Zarathustra, for the superiority and the empowerment of humanity.

Zarathustra’s Prologue

Zarathustra, for the superiority and the empowerment of humanity.

      

Zarathustra feels quite well in the mountain, alone with his own mind and soul. But after ten years he’s starting to feel tired and lonely. He thus asks to the sun: “You great star, what would your happiness be had you not those whom you shine?” Here is an interrogation about the meaning of an action when the main goal or addressee does not exist. Indeed, would the sun have shone as he does, if there had been nobody to illuminate?

Zarathustra tells the sun he is tired of being wise and that he needs to spread it out to feel better. He compares himself to the sun, which gathers his light, believing he has to come back among men to distribute the wise. It makes me think about the despair described by Kierkegaard. Indeed, considering the self as a link between an individual and a body or a person, Zarathustra’s self may be incomplete. Moreover, he has reached the consciousness of his despair when he decides to speak to the sun and can therefore take a decision. Zarathustra conveys he “wants to become man again” by an interesting metaphor: he is going down the mountain, to join the world of men. He is getting out of his spiritual solitude as if he was leaving the universe of gods.

The first individual Zarathustra met is an old man, who already knows him. He saw Zarathustra for the first time when he came into the mountain ten years before. The old man discusses with Zarathustra, talking about him at the third person, as if he talked about someone else. That establishes a distance between the physical presence of Zarathustra and his abstract spirit.

Despite the time that has passed since they met, the old man considers that Zarathustra looks like a child. By that he means that Zarathustra has found the purity of a child. He is, according to the old man, an “awakened”. This term means “aware” in the context: Zarathustra is a conscious man. After that, the old man asks him why he comes to the sleepers’ world. I believe that the sleepers are those who remain unconscious of their self.

As conscious individuals, the old man and Zarathustra don’t consider themselves as belonging to the human race anymore. They are different and superior. They are closer to god than to men.  They are hence very far from the aesthetic existence and much more near the religious one, according to Kierkegaard’s thoughts.

The old man evokes men’s burden and suggests Zarathustra could help them. We can make a link here between the old man’s speech and The Myth of Sisyphus by French writer and philosophe Albert Camus. We find the idea again that men are alienated by their existence and they seem unable to escape from their individual jails. That joins the idea of Kierkegaard that despair and existence are the two elements of a vicious circle. 

Zarathustra acts then as a kind of prophet in the towns he visits. He wants men to overcome their nature and to consider men as men consider apes: “A laughing stock or a painful embarrassment”. He thus asks men to reach the position he has, becoming higher than they are by nature. Compared to Kierkegaard's philosophy, Zarathustra tries to make people improve from their aesthetic existence, to a state of consciousness and wisdom. He teaches them to be virtuous.

More than a reflection about the nature of men, Zarathustra’s Prologue widely deals with religion and faith. Indeed, Zarathustra affirms that God is dead. Therefore, men have to “remain faithful to the earth”. That could be understood as the necessity for men to face their existence and not to run away from it in the name of God. The “overman” (“Übermensch” in German) has to be the higher sage. Their “happiness ought to justify existence itself” instead of being supported by a god.

Zarathustra compares men to a rope. He declares that humanity is not a goal but a path from the beast to the overman. That is an another similarity with Kierkegaard’s theory which explains that being human can’t be an achievement. Being human is an unfinished action and a perpetual reflection. The image of the rope mirrors this idea. Men always have to decide the direction they are going on the rope, and how they could choose it.

When he talked about the overman, people laughed. Zarathustra then begins to speak about the last man, describing the decline and the end of men. The last man is the one who still wants to act for God and on the opposite, the overman is the future of humanity.

Nietzsche’s book is a kind of metaphysical and prophetic address. It deals with existential questions, such as the nature of men, the conscious of the self, and a religious aspect concerning the death of god and new rules, beliefs and faith to follow.

Zarathustra asserts himself as a poorly understood prophet, who has to spread a message to improve humanity and make men understand their true nature and how they must behave.

Here is the link of the Strauss’ musical composition named “Thus spoke Zarathustra”. I believe this piece provides quite the same feeling as the book. That’s why I find it relevant to listen to it after reading Zarathustra’s prologue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heRql5KiLyY