Zarathustra Group: On Enjoying and Suffering the Passions

[Deckard]

This speech develops a new concept of virtue (Tugend) which in the end turns out to be more straw man than anything else.

Whether Christian, Roman, Platonic, the classical virtues were provided to all as instructive guideposts for what each person should cultivate within themselves if they wish to be happy/good/virtuous.

In contrast, the virtues Z describes are to be kept secret and guarded jealously. According to Z virtue loses value when it is held in common with the people. Therefore the name of your virtue ought to be kept secret.

"Inexpressible and nameless is that which gives my soul agony and sweetness and is even the hunger of my entrails."

Z goes on to describe how you come to know your virtues. They were distilled through suffering through passions (Leidenschaften). Nietzsche emphasizes the idea that what was once suffered as evil is later enjoyed as good.

Once you have moved from the suffering of the passions to the enjoying of the virtues Z says that these virtues themselves will battle with each other for dominance until one wins out against the others.

The speech ends with something surprising and strange:

"Each virtue is jealous of the others, and jealousy is a terrible thing. Virtues too can perish of jealousy. Surrounded by the flame of jealousy, one will in the end, like the scorpion, turn one's poisonous sting against oneself. Alas, my brother , have you never yet seen a virtue deny and stab herself?"

Thoughts? On this last part in particular? Is virtue the scorpion or the stinger? Does it matter? Not really. The whole speech is ironic. Z is just trying to put the last nail in the coffin of the teachers of virtue. For some he has already succeeded.

(By the way, this is just one interpretations of this speech but hopefully one that sparks conversation.)

[Arjuna]

Originally Posted by Deckard

This speech develops a new concept of virtue (Tugend) which in the end turns out to be more straw man than anything else.

Whether Christian, Roman, Platonic, the classical virtues were provided to all as instructive guideposts for what each person should cultivate within themselves if they wish to be happy/good/virtuous.

In contrast, the virtues Z describes are to be kept secret and guarded jealously. According to Z virtue loses value when it is held in common with the people. Therefore the name of your virtue ought to be kept secret.

"Inexpressible and nameless is that which gives my soul agony and sweetness and is even the hunger of my entrails."

Z goes on to describe how you come to know your virtues. They were distilled through suffering through passions (Leidenschaften). Nietzsche emphasizes the idea that what was once suffered as evil is later enjoyed as good.

Once you have moved from the suffering of the passions to the enjoying of the virtues Z says that these virtues themselves will battle with each other for dominance until one wins out against the others.

The speech ends with something surprising and strange:

Thoughts? On this last part in particular? Is virtue the scorpion or the stinger? Does it matter? Not really. The whole speech is ironic. Z is just trying to put the last nail in the coffin of the teachers of virtue. For some he has already succeeded.

(By the way, this is just one interpretations of this speech but hopefully one that sparks conversation.)

It makes me think about how virtue is related to being conscious. Imagine that there are many trails to the accomplishment of any goal. If my conscious mind is off-line as act, I can end up defeating myself by taking a path that leads to monstrousness. If my conscious mind is active as I navigate through, it can help me see the pitfalls.

Is Nietzche advocating using your passions as the criteria for judgment? "Love and do as you will." As some of his cohorts advised?

I have been thinking about what you said about silence. Especially since I had two really bad nightmares last night that I think are related to reading Nietzche. I think I'm going to have to suspend reading it for a while. The dreams suggested to me that the whole thing is touching on things deeply personal to me about the nature of life, death, and morality. Sometimes flippant intellectualism isn't appropriate. Maybe that's what I've been doing with Nietzche and my nightmares are saying... no. I'll come back to it later.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by Arjuna

I have been thinking about what you said about silence. Especially since I had two really bad nightmares last night that I think are related to reading Nietzche. I think I'm going to have to suspend reading it for a while. The dreams suggested to me that the whole thing is touching on things deeply personal to me about the nature of life, death, and morality. Sometimes flippant intellectualism isn't appropriate. Maybe that's what I've been doing with Nietzche and my nightmares are saying... no. I'll come back to it later.

Yeah take a break. Recharge the battery and find your center or however you want to describe the process. I am enjoying and suffering through this discussion group so I hope it doesn't fizzle out. You know what the discussion could really use is some of Reconstructo's insights. What the heck happened to him?

---

I've changed my mind regarding the affirmation. I don't think of silence as a worthy alternative anymore.

Suppose I say I love a woman. Can I love only some parts of her? No, I have to take all of her the perfect and the not so perfect. Maybe she's not as smart as me or worse maybe she's smarter. Maybe she has a mole on her neck that grosses me out a little. Maybe she's a bit manipulative. Maybe she's a brunette and I've always had a thing for redheads. Maybe she betrayed me once and I never quite got over it. If I'm going to love her at all I cannot love her half-way or only partially otherwise I might as well not love her at all. I have to love all of her even those things I think are less than perfect. I'm not some half-assed lover who is too finicky to close the deal.

And what about the teachers of sleep? They would say "No" and imagine some perfect woman in some dream world. Well that woman does not exist (as Lacan teaches).

And silence? What the heck was I thinking when I said "silence"? If I went with silence I'd never even say "Hello" to any woman much less "yes" much less "I do" and "for better or worse in sickness and in health" (or some less traditional equivalent). Yeah marriage is the right metaphor.

The same goes for my life. I have to say "Yes" to it all if I'm going to say "Yes" to it at all. The teachers of sleep think life's a b*tch and won't have anything to do with her; they look forward to pleasant dreams. The teachers of silence at best live amicable but loveless lives and at worst become little more than voyeurs who only peek through windows at life.

And so what about all of existence? Am I capable of nothing more than dualism, or Manichaeanism or some other philosophy that tries to sort it all out and love the good while rejecting the evil? Or am I capable of more than this? Yes, I will say YES to all of existence!

"What is done out love always takes place beyond good and evil."

[sometime sun]

Originally Posted by Deckard

This speech develops a new concept of virtue (Tugend) which in the end turns out to be more straw man than anything else.

So one man is a many faceted jewel and in respect needs the many mirrors of the many virtues more than just the one, ends up obsessing on one aspect of the self, like for instance envy. An evious man is only an evious man. Many virties gives room to be many things, one virtue turns you into a one man made of straw.

Originally Posted by Deckard

In contrast, the virtues Z describes are to be kept secret and guarded jealously. According to Z virtue loses value when it is held in common with the people. Therefore the name of your virtue ought to be kept secret.

And end up keeping your own name guarded and as a secret from others who will either inspect or dismiss you.
Would a man made of one virtue be more easily dismissed than a man with many?

Originally Posted by Deckard

"Inexpressible and nameless is that which gives my soul agony and sweetness and is even the hunger of my entrails."

So you are left without the soul or self or whatever Z is dismissing at this time and we still find we are as starving children waiting looking for our next meal but not getting it becasue the body run by its highs or lows cannot be more than the dictation of its hunger, and when quenched are either high or low but not ever satisfied.

Originally Posted by Deckard

Z goes on to describe how you come to know your virtues. They were distilled through suffering through passions (Leidenschaften). Nietzsche emphasizes the idea that what was once suffered as evil is later enjoyed as good.

I thought this read that the passions were the evil and that even though all evil will eventually turn into good, we are left with the aftertaste that says, 'what you are feeding upon is not the true good you once were led to believe was the only thing that could pass your lips' Good here is no longer purity, good now only ever comes from the transformation of bad into good, dumb into bright, nothing is born bright, but it says that we to be good must once have had to been passionate. Good can only come through corupatable things, good and the only virtue can only come through adversity?

Originally Posted by Deckard

Once you have moved from the suffering of the passions to the enjoying of the virtues Z says that these virtues themselves will battle with each other for dominance until one wins out against the others.

All battling the other, i wonder if some if not all the virtues here must battle the others for dominance? Leaving one all conquoring virtue that has complete dominion over the body and the straw man that is left???

Originally Posted by Deckard

Thoughts? On this last part in particular? Is virtue the scorpion or the stinger? Does it matter? Not really. The whole speech is ironic. Z is just trying to put the last nail in the coffin of the teachers of virtue. For some he has already succeeded.
Was it the poison or was it the scorpion?

A frog sat by the side of a busy stream and wanted to cross but had no rudder against the current, when a scorpion came up to it and asked if it could ride on the frogs back to get to the other side, that the scorpion would use its stinger as the rudder if the frog would but use its legs.
The frog said 'no you will sting me with your stinger and i shall surly die'
The scorpion said 'but i shall be riding on your back so will surly die if i kill you with my stinger'
The frog agreed knowing that the juiciest flies were on the other side of the busy stream.
So they went out into the stream the scorpion using its tail to steer against the current, the frog using its legs to push at the current and as they were right in the middle of the stream where all things being told the scorpion did sting the frog in its back.
And as the frog started to sink to his death he asked the scorpion, 'why did you you sting me, for now surly we will both die?'
The scorpion answered as he sank also, 'It is just my nature to sting'
Virtue may be what will kill us, but at least it is something of worth dying for. What virtue did the frog die for? Trust perhaps, but for personal gain did he not listen to his first mistrust.
What killed the frog? The stinger, the scorpion, the nature, the frog?
Virtue for gain is not virtue, virtue for motabolism is not virtue?, perhaps virtue is something to be clean and pure and without the attached stinger must be that whcih will ultimately kill us? Virtue will be our wrong-doing?
If good only comes from bad, what does the good go towards?? to win at what? And if something were bad to begin with is it not always bad?
I dont think so. I think if there is a transformation, you and your virtue can truly be transformed.
If i am virtuous and can not be as another in my virtue, can not be the same, cannot be shared, how can i know myself outside of what can never be proven, how can i know i am something without something to measure and grasp myself by as?

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by sometime sun

I thought this read that the passions were the evil and that even though all evil will eventually turn into good, we are left with the aftertaste that says, 'what you are feeding upon is not the true good you once were led to believe was the only thing that could pass your lips' Good here is no longer purity, good now only ever comes from the transformation of bad into good, dumb into bright, nothing is born bright, but it says that we to be good must once have had to been passionate. Good can only come through corupatable things, good and the only virtue can only come through adversity?

This is a mult-level and multi-meaning text. We can both be right as different people will get different meanings from it. Z returns to this idea of the good being rooted in the evil that you are focusing on in the speech "On the Tree on the Mountainside" where Z says:

"It is with the man as it is with the tree. The more he aspires to the height and light, the more strongly do his roots strive earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep - into evil"

However, I still think this is a final stab at the teachers of virtue. Z showed himself to be no friend of the teachers of virtue and I tie this speech back to "On the teachers of virtue". Personally I don't think virtue is something that should be kept secret like a secret mistress. If virtue is kept secret like this it may well end like the suicidal scorpion.
I tend to agree more with
Matthew 5:14-15

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

Furthermore, Z/N sometimes uses the word "virtue" and sometimes the word "good". These are two very different concepts for Z/N. So far "Virtue" appears to line up with the concept of good as conceived by slave morality (e.g. Christianity) whereas "good" is used by Z/N to describe a concept that he believes to be more true or at least a concept that the Will to Power prefers. I might be wrong on this. jgweed?

[Reconstructo]

Originally Posted by Deckard

The teachers of sleep think life's a b*tch and won't have anything to do with her; they look forward to pleasant dreams.

"What is done out love always takes place beyond good and evil."

When I read that "life's a *****" line I couldn't help be think of "truth is a woman." To marry that old ***** life, then carve her into Ariadne?

I can't help but think this woman issue/metaphor is crucial. Woman as plurality, as perspectivism, as mask without a face. Do the sleepers hate woman because she is liquid, instead preferring the phallic rigidity of some symbolic father?

Derrida (usually boring) is great on Nietzsche, women, castration, and the mask (Spurs).

Forgive me for getting a little off the O.P.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by Reconstructo

Forgive me for getting a little off the O.P.

Sometimes it seems that we should be keeping closer to the text. Sometimes it seems we should be digressing further away from it. It's all woven together in one big tapestry. We're weaving our own weft into the warp of Zarathustra's speeches.

[Reconstructo]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Sometimes it seems that we should be keeping closer to the text. Sometimes it seems we should be digressing further away from it. It's all woven together in one big tapestry. We're weaving our own weft into the warp of Zarathustra's speeches.

Personally, I vote for digression. It's like the Mustache said: the spirit is a stomach. We chew him up, digest some, sh*t the rest. For all my criticism of his ethical contradictions, I still salute him as one who taught me criticism in the first place -- more by example than precept.

I enjoy him most for his criticism of philosophy, but then I must confess in younger days his ethic(s), despite obvious(?) contradictions, were "useful" to me. His contradictions make him all the more corrosive, because they are confusing and require interpretation. He's such a mess that one has to learn how to think well just to be done with him, or done enough. His "faults" serve a purpose this way.

[jgweed]

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself"
Whitman

Interpreting N is always a difficult task, as his mind was always adventuring, developing new vistas, and his oblique style demands one think through the difficulties along with him. One might compare his writings to the early Sokratic dialogues; there is no arrival at the truth, but the participants have rejected untruths and partial truths, and have deepened their understanding of the subject.

Great philosophers show us different ways to consider and to understand the world if we but take the time and make the sympathetic effort to see the world from a new and different perspective. In N's case, he provides us with many of these.

[Reconstructo]

Originally Posted by jgweed

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself"
Whitman

Interpreting N is always a difficult task, as his mind was always adventuring, developing new vistas, and his oblique style demands one think through the difficulties along with him. One might compare his writings to the early Sokratic dialogues; there is no arrival at the truth, but the participants have rejected untruths and partial truths, and have deepened their understanding of the subject.

Great philosophers show us different ways to consider and to understand the world if we but take the time and make the sympathetic effort to see the world from a new and different perspective. In N's case, he provides us with many of these.

I completely agree. Harold Bloom compares Whitman and Nietzsche, calls Whitman the American Jesus. Whitman the character-narrator is arguably Nietzschean values incarnate, simultaneously this-worldly and sublime.

Contradictions aren't a turn-off. "I believe because it is absurd." The strong spirit is a strong stomach, and can digest paradox and contradiction.

Nietzsche was bound to get tangled up in some contradictions. He bit off more than anyone could chew. He is tragicomically ambitious. I think Ecce Homo is important precisely because it is "absurd." I think he's dynamite.