Nietzsche and the Prophet

Nietzsche and the Prophet

According to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the meaning of human existence is to make room for the “Superman”: a superhuman who perseveres in its capacity for unlimited self-creation. (Pg. 49)[1] In order for humankind to embrace its self-creative nature and allow for the transcendence into this superhuman condition, however, we must first learn to destroy our present tables of values; it is our desperate adherence to traditional (religious) values which prevents us from actualizing our potential for self-creation. It is important to note, however, that it is not the creation of these traditional values in and of itself that Nietzsche condemns. After all, self-creation is not only a positive thing but, is the true essence and meaning of human existence. Rather, it is our insistence on treating these values and beliefs (e.g. the existence of God) as permanent and a priori which sickens him. When we perceive these values and beliefs as permanent, it numbs both the ability and motivation for human beings to self-create the future or, what he calls, the “self-creating will”. As Nietzsche’s protagonist states, “God is a supposition; but I want your supposing to reach no further than your creating will...Willing liberates: that is the true doctrine of will and freedom... (Pg.’s 110-11)

Manifest in Nietzsche’s vision of human self-creation, however, is a fundamental tension between the past and the future. On the one hand, he tells the reader that because everything is past and begs destruction, it is disgusting for anyone to blindly adhere to traditional value systems. Yet, on the other hand, the future (Superman) is fundamentally connected and, perhaps, even indebted to th...

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...Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1961. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Penguin Books: London.

[2]. Later on in the text, we see that this entails Zarathustra rising up and becoming the teacher of the eternal recurrence: that all things, including human existence, recur eternally. As his animals tell Zarathustra, “For your animals well know, O Zarathustra, who you are and must become: behold, you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence, that is now your destiny! That you have to be the first to teach this doctrine...that all things recur eternally and we ourselves with them, and that we have already existed an infinite number of times before and all things with us”. (The Convalescent; Pg. 237; italics original) Upon hearing the prophet’s words, however, we see that Zarathustra is not ready to become the teacher of the eternal recurrence.