What do you mean by a 'psychological treatment'?
Something like CBT ? — Amity

More old-fashioned. I'm thinking something like an initiation ceremony, or what used to be called a 'happening' in my mis-spent youth. Take the aphorism for example; not an argument, or a definition, or anything familiar to a scholar, but closer to a mantra or a koan; something to fill one's head with to block habitual thoughts.

I could say that the book is visionary, and the secret to the interpretation of dreams is this: Everything in the dream is you.

The difficulty is always the same difficulty; to escape the Christian mindset that infects Christians, atheists, Buddhists, scientists, and Nietzsche fan-boys alike. We always tend to understand the text in terms of our culture, rather than our culture in terms of the text - we are always looking to explain to each other - to understand rather than over-stand.

No one wants to be killed by clowns, but that is what is happening right now, before our very eyes.

As always un, you make me return to questions I should have asked.
I skipped over the bit, now bolded:

To read TSZ seriously is to subject oneself to a psychological treatment, rather than to analyse and consider some philosophical system. The clown destroys the dancer - and Nietzsche made dancing central to life. — unenlightened

I enjoyed the imagery but didn't know what you meant. It always amazes me how the/my brain seems to go blind and not give equal attention to all of the words. Why is that? Necessity or Pickiness?
Questions now arise: How did N make dancing central to life? What kind or form of dancing? To what tune? And why would any 'clown' want to destroy the 'dancer'? Who does the clown represent?
Where can this be found in the text?

I could say that the book is visionary, and the secret to the interpretation of dreams is this: Everything in the dream is you. — unenlightened

Yes, I think this is right. It has the feel of a dream as both source and continuation.
To interpret this, to discover or uncover N's Big Idea, is to enter Z's world.
Almost a baptism by immersion.

Take the aphorism for example; not an argument, or a definition, or anything familiar to a scholar, but closer to a mantra or a koan; something to fill one's head with to block habitual thoughts. — unenlightened

So, reading as meditation. Giving whole attention to the text.

I wondered whereabouts in Z, there was mention of a clown, I hit search and found one.
This from the 4th and Final Part: 'On the Higher Man'.

Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high! higher! And don’t forget your legs either! Lift up your legs as well, you good dancers, and better still: stand on your heads too!
Even in happiness there are heavy creatures, there are born ponderipedes. Quaintly they struggle, like an elephant struggling to stand on its head.
But it is better to be foolish with happiness than foolish with unhappiness, better to dance ponderously than to walk lamely. So learn this wisdom from me: even the worst thing has two good reverse sides –
– even the worst thing has good legs for dancing: so learn from me, you higher men, to stand yourselves on your right legs!
So unlearn moping and all rabble sadness! Oh how sad even today’s rabble clowns seem to me! But this today is of the rabble. — Cambridge pdf 285-6

'ponderipedes' - :lol:
Are serious readers of TSZ then 'wonderipedes'? :chin: :nerd:

We always tend to understand the text in terms of our culture, rather than our culture in terms of the text - we are always looking to explain to each other - to understand rather than over-stand. — unenlightened

Again, you turn my thoughts around. It is inevitable that as individuals our thoughts or values are part of our culture. Our minds are colored or stained by that.
However, if we try to understand something or someone else, there is a need to get over ourselves.
Go beyond what we think we know for sure...to examine values or what is worthwhile.
Reading a text can help us question the very culture which has helped us to grow as weeds or flowers.

We can get bogged down with our need to be understood or to understand. To justify by reason.

Understand - interesting elements of the compound word, figuratively and literally, starting here:

Old English understandan "to comprehend, grasp the idea of, receive from a word or words or from a sign the idea it is intended to convey; to view in a certain way," probably literally "stand in the midst of," from under + standan "to stand" (see stand (v.)).

If this is the meaning, the under is not the usual word meaning "beneath," but from Old English under, from PIE *nter- "between, among" (source also of Sanskrit antar "among, between," Latin inter "between, among," Greek entera "intestines;" see inter-). Related: Understood; understanding. — Etymonline

I thought you had invented a neologism! Imagine my surprise at:

Overstand -

"to stand over or beside," from Old English oferstandan; see over- + stand (v.). In modern Jamaican patois it is used for understand as a better description of the relationship of the person to the information or idea. — Etymonline

So, what we are looking for is to relate better both to TSZ and Nietzsche...yes?
Between or among ourselves.

No one wants to be killed by clowns, but that is what is happening right now, before our very eyes. — unenlightened

OK. I can't help but think of current state of UK politics...an overturn of previous values...getting murkier and deadlier by the day. I could go on, but I won't.

So, what we are looking for is to relate better both to TSZ and Nietzsche...yes?
Between or among ourselves. — Amity

The traveller needs to read the map, to get where they are going if they are lost, and when they get there, they have no more use for the map. What I am saying, (and all I am saying, because I'm unenlightened not Zarathustra) is that there is nothing here to understand in the sense of there being a resting place even as a distant goal. I cannot and should not help anyone to understand what has been deliberately obscured. Stop thinking that anyone enlightened, unenlightened, Zarathustra, Nietzsche, Jesus, Hitler, L Ron Hubbard, or David Attenborough is the overman with the answers. Dance, die, return.

(nor even this Nobel laureate):

I can't feel you anymore
I can't even touch the books you've read
Every time I crawl past your door
I been wishin' I was somebody else instead
Down the highway, down the tracks
Down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars
Hounded by your memory
And all your ragin' glory
I been double-crossed now
For the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry
Idiot wind
Blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind
Blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots, babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves

Stop thinking that anyone enlightened, unenlightened, Zarathustra, Nietzsche, Jesus, Hitler, L Ron Hubbard, or David Attenborough is the overman with the answers. — unenlightened

Are you talking to me?
An all-knowing 'overman' has never been, and never will be, that to which I adhere.
I don't think that any single philosopher has all the answers. How could they?

Here, we see a dabbing, dabbling or dappling of light and shade as we read and reflect...
A few pay more attention, going beyond.
To bring depth without darkness.
Dancers, creative and informative.
Aware and attuned.
It's why I hang around, even when I want to leave.
And might still yet...

Are you talking to me? — Amity

To anyone who cares to listen, but more I'm withdrawing somewhat from talking to you, with that dangerous enticing "we". Time for me to be quiet and watch the exegesis of others.

Time for me to be quiet and watch the exegesis of others. — unenlightened

I don't think there's going to be a lot of that forthcoming!
But we'll see...
Good talking to you!

No songs for the saint.
But what will Nietzsche sing to us...? What will Zarathustra sing to the lower crowds...?
And will we/they dance to the tune we/they hear or think we/they hear?
Will we/they part laughing... like two boys?
Tell me how do 2 boys laugh, and at what, who? — Amity

I think the chapter, On The Afterworldly, addresses those questions:

Drunken joy it is for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and to lose himself. Drunken joy and loss of self the world once seemed to me. This world, eternally imperfect, the image of an eternal contradiction, an imperfect image--a drunken joy for its imperfect creator: thus the world once seemed to me.
Thus I too once cast my delusion beyond man, like all the afterworldly. Beyond man indeed?
Alas, my brothers, this god whom I created was man-made and madness, like all gods! Man he was, and only a poor specimen of man and ego: out of my own ashes and fire this ghost came to me, and verily, it did not come to me from beyond. What happened, my brothers? I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself. And behold, then this ghost fled from me. Now it would be suffering for me and agony for the recovered to believe in such ghosts: now it would be suffering for me and humiliation. Thus I speak to the afterworldly. — Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by Walter Kaufman

The youthful quality shared between the Saint and Zarathustra is different from the image of the Child which has just been presented as the final metamorphosis of the Spirit. As a parodic echo of Paul, Z says it is time to put away childish things. The echo of Paul is also heard in the invoking of "This world" as the equivalent of the "tis Kosmos' which Paul expects to pass away.

I object to the following language in the article:

But we know from other passages that the Overman derives his identity not from his lineage, his racial or national background, but from his self-chosen destiny. The identity of the Overman is anchored in the future, not in the past, which is why so many transhumanists identify with Nietzschean philosophy and why Nietzschean ideas feature prominently in so much of our science fiction.
In chapter 56, “The Old and New Tables”, Zoroaster calls for a new atheistic nobility that must rise to oppose the theistic populace and rulers. He is referring to our ongoing evolution from ape to Superman — Hiram

This overlooks Nietzsche's rejection of 'natural' selection as a mechanical process as described by Darwin. It also does not appreciate that our generation cannot know the identity of future creators The overman is not a target but a process that is either underway or not. The rejection of deity as an escape from the world is not the start of the process but a phase of it.
I prefer Philip K Dick for my science fiction.

Also, he misspells 'Nietzschean' (a defect I corrected while quoting him).

I cannot and should not help anyone to understand what has been deliberately obscured. — unenlightened

I have from time to time thought about this.

Z comes down from the mountain. There is a political aspect to Nietzsche's work.* TSZ is, as the subtitle indicates, "a book for all and none". Herein lies the tension.

When I came to mankind for the first time, I committed the hermit’s folly, the great folly: I situated myself in the market place.
And when I spoke to all, I spoke to none. But by evening my companions were tightrope walkers, and corpses, and I myself almost a corpse.
But with the new morning a new truth came to me; then I learned to say: “What do the market place and the rabble and the rabble noise and long rabble ears matter to me!”
You higher men, learn this from me: in the market place no one believes in higher men. And if you want to speak there, well then! But the rabble blinks “we are all equal. (232)

When speaking in the marketplace he spoke to all and none. But elsewhere he speaks to others:

You creators, you higher men! One is pregnant only with one’s own child.
...
Unlearn this “for,” you creators; your virtue itself wants that you do nothing “for” and “in order” and “because.” You should plug your ears against these false little words. (236)

Creators create for the sake of creating, not for the sake of the people, but people benefit from what is created.

But whoever would be a firstling should see to it that he does not also become a lastling! (237)

Does he speak to us? And if so, where? One place is the the section "On Scholars".

For this is the truth: I have moved out of the house of the scholars, and I slammed the door on my way out. Too long my soul sat hungry at their table; unlike them, I am not trained to approach knowledge as if cracking nuts.(98)

We are not creators. We scholars are nut crackers, trying to crack TSZ.

They are skilled, they have clever fingers; why would my simplicity want to be near their multiplicity? Their fingers know how to do all manner of threading and knotting and weaving, and thus they knit the stockings of the spirit!

As interpreters of TSZ we pull at the threads and weave together what is found in the text. But as with the rabble:

For human beings are not equal: thus speaks justice. And what I want, they would not be permitted to want! (99)

Z faults scholars for being equalizers. They do not create. All is grist for their mill. But it need not be that way for us. We can recognize and try to make clear to ourselves and to others what is great. We can attend to books without making the mistake of assuming that wisdom and knowledge of life can be found in books.

And if we are able to crack some nuts and tie some things together ought we to keep that secret?



*

REAL PHILOSOPHERS, HOWEVER, ARE COMMANDERS AND LAW-GIVERS; they say: "Thus SHALL it be!" They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all subjugators of the past--they grasp at the future with a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is CREATING, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is--WILL TO POWER. --Are there at present such philosophers? Have there ever been such philosophers? MUST there not be such philosophers some day? . . . (BGE, 211)

Another popular view, one I like, is that the Overman, or Over-human, as some scholars call it, is a person who has the characteristics of the saint, the ego has melted away, there's a sense of oneness with all life, but earthly life has not been abandoned.

Rather all of life is greeted with a "yes".

How does this person make sense of the Holocaust? Surely not as something that's acceptable. Something that's overwhelmingly painful, though. Accepting life even though it hurts.

Another popular view, one I like, is that the Overman, or Over-human, as some scholars call it, is a person who has the characteristics of the saint, the ego has melted away, there's a sense of oneness with all life, but earthly life has not been abandoned. Rather all of life is greeted with a "yes".

How does this person make sense of the Holocaust? Surely not as something that's acceptable. Something that's overwhelmingly painful, though. Accepting life even though it hurts. — Tate

This strikes me a narrow reading of Nietzsche , missing precisely what is most subversive about him. The ego for Nietzsche is the product of a play of tensions among drives. This differential, conflictual relation of the drives is irreducible, the necessary basis of creativity and becoming, and not something to be overcome. What is to be overcome is any concept of sainthood, unification of opposites, or any other ascetic ideal.
The Overman’s affirmation of life is not an affirmation of the truth of life as the real, an acceptance of the burden of what presents itself. This is nihilism and negation masquerading as affirmation. The ‘yes’ is a transmutation and dislocation.

This strikes me a narrow reading of Nietzsche , — Joshs

Like the Nazi interpretation, there is a basis for it in Nietzsche's writings, the Over-human and the concept of the eternal return are closely linked.

The Overman’s affirmation of life is not an affirmation of the truth of life as the real — Joshs

And yet another version of the Over-human is one who is capable of self-subversion: in other words, one who can overcome old rules and habits in order to grow into something new.

This is nihilism and negation masquerading as affirmation — Joshs

Well, that would be bad. What's your take on the Over-human?

I think I'll start another thread on Nietzsche's aphorisms. Or if the Blue Meanies are gone, I'll continue the reading.

. What's your take on the Over-human? — Tate

I would say tentatively the Overman is what we get after we have successfully achieved the transvaluation of all values , so that we eliminate all notions of the ‘higher man’. This includes any ideal that depends on a notion of progress toward truth or goodness or oneness.

This includes any ideal that depends on a notion of progress toward truth or goodness or oneness. — Joshs

I like it. It all eternally returns anyway. If you transcend yourself, that was always going to happen just the way it did.

It's no big deal.

Take a look:

I'm continuing this reading on my own. Before continuing, this is a pretty good review of popular takes on the Overhuman as it related to the eternal return:

"Relation To The Eternal Recurrence

"The Übermensch shares a place of prominence in Thus Spoke Zarathustra with another of Nietzsche's key concepts: the eternal recurrence of the same. Over the course of the drama, the latter waxes as the former wanes. Several interpretations for this fact have been offered.

"Laurence Lampert suggests that the eternal recurrence replaces the Übermensch as the object of serious aspiration. This is in part due to the fact that even the Übermensch can appear like an other-worldly hope. The Übermensch lies in the future — no historical figures have ever been Übermenschen — and so still represents a sort of eschatological redemption in some future time.

"Stanley Rosen, on the other hand, suggests that the doctrine of eternal return is an esoteric ruse meant to save the concept of the Übermensch from the charge of Idealism. Rather than positing an as-yet unexperienced perfection, Nietzsche would be the prophet of something that has occurred an infinite number of times in the past.

"Others maintain that willing the eternal recurrence of the same is a necessary step if the Übermensch is to create new values, untainted by the spirit of gravity or asceticism. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval; yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. Therefore, it could seem that the Übermensch, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still recognizing it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or asceticism.

"Still others suggest that one must have the strength of the Übermensch in order to will the eternal recurrence of the same; that is, only the Übermensch will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made." --here

I actually like the last one best. The Ubermensch is like Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith: he has the grace to accept himself and the world as it is.

I think that what both Lampert and Rosen are getting at is that the expectation of the Übermensch sounds messianic.

In line with this I would argue that a) this can be regarded as another of Nietzsche's inversions of Christianity, and b) it is consistent with the eternal return in so far as a messianic figure is a recurring theme.

... to will the eternal recurrence of the same ... — Tate

What does it mean to will something that will happen whether one wills it or not? Is it more than passive acceptance?

Moving on, the tone becomes strikingly biblical sounding:

*Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spake thus:

"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.

"A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.

"What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: ​what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going.

"I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers."

What is the dangerous crossing?

One way to give meaning to life is to condemn some aspects of the present and claim that something better is coming.

This is Christian eschatology. It's Marxism. It's any kind of progressivism. The painful parts of the present gain meaning in that they're part of a bridge to a better world.

For me, the Holocaust is an all purpose symbol of the pain of life. I think one of the advantages of a divine source of purpose is that even if you don't understand why God would allow the Holocaust, through faith, you trust that there's a reason.

When we try to prop it up in our own, we don't have that luxury. The question is: does the Over-human work on any level to help with this?

What is the dangerous crossing? — Tate

I addressed this in a previous post.

Z says:

Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and overman – a rope over an abyss. (7)

This reminds us of Aquinas' claim that man is higher than the animals and lower than the angels.

Nietzsche accepts the idea of higher and lower beings but rejects the idea of a fixed order of beings ascending to the transcendent.

Later he says:

There are manifold ways and means of overcoming: you see to it! But only a jester thinks: “human being can also be leaped over.” (159)

This, I think, refers back to Paul's promise of death and rebirth:

... it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body; there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body ... (1 Corinthians 15:44)

More generally, Paul's hatred of the body. As if we can by a leap of faith become spiritual bodies -sōma pneumatikos. — Fooloso4

One way to give meaning to life is to condemn some aspects of the present and claim that something better is coming.

This is Christian eschatology. It's Marxism. It's any kind of progressivism. The painful parts of the present gain meaning in that they're part of a bridge to a better world. — Tate

See above:

... what both Lampert and Rosen are getting at is that the expectation of the Übermensch sounds messianic. (emphasis added)

In line with this I would argue that a) this can be regarded as another of Nietzsche's inversions of Christianity ... — Fooloso4

Except the Übermensch might not arrive. Instead there may be the last man. But ...

b) it is consistent with the eternal return in so far as a messianic figure is a recurring theme.

... to will the eternal recurrence of the same ...
— Tate

What does it mean to will something that will happen whether one wills it or not? Is it more than passive acceptance? — Fooloso4

I just received a PM from Tate:

I'm not interested in discussing anything with you.

Unfortunately for him, this is a public forum. I will continue to post as I see fit.

What an asshole. Fine. You win.

So, you threaten to leave, come back, then claim to leave officially, then come back. You tell me you will not discuss anything with me, then respond to me.

I win? Does that mean you will take your ball and go home?

Why have you made this contentious and personal? Are you not able to engage in disagreement over a text without becoming petulant?

I win? Does that mean you will take your ball and go home? — Fooloso4

Pretty much

If you feel defeated it is only because you have defeated yourself.

See what Nietzsche says about one's best and worst enemies. You are your own worst enemy. It need not be that way. Zarathustra asks if you are up to the task.

Jesus

For me its like drinking black coffee. I will pass on reading the work, but will hesitantly make due with a review.

For me, the Holocaust is an all purpose symbol of the pain of life. I think one of the advantages of a divine source of purpose is that even if you don't understand why God would allow the Holocaust, through faith, you trust that there's a reason.

When we try to prop it up in our own, we don't have that luxury. The question is: does the Over-human work on any level to help with this? — Tate

The text I read says that no such help will be given toward that end. The writing seems to go to some effort to welcome the absence of such assurances. Zarathustra takes away from the community of men what he left intact for the Saint.

For myself, the celebration of war and struggle in Nietzsche's writings is hard to listen to on this side of the Shoah. I have no interest in washing his hands of the responsibility he bears for his rhetoric. It would be interesting to pour some blood into his cup in Hades and see what he says after all that has happened.

There is more than that to consider in his ideas. Your statement: "When we try to prop it up in our own, we don't have that luxury" is exquisitely Nietzschean. If "you" are not the overman, there is none.

For myself, the celebration of war and struggle in Nietzsche's writings is hard to listen to on this side of the Shoah. I have no interest in washing his hands of the responsibility he bears for his rhetoric. — Paine

I think his rhetoric is unfortunate, but a large part of the danger lies in taking what he says out of its philosophical context.

Heraclitus "the obscure", one of Nietzsche's spiritual progenitors, said:

War is “father of all, king of all” (Fragment B53)

This is echoed in Nietzsche's will to power. It is not simply a matter of man against man, it is the way of all of nature, all of life.

We should also look at what he says about one's best and worst enemies, struggle, contest, and conflict. It is not simply.