This is a thread opener/placeholder for any and all discussion of part 1 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra - pages 3-79 in the mainline Kaufmann edition we are reading (isbn 014004748474).

Here are my stream of consciousness notes on our February 20 discussion of Part 1, plucked from the email. Perhaps I will augment later:

It's clear that this is a kind of recasting of a prophet's story. But is it in part a parody of the prophet's story? Or isn't it really nothing more than a repackaging of the forms and pie in the sky ideas found in all religions, just with a replacement of proper nouns like God for Ubermensch, the Kingdom for Eternal Recurrence, etc? If so, is it bankrupt? Or is it hovering on the cusp of "the spiritual modus", with one foot planted firmly on the earth and (on? in?) the body? Can that work? Isn't it interesting to see the experiment played out with one as committed/ideologically fierce/brilliant/stylistically adroit as FN? Does Neitsche seek "meaning"? Is it possible...are we inclined, should we even be inclined to be interested in "meaning"? Whether and to what extent each of us agree with Nietzsche, we were satisfied that at the very least FN does takes the vacuum of morals following the death of god seriously, even gravely. Is that his "spiritual temperament?" What is the camel? The slave mentality? No, the toiling stage of the progress toward ubermensch.* In the section on warriors is this not addressed to the actual section of society, subject to the state, who make the living as soldiers? It would seem so, as it would be in keeping of his raillery against this or that member of society (professors, preachers, scholars, poets, women, the judeo christian religious). But perhaps scholarly consensus tells us that he is talking here too about self overcoming ("internal jihad"). Can we get away with this interpretation after a line like, "Your highest thought, however, you should receive as a command from me-and it is this man is something that shall be overcome..." (Answer: maybe, actually...) To what extent is the text ironic, parodic even farcical? (I think part 4 will go that far.) Can it be that he will say things that neither FN nor Zarathustra believe just to blow our minds and/or appeal to our sanity regarding what should be understood as the patent absurdities in our commonly held system of beliefs? Is it true (as it seems indicated in the very final sections of part I) that Nietzsche is an advocate for a process, method, a becoming project without any clear or static content, and that he really is more of a catalyst than a taker/maintainer of positions in this work? What insight do we gain when we really look at the text as a set of parables (as FN himself suggest on pg 75)? For AS, it was quite helpful. It may be that the direction to look when trying to clear out the apparent &/or plainly manifest contradictions and strike to the source of the endeavor in TSZ is toward the actuality of the body on the earth, stripped of all the traditional supports, that could be a clarifying lense for working out the nature of his construction of a new truth/value/virtue. There is a paradox that FN presents here that may be the more esteemable parent to the paradoxical views of the french existentialists in there move with freedom/responsibility confronting absurdity as a way of wresting hard fought authenticity from the void. When should we meet next?

That last discussion point will at least have a satisfactory and final resolution, most likely on Saturday March 26th, for Part 2 of TSZ (pages 79-145 Kaufmann) the wild and woolly conversation of which commences OVER HERE.





*here are three stages of progress toward the overman: the camel, the lion, and the child. In the first, one must renounce one's comforts, exercise self- discipline, and accept all sorts of difficulties for the sake of knowledge and strength. Second, one must assert one's independence, saying "no" to all outside influences and commands. Lastly comes the act of new creation. Our distinguished source: www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/zarathustra/section2.rhtml