the world after Nietzsche’s death, especially at the beginning of the 20th century (Allman, pp. 69 – 76).
Friedrich Nietzsche is famous in the world of philosophy as the first who openly criticized and put in doubt the officially accepted ideology of Christianity and the cultural relations organized on the basis of this ideology. The main concept of the philosophy by Nietzsche is the concept of strong will, overcoming and denying the ordinary morals and ethics in favor of activities that develop the spirit of the healthy human which is often called by the author as “superhuman”.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche praised the idea of living one’s life in accordance with one’s own needs and desires, as far as, according to Nietzsche, only the strongest representatives of the human race can survive in the world of struggle and display their love to the life of freedom (Borody, p. 76).
Works by Nietzsche are filled with the ideas mentioned above. This fact can be explained by saying that the life of the author was not an easy one in all respects. His health left much to be desired and deteriorated more and more with every year. The personal life of Nietzsche was also far from successful, as well as his relations with the society and culture contemporary to him. Taking into account all this, it is not surprising that the leitmotif of Nietzsche’s woks was the protest and criticism of the society he lived in with its customs, culture, religion, and traditions.
Nietzsche’s brain strokes, mental disorders, and collapses that finally led him to the state of invalid in 1889 could not provide for the optimistic view of the world, neither could the unsuccessful attempts to acquire the family and love. So, the criticism of everything and everyone around turned out to be the reflection of hidden dreams and thoughts of Nietzsche about health and success in all beginnings. And the book “Thus Spoke Zaratustra: A Book for All and None” is the brightest example of the philosophy by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Pippin, pp. 495 – 520).
The book “Thus Spoke Zaratustra: A Book for All and None” was published in 1885 for the first time and became one of the most popular works among the supporters of the thought that the German culture and national identity of those times needed to be improved and altered in many aspects.
During World War I, when Nietzsche was already dead, this book was published in 150, 000 volumes so that all soldiers of the German army could read it and use it as an inspirational tool compared to the Bible. This demonstrated the importance that was attributed to the philosophy in Germany, and, what is more important, the significance of the ideas formulated by Nietzsche for the national revival of the German people (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008).
However, the book by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche demonstrates a lot of metaphors and encoded ideas that are still hard to decode for the majority of scientists and theorists of the world. The central idea of the book is the concept of the Eternal Recurrence which is seen by Nietzsche as the way in which the vitally important transition from apes to the superhuman, named new Zaratustra, will take place with the help of the race of human beings who are viewed as the middle stage of development of the mankind.
One of the major mysteries of the book “Thus Spoke Zaratustra” is the idea about the three metamorphoses that are to happen to the human spirit in order to make it a superhuman and supernatural spirit able to live and act freely without any attention paid to the social and moral limitations that are invented by human beings only to restrict freedom and development of a personality: “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.” (Nietzsche, p. 237) The idea that is encoded in these lines is simple but very complicated at the same time.
It is simple because it presupposes that human beings can reach the level of their development when they will possess the best qualities of animals who do not feel fear and human beings who are able to think rationally and logically. But, this idea is complicated as far as the ways in which these metamorphoses should be carried out are explained vaguely and contradict the traditional social ethics and morals (Borody, p. 76).
The whole book “Thus Spoke Zaratustra” is built on contradiction and the book itself is a great contradiction, as far as it contradicts the traditional Christian ideology and morals. Nevertheless, the images and allusions to the Old and New Testaments are present in the book, as far as the author uses comparisons with animals, celestial bodies, etc. in order to make the book more prophet-like and mysterious. Despite the fact that it is understandable that the author wrote his book as the concentration of all his philosophical, social, political, and scientific ideas, it is quite difficult to interpret many of the ideas formulated by Nietzsche in “Thus Spoke Zaratustra”.
The only way to do it properly is to understand the main idea of the book and of the whole philosophy of Nietzsche. As long as the major topic of the book is the idea of Eternal Recurrence, all the ideas of the book are developed in accordance with it.
To put it in other words, Nietzsche speculated upon the idea of the recurrence of the qualities and states of the spirit while it is transforming from a weak animal which is striving for becoming stronger to a strong animal, then to the human being and then to a superhuman who will be the most perfect creation in the world afraid of no difficulties and even looking for them to check his strength: “There is much that is difficult for the spirit, the strong reverent spirit that would bear much: but the difficult and the most difficult are what its strength demands.” (Nietzsche, p. 237)
Usage of mythological and biblical images like animals and supernatural creatures is of great help to the author in his trying to explain his concept of Eternal Recurrence and development of the superhuman beings. Nietzsche compares the initial stage of this development to a camel that is ready to get to its knees in order to be loaded with knowledge about this life and reality. This camel is, however, not afraid of difficulties and deserts that occur in its way.
It only asks what will be difficult in order to be ready to meet it: “What is difficult? asks the spirit that would bear much, and kneels down like a camel wanting to be well loaded. What is most difficult, O heroes, asks the spirit that would bear much, that I may take it upon myself and exult in my strength? Is it not humbling oneself to wound one’s haughtiness? Letting one’s folly shine to mock one’s wisdom?” (Nietzsche, p. 238) After the camel comes across the desert of human absurdity, it is no longer a camel but a lion who is to fight the great dragon that lies on his way to freedom and victory.
The dragon is a symbol to identify the society with all its values and traditions that are artificially created and contradict the very nature of a living being. These values are depicted as shining scales that look like golden ones but are not worth anything in reality: “Values, thousands of years old, shine on these scales; and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: All value of all things shines on me.
All value has long been created, and I am all created value. Verily, there shall be no more ‘I will.’ Thus speaks the dragon.” (Nietzsche, p. 240) As the lion fights the dragon, a need arises for new values that a lion can not create, so it is inevitably to transform into a child who, despite being physically weaker than a lion, can create them by the power of its will and pure innocence, thus putting a new beginning to the world of superhuman beings: “The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred Yes. For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred Yes is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world.” (Nietzsche, p. 241) Thus, the concept of Eternal Recurrence is being implemented and the superhuman appears on the Earth.
As drawn from all the above said, the following logical conclusion can be made. The ideas by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche are a rather specific matter for analysis because there is no uniform opinion about his philosophy. Nevertheless, the thoughts about individual freedom, criticism of modern morality, and open conflict with the hypocritical ethics and religion are the points that made this philosophy one of the most influential in the world and helpful for many people.
The main idea of the book “Thus Spoke Zaratustra” is the concept of the Eternal Recurrence and the thought about the three metamorphoses of the human spirit are stages of that recurrence as seen by Nietzsche (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008).
References
Allman, Dwight David. “Nietzscheanism Contra Nietzsche: Tensions in Postmodern Liberal Theory.” Perspectives on Political Science 24.2 (1995): 69-76.
Borody, Wayne A. “Nietzsche on the Cross: The Defence of Personal Freedom in the Birth of Tragedy.” Humanitas 16.2 (2003): 76+.
Nietzsche, F. Thus Spoke Zaratustra: A Book for All and None. ICON Group International, Inc., 2008.
Pippin, Robert B. “Nietzsche and the Melancholy of Modernity.” Social Research 66.2 (1999): 495-520.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Phylosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche: Life and Writings. (2008). Web.
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