A Taste of What I Do

In “On the Thousand and One Goals” located in the First Part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra discusses the many lands and people that he has seen. He says, “A tablet of good hangs over every people. Behold, it is the tablet of their overcomings; behold, it is the voice of their will to power.” As the section continues, Zarathustra discusses specific tablets which peoples hung over themselves and overcame themselves to a certain extent: “You shall always be the first to excel all others: your jealous soul shall love no one, unless it be the friend,” “To speak the truth and to handle bow and arrow well," “To honor father and mother and to follow their will to the root of one’s soul,” and “To practice loyalty and, for the sake of loyalty, to risk honor and blood even for evil and dangerous things.” As Nietzsche says, “Once peoples hung a tablet of the good over themselves. Love which would rule and love which would obey have together created such tablets.” It is in the light of “On the Thousand and One Goals” that section 4 of “On Old and New Tablets” located in the Third Part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra should be read and will now be discussed.

The section begins with Zarathustra declaring, “behold, here is a new tablet.” In so doing, Zarathustra is drawing our attention to something, some word of wisdom, by which we might overcome ourselves. However, before exclaiming the new tablet that we might hold over ourselves, Zarathustra asks the question, “but where are my brothers to carry it down with me to the valley and into hearts of flesh?” This has immediate Biblical reference. Consider Proverbs 3:3 in the Old Testament in which the Preacher says, “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart,” and 2 Corinthians 3:3 in which Paul the missionary Apostle writes, “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” The tablet that Zarathustra is going to proclaim is going to immediately come into conflict with what is already taught and will need to be written in the hearts of flesh over what already resides there. What is this new tablet? “Do not spare your neighbor.”

What is meant by this new tablet? Immediately following Zarathustra’s introduction come the words, “Man is something to be overcome. There are many ways of overcoming: see to that yourself! But only a jester thinks: ‘Man can also be skipped over.’” That there is reference to the Prologue in which, “the fellow in motley clothes, looking like a jester” jumps over the tightrope walker, causing him to “[lose] his head and the rope, [toss] away his pole, and [plunge] into the depth even faster” is sure. Zarathustra continues, “Overcome yourself even in your neighbor: and a right that you can rob you should not accept as a gift.” The overall theme would seem to be man must be overcome and there is no way around it. Yes, the jester jumped over the tightrope walker, sending him hurling to the ground, but the jester is nowhere mentioned as having reached the other side of the rope. Any who tries to circumvent this path of overcoming, will never reach the other side.

This idea of overcoming yourself even in your neighbor also plays very portentously into the idea of pity being the greatest sin. How was it that God died? “God died of his pity for man.” In overcoming one must not spare his neighbor. As Zarathustra says, “And he whom you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster!” This theme is elaborated beautifully in the Gay Science, “The times of corruption are those when the apples fall from the tree: I mean the individuals, for they carry the seeds of the future and are the authors of the spiritual colonization and origin of new states and communities.” The tablet that must be held over the peoples is the idea that we must overcome together—no one person can skip over his neighbor and he himself reach the overman. It is collective, it is a unified development across peoples. As Zarathustra declares, “‘Myself I sacrifice to my love, and my neighbor as myself’—thus runs the speech of all creators.”

A word of caution is also given in reference to the new tablet: “He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves. But much is still lacking before they also obey themselves.” Just as mentioned in “On the Thousand and One Goals,” the only way in which the new tablet will be created is by love which would both rule and obey. Zarathustra knows that there are many that can command themselves at this point in time—many who are in preparation for their overcomings—but as of yet the cannot obey themselves. Only when this occurs will their overcomings be hung above them in triumph over themselves.