Nietzsche is perhaps the best example of crossing over literary methodology and philosophical engagement. Though he isn’t the first to do so, certainly Plato was a master at using story to display philosophical concepts, Nietzsche stands as an example of what philosophical prose can do. He became wildly popular, especially with this book, and solidified his place in Continental Philosophy forever. He is absolutely inescapable when talking about Existentialism. His insights and historical presence carry through to almost all authors and philosophers we will be studying on heretofore.
- Please read the “TSZ Notes (introduction), it gives a brief and wonderfully concise historical account of Nietzsche’s, often disputed, life.
- I would recommend reading the prologue because he brings up concepts essential for the rest of Zarathustra sermons.
- Then, read some/or all of the other pieces and choose one to focus in on. Be prepared to give a brief explanation of ideas presented within. Be aware that Nietzsche is often purposefully contradictory, ironic, sarcastic, and underhandedly humorous. Therefore, I would recommend going to outside sources to establish what might be going.
- Please bring at least one well thought out discussion question to help us work through the texts together.
TSZ Despisers of the Body
TSZ Joys and Passion
TSZ Preachers of Death
TSZ Self-Surpassing
TSZ The Thousand and One Goals
TSZ The Three Metamorphoses
Also, Melissa found this great article connecting Dostoevsky to Nietzsche. She will be speaking about it briefly. More material for papers and discussion.
(Optional Reading): SToeber Dostoevsky’s devil
Thanks for your continued participation!
Not long after he had transcended adolescence and acquired an early taste of manhood, Christopher decided to give up everything else. His belongings were few to begin with – a worn sofa, some dishes, a nearly obsolete television, a video game console – but he bequeathed them to his roommate and gave up his bed for a life on the street.
Vancouver is no stranger to the homeless man, but nor is it inhospitable to him. Armed only with the clothes on his back, Christopher marched the streets of the East Side for many years. When he was hungry he scavenged for food, which the city was generally apt to provide. When he was thirsty he drank from the taps of public restrooms the way a child sucks water from the garden hose on a hot summer’s day. When he fancied a cigarette he would wander around park benches, eyes trained on the pavement, until he found a discarded butt large enough for him to pluck from the foliage and dry enough to be lit with the borrowed flame of someone else’s light. When it rained he took cover in train stations and stood near their heaters until he was dry. Christopher had nothing but he wanted for nothing, and it was in this way that he had everything. Christopher was his own man, and he was happy.
One particularly wet night Christopher decided to make shelter of a doorway in an alley in Strathcona, and while he slept the clouds parted and the sky cleared. He awoke to find himself warm and was surprised to see his body enveloped in sunlight and surprisingly dry. To add to his pleasure, a wiry stray had seen fit to rest his eyes near Christopher’s feet and the beast raised his head when the man sat upright.
“Good morning,” he said to the dog. “What brings you to my doorway?”
The dog blinked.
“It must have looked like a nice place to rest, that’s all,” Christopher turned his gaze to the mouth of the alley, where a multitude of vehicles were now speeding by in either direction. “It must be time for the people to go to work, though I have no idea what day it is. But neither do you. What do we need to know the day for, you and me? Every day is today.”
The dog blinked again.
“Exactly. We wake up when the sun rises and we eat when we are hungry. There are no nine o’clocks or Mondays for you and me,” Christopher ran a calloused hand thoughtfully through his beard. “But you know, the city is good to us. It gave us a doorway to sleep in last night, and it dried us from the rain before morning. Maybe we should give something back to the city. Yes, we are wise and should share some of our wisdom. Let us go see the people who don’t know that Mondays aren’t real.”
And thus Christopher decided to go downtown.
As Christopher walked, the wiry stray in tow, he saw many familiar faces. He traipsed down Main Street, past the hostels and the Chinese shops with barbecued ducks that hang in the window. He passed Pigeon Park, with its rows of colourful tents and shopping carts full of liquor bottles and empty pop cans. Though it was early, the inhabitants were already milling about – smoking, chatting intermittently, and picking through their belongings in search of any substances which might have been overlooked the night before. Christopher eyed them with some distaste, these men and women who seemed to him so ambivalent towards life and indifferent in the face of death. But through Gastown he passed, too, where people lined up outside cafes for their own substances of choice, restlessly jingling their keys as they waited to be served their morning caffeine and refined sugar. Less near death, perhaps, but no less ambivalent towards life.
As he approached the corner of Granville and Robson, Christopher became aware of some gathering and drew towards it. A crowd of people were lined up outside a building, as they had heard that there was to be a grand opening of a new department store that day and all of them wished to be the first inside. The crowd was voluminous but subdued. Some of them chatted amongst themselves, but most of them stood silently with their heads down making no noise at all. As Christopher approached them, he saw that their faces were aglow with artificial light and their eyes were trained on the screens of their electronic devices which they clutched in their hands.
“See that,” he said to the dog. “They’ve come here to watch a grand opening and instead they are watching their phones. We must share our wisdom.”
So Christopher clambered up the nearest concrete planter, in which grew a small coniferous tree, and turned to face the crowd. He spoke thus:
“People of Vancouver! I come here today because I have everything and you have nothing, and I want to give you something. I have come to share my wisdom.”
There was silence, aside from the murmured banter which continued uninterrupted. A couple of people in the crowd looked up from their cell phones momentarily, but most seemed not to have heard Christopher at all. Unperturbed, he continued.
“What brings you to this department store? What lies beyond those glass doors which has you lining up down the street? Clothing, televisions, computers, and PlayStations. These are the fruits of your labour, you rewards for waking up to an alarm clock and abiding by another man’s schedule. Working on another man’s dream five days a week, pretending that your toiling is virtuous and that Mondays are real. Eating when you’re told and sleeping when they let you. Ignoring your body so that you can make enough money to buy things which will help you ignore it some more.
“Does that make you happy?” He asked the people. “Given the choice, would you do it again? Keep doing it forever, going to work at nine o’clock and playing video games when you get home. Drinking coffee to keep you alert when your body is telling you that you need to sleep. Taking medication when you’re too sore to continue, and immersing yourself in fantasy when you want to escape. At the end of your life, will you look back on this with pride? Does this content you?”
Christopher scanned the crowd, but only a handful of faces were turned towards him and still they said nothing. They only blinked.
“There they stand,” Christopher said to the dog, who remained patiently seated at the foot of the planter while the man spoke. “But they do not listen. They do not want to hear what we have to say.”
The dog licked his lips. Behind them, a security guard had appeared at the glass doors and was beginning to fit a key in the lock. The crowd shuffled closer to the entrance, ignoring the madman and his beast, eyes fixed now on the glowing lights of the perfume counters and the airbrushed faces of the models which lined the windows.
“I have come too soon. You do not want my sermon. After all, Sundays are for shopping, not for sermons. God is certainly dead, but you have other altars at which to worship. Christianity for Christian Dior, but it doesn’t matter. You will wake up at nine o’clock on Monday all the same.”
Thus spoke Christopher, though nobody listened.