Over the long weekend -- which began last March and will end on a day of God's choosing -- I read two antipodal books, one about St. Bonaventure, the other about anti-St. Zarathustra.
I hadn't read the latter in some 40 years I reckon, and wanted to go back to the source of so much retarded atheism, even though Nietzsche himself was at least a clever and witty atheist -- or anti-theist, to be exact -- not to mention honest enough to draw out the implications of his misosophy, all the way to the madhouse.
Gives new meaning to intellectual commitment.
Z-man is very much like Jesus, only upside-down & inside-out:
When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains.
Eventually Zarathustra wearies of being allone with his wisdom, so he deicides to go down into the world and share the news, which is good or bad -- gospel or gaspiel -- depending on whether you are faster than a speeding bullet or more powerful than a locomotive, i.e., a Superman.
If not -- and 99.9% of you won't make the cut -- then you are at least suited to be part of the anonymous soil that will sprout a handful of Supermen.
The first person Z. encounters on the way down is -- ironically -- an old saint. I suppose this sets the pattern of people who aren't particularly congenial to his message of liberation, in particular, from Christianity:
When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: "Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!"
Inconceivable!
Then he wanders into town, where he again gets the cold shoulder, even though, hey,
I teach you the Superman. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man?
For Superman is to man as man is to ape; and the latter is
a laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.
Yeah, well, who's laughing now?
Okay, that was a low blow, but here we are, 135 years later, so we've had plenty of time to assess all the would-be Übermenschen of the previous century. What's the verdict on those explicitly anti-Christian men who presumed to surpass man?
No, we're not blaming Nietzsche, since none of the Überjivers you're thinking of would have been sufficiently intelligent, ironic, or self-aware to appreciate him. As if Hitler lay in bed savoring and chuckling at Zarathustra's astringent proverbs and parables!
Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted? He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and tragic realities.
The earth, said he, hath a skin; and this skin hath diseases. One of these diseases, for example, is called "man."
No, not Jews, man -- all men, except the Über kind.
Z. had no use for progressivism either -- unless it is the individual progress from man to Superman:
ye preachers of equality! Tarantulas are ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones!
But I will soon bring your hiding-places to the light.... Therefore do I tear at your web, that your rage may lure you out of your den of lies, and that your revenge may leap forth from behind your word "justice"....
[Y]our most secret tyrant-longings disguise themselves thus in virtue-words! Fretted conceit and suppressed envy... in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance.
Nailed it: in their hearts progressives know that men are not equal, if only because of their own moral and intellectual superiority, which they can never stop signaling to the bestavus.
He also nailed the media:
Just see these superfluous ones! Sick they are always; they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper.
And he saw right through the state, which is -- of course --
the coldest of all cold monsters.... Destroyers are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state.... whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen....
So, who exactly benefits from this cold -- and insanely expensive -- monster?
Many too many are born: for the superfluous ones was the state devised!
Right. The federal government, our biggest employer by far, is a full-employment program for overeducated progressive meddling mediocretins.
Even worse than the soft and enfeebled Last Men who "have left the regions where it is hard to live," are the Last Women, AKA the KKK (Kovid Karen Korps):
They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night: but they have a high regard for health.
But nor does Z. have any love for smelly deplorables and Walmart shoppers:
Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all the fountains are poisoned.
Superman and the devil walk into a bar:
Thus spoke the devil unto me, once upon a time: "Even God hath his hell: it is his love for man."
Ha! This love went on for around 50,000 years or so, until "of his pity for man God died."
Bummer. But seriously volks,
if there were Gods, how could I endure it to be no God! Therefore there are no Gods.
Simple as: I'm not God, therefore God can't be; or, at the very least, this cosmos ain't big enough for the both of us, God and Superman.
We'll end with an aphorism by the Nietzsche of the Andes:
Nietzsche would be the only noble inhabitant of a derelict world. Only his choice could be exposed without shame to the resurrection of God.
1 comment:
When Nietzsche was right, he was brilliant; when he was wrong, he was as wrong as only the brilliant can be. Oh, dear...
We read Pilgrim's Progress over the course of two years; I suddenly have a mental picture of Zarathustra coming up against Christian, and I don't think Z comes out of the discussion too favorably.
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