Just read this + the rather sparse analysis in the back. Got bits and pieces, like many of the standalone essays he gives, references to Christianity + Schopenhauer. A lot of the symbolism and activity in the book was just incomprehensible to me, like wtf was that tightrope walker at the beginning, talking animals, the cave in part 4, also more broadly why he kept part 4 at limited release, etc. The archaic english and translated poetry were just exhausting. Is there a good straight-laced analysis of it anywhere that isn't school of life enshittified? I don't want to put any more effort than I have to into this tiresome dreck
>>18417873>Zarathustra takes the rope-walker upon his shoulders and carries him away; "because thou hast made danger thy calling, therefore shall I bury thee with my own hands." "Live dangerously," he preaches. "Erect your cities beside Vesuvius. Send out your ships to unexplored seas. Live in a state of war."Also explains his rustic admiration of nature over urbanism. Nietzsche knew that the rapidly-expanding middle-class townships and cities of Germany and everywhere else were devitalizing. Living in a comfortable house with indoor plumbing dulls man's instinct for struggle, hard work and survival itself. Without constant exposure to hardship, man turns quickly into a flabby, weak-willed being. Now that modern technology and workmanship has removed most of the character-building discomfort that humans have always felt beforehand from daily life, the only option left is to voluntarily seek out danger and challenge to test one's wits, like the tightrope walker. The Snake/Eagle represent respectively earthly Recurrence and a higher Will-To-Power, two opposites which are inseparable. Eternal Recurrence will always breed those with a will-to-power and those with said will always bring about another cycle of Eternal Recurrence. A Germanic Yin-Yang, as it were. As for Superman, Nietzsche prophetically predicted the state of superconscious being and the next stage of human evolution that writers gifted with the same ability of mystical prediction such as De Chardin, Sri Aurobindo and Pandit Gopi Krishna have experienced and foretold as well. Check out these works:https://archive.org/stream/ThePhenomenonOfMan/phenomenon-of-man-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin_djvu.txthttps://auro-ebooks.com/the-superman/https://www.amazon.ca/Eye-Shiva-Eastern-Mysticism-Science-ebook/dp/B00U238BMYhttps://archive.org/details/kundalini-the-evolutionary-energy-in-man-gopi-krishnahttps://archive.org/details/KRI728KundaliniTheBiologicalBasisOfReligionAndGeniusGopiKrishna/mode/2up
I'm reading all of nietzche's major books before I read zarsthustra
Not OP, but what are some recommended readings before getting to Nietzche? Which other philosopher did he often refer to?
>>18418118You don't really need anything except cursory knowledge of Plato and kant. Neetchan can become the scaffolding to look into whatever you want that shows up in his work.
>>18418404And schopenhauer*
>>18418118The European philosophical tradition consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. Familiarizing yourself with him is a must.
>>18417873Zarathustra, like much of Nietzsche's work, is pulling gems from the mud (I believe Kaufmann even included that in his translation's forward). Nietzsche himself said this, and he also wrote that the worst thing a writer could do is drop too many of his profound ideas too close together, in his mind you needed to include mediocrity so a reader would have time to ruminate on the key points. He was not a regimented, systemic thinker. He was an idea guy and a lot of what he published would have been left on the cutting floor and would have only come up in obscure letters from anyone else in the sphere of German Idealism.That said, if you're looking for "Straight-laced", give up now. That is not the point of Zarathustra or really any of Nietzsche's work. >>18418118The only philosophers he directly engages with are Plato, Schopenhauer and Kant, and his engagement with Kant is largely modulated through the lens of Schopenhauer (and as such, some of the things he says here are misinformed). Have a rooting in the classics, he was a philologist first and foremost and was not himself deeply read in philosophy outside of the classics.>>18417911This is a good way to do it because very little in Zarathustra is actually original to Zarathustra and to really understand Zarathustra beneath the flourish you kind of need to go in understanding the rest of his body of work with the exception of the Will to Power (which is still very worth reading, so long as you understand its origins).
>>18418118Schopenhauer, to an extent. Even though Schopenhauer was a turbo-doomer pessimist and Nietzsche was fundamentally an optimist.
There's a quote I always remember and it helped me understand that he's misunderstood by plebs. Something about loving those who come from the dark cloud that hangs over humanity because he himself is a drop that falls announcing thunder. Jesus was a superman in a society full of untermensch The modern man and society, as described by bauman and berman, are full of modernist pussies who adapt to the environment instead of opposing it to impose their will unto it, molding society into the structure that will hold a better tomorrow.God is dead cause yall rather not believe in anything and mold into whatever they tell you to be.
