Listen to this in its entirety.
With headphones, lights out, eyes closed.
“This is why the eternal return must be thought of as a synthesis; a synthesis of time and its dimensions…a synthesis of becoming and the being.” Deleuze, 48
Assignments for Thursday: Read part two, listen to “Sitting in a Room”, remember that we’re meeting in the Spiritual Life Center and not the Lizard Lounge.
Enjoy!
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.”
From “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
I’m imagining Zarathustra listening to “Naturals Not in it” while leaving Motley Cow. (even though good Nietzschiens believe there’s nothing outside of nature…)
“Who wants to rule anymore? Who wants to obey anymore? Both are too burdensome.”
On the New Idol
“Often mud sits on the throne..smash the windows instead and leap into the open!”
“There, where the state ends, only there begins the human being who is not superfluous.”
On the Flies of the Market Place
“Away from the market place and fame all greatness takes place.”
“They are sycophants and snivelers…they punish you for all your virtues.”
“Flee, my friend, into your solitude and where raw, strong air blows!”
Rebel power. Dig it.
“The spirit and the power of the dream come over us, and we ascend, with open eyes and indifferent to all danger, the most dangerous path…We Moonstruck ones! We…silent, untiring wanderers on heights which we do not see as heights, but as our plains, as our places of safety!”
From Wir Kunstler! (We Artists!)
“Origin of the Species”
by Ben Rivers (2008)
“Rivers is an experimental filmmaker who walks a line between documentary and fiction. Following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society… imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. Rivers users near-antique cameras and hand develops 16mm film.”
Speculative Realism+ Zarathustra= this wonderful piece of video art.
Listen to that beautiful noise 14:45 in!
Forethought: When attempting to conceptualize Nietzsche’s übermensch you may come to find that any non-tangential or aphoristic definition fails to comprehend its totality. D.T. Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism offers its readers a Satori experience which suffers from the same plight. In this post I will present a slapdash comparison between Satori and the übermensch but you must remember that they are still two different ideas; Satori may help one understand the übermensch but the übermensch should still be thought of first and foremost in Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s context.
Übermensch is the overcoming of Man: “Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman – a rope over an abyss,” (Aphorism 4 Part 1). Nietzsche seems to define man not as a gender, personality trait, or human quality, but as the struggle between dualities such as ‘plant and ghost’, ‘beast and übermensch’, ‘flame and ash’, and ‘oppressor and opressed’ that can be applied wisdom, perception, life, etc. We have discussed these dualities in class and uncovered themes that you should remember (e.g the plant possibly representing as knowledge growing unperturbed yet mindlessly and without firm truth whereas the ghost may represent concrete and inert knowledge that cannot actually touch or explicate the world as it truly may be). Nietzsche conveys the übermensch as freedom from these dualities; “he is the lightning, he is the frenzy,” (Aphorism 3 Part 1). This freedom is the ‘meaning of the earth’.
“I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go,” (Aphorism 3 Part 1).
Now what might this earth be? It’s juxtaposition with otherworldly hopes suggests that the Earth encapsulates everything wherein otherworldly hopes attempt to expand outdoors, all the while missing the Earth that it already resides in. Those poison mixers, whom strive for otherworldly contact, are despisers of life because they neglect their earthly cradle. In this sense, it would be too forward of me to raise the ‘meaning of the earth’ to truth but it does liken to a oneness with a universal Will(s). This Earth is also described as a sea in this quote: “Verily, a polluted stream is man. One must be a sea to be able to receive a polluted stream without becoming unclean. Behold I teach you the overman: he is this sea; in him your great contempt can go under,” (Aphorism 3 Part 1). The Earth/freedom/übermensch can now assume this sea-position from whence all otherworldly poison and duality ridden pollution remain; streams within the sea that do not deplete all of the sea’s being/will. Might this mean that all of our words and descriptive prowess may act just as streams within the sea, never fully capable of describing the übermensch?
D.T. Suzuki’s Satori experience is veritably akin to the übermensch. Satori is only ever hinted at (traditionally through poetry and aphorism) rather than directly explained. It is said to be the seeing into the Nature of one’s own being. This Nature, like the Sea, immanently pervades and subsumes every facet and moment of experience. Just as a poison-mixer loses sight of the Earth by endeavoring for the otherworldly, Zen practitioners cannot see into their own Nature through truth-seeking logic; in both cases, when the polluted stream is taken for the sea there is no übermensch nor Satori. Furthermore, the Satori experience is accompanied by a freedom that unyokes one from all dualities (like the ghost and the plant) and brings one into the the Sea where these dualities do indeed exist but do not define the Earth.
I hope this comparison helped. Please comment with critiques of your own, though! Did I miss anything or do you feel like I’ve interpreted a theme incorrectly? I’d also like to bring attention to the italics in paragraph three (remain faithful to the earth). I haven’t gotten a chance to read The Gay Science but I am quasi-familiar the the famous anecdote ‘God is Dead’. Do any of you Gay Science readers think that Nietzsche’s inclusion of ‘faithful’ may change my interpretation of Earth/Sea/übermensch?
p.s. I didn’t proof read this.. SUCKASSSS!
Before next class:
-Read from the beginning to “On Immaculate Perception” in Part 2.
-Think of a theme you’d like to focus on and keep it in mind as you’re reading. I shared some options in an earlier post, but please feel free to create your own!
-Start collecting relevant/interesting quotes. Post them on here or bring them to class.
We’ll be discussing the will to power, God, self-overcoming and art in class. Deleuze has written very short pieces on these in “Nietzsche and Philosophy.” If you have an extra fifteen minutes, I highly recommend checking them out.
“There is always a plurality of senses, a constellation, a complex of successions but also of coexistences which
make interpretation an art. ” Deleuze, pg 4
“Nietzsche and Philosophy”
by Gilles Deleuze:
https://anonfiles.com/file/0ca9b5faac695b29df6ae1ed81ab561b
and a very nice pdf of Zarathustra:
https://anonfiles.com/file/e18e8b40a797bc22b502f984a58c5abe
I also have an audio book version for auditory learners. (E-mail me if you’d like it).
Enjoy!
What questions are most interesting and compelling to you right now?
Make or chose a question that will be deeply satisfying to your philosophical search…
Ubermensch:
What is power to Nietzsche? How is the “will to power” realized?
How is art the “stimulant of the will to power” (considering that ideas can be art, too)?
What does Nietzsche really mean by the word “God?”
Can one initiate self-overcoming? Is there a dichotomy between “being and becoming?”
Can one become ubermensch, or is the ubermensch only an ideal one strives toward?
Chose your favorite “genius saint” (in the present or from history). Do they realize or come close to realizing Nietzsche’s “ubermensch?”
Nietzsche and Time: Eternal Return
How does eternal return function? What “returns?”
How does time operate in Zarathustra? Does the narrative line follow “eternal return?”
Is time circular stasis, a spiral, or a shape which is incomprehensible and entirely non-linear?
Nietzsche and Deleuze: Philosophy as Affirmative
What is the body to Nietzsche? How is the body a site for the event of the “will to power?”
How do Nietzsche’s views on the body relate to Deleuze’s concept of the “body without organs?”
“Thus Spoke Zarathusta is Nietzsche’s body without organs” examine and explore.
How does self-overcoming relate to singularity and plurality (in Deleuze, One-minded consciousness in Buddhism)?
“Perhaps the body is the only factor in all spiritual development.” How does Zarathustra realize this notion spatially? How do the locations of Zarathustra’s travels reflect his philosophical speculation and “spiritual development?”
Nietzsche and Buddhism:
Why does Nietzsche oppose the “ascetic ideal?”
How are the following similar and different to Nietzsche and to Buddhists:
Eastern conceptions of “awakening” or “enlightenment”
Being and becoming
The “self” and/or “ego”
Nietzsche and Speculative Realism:
What is Nietzsche’s stance on “the real?” Do we have access to it? Are we already one with it?
Why does Nietzsche believe that even “Godless scientists” have yet to truly realize the “death of God?”
How does science fall back on dogmatic thought-systems no better than those of theology?
How does Nietzsche conceive of the “arche-thought,” of time before or without human beings?
Compare Nietzsche’s concept of chance-necessity to Quentin Meillassoux’s theory of “hyperchaos.”
Thus Spoke Zarathustra 