Thus Spoke Zarathustra introduces some of Friedrich Nietzsche’s most important philosophical ideas, as presented by a fictional ancient prophet named Zarathustra. Most of the novel’s action consists of Zarathustra proclaiming his ideas to various followers and opponents in the form of poetic aphorisms (short sayings), which are often esoteric and can be difficult to understand. A foundational idea is moral relativism. Early in the book, Zarathustra observes that different people view “good” and “evil” differently and concludes that these values are not objective but are human creations. Most often, these values keep the weaker masses of humanity oppressed; that is, they’re just an expression of power. (So, the Christian value of “loving one’s neighbor,” for instance, is really a cynical way of exploiting one’s neighbor while neglecting what’s more important—humanity’s long-term progress.) Those capable of recognizing that morality is relative, Nietzsche argues, should tear down traditional values of good and evil so that a more freeing and forward-looking morality can be established.
Zarathustra argues that morality is relative. He observes that different lands and peoples have different concepts of good and evil, and that these conflict with one another. He explains, “Much that seemed good to one people seemed shame and disgrace to another.” In other words, “good” and “evil” are relative, as they depend on the contexts in which they are defined. From his observation that good and evil differ in various contexts, Zarathustra concludes that people construct values and give them meaning; values aren’t objectively meaningful. He proclaims, “Evaluation is creation: […] Valuating is itself the value and jewel of all valued things.” This means that there’s no inherent meaning in values; their meaning is given to them by those who create them. That’s why it’s necessary for those who are capable of understanding this idea to reject traditional morality’s distinction between “good and evil”—the category of “evil” is simply meant to constrain people, but it doesn’t objectively exist.
Those who are capable of recognizing moral relativism must therefore destroy traditional systems of morality. Breakers of values will be misunderstood and reviled for doing so. After his first failed attempt to address the masses with his ideas, Zarathustra reflects, “Behold the good and the just! Whom do they hate most? Him who smashes their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker – but he is the creator […] The creator seeks fellow-creators, those who inscribe new values on new tables.” By “the good and the just,” Zarathustra refers to self-righteous people who believe that their values—based on good and evil—are inherently correct. Such people see a value-breaker as merely a destroyer, but Zarathustra stresses that a value-breaker actually destroys in order to create a new, higher morality. The destroyer of values must create something better. Zarathustra describes a threefold vision of the spirit that is liberated to create in this way: the spirit is transformed from a burdened camel to a lordly lion and then to an innocent child. The lion creates freedom by refusing to be enslaved to the oppressive “Thou shalt” of traditional morality (in the King James version of the Bible, most of the Ten Commandments begin with the phrase “Thou shalt not,” like “Thou shalt not kill”). Having gained this freedom, the lion-spirit then becomes a child, who is able to be “forgetfulness, a new beginning.” This series of images shows that the spirit doesn’t simply smash existing moral structures for destruction’s sake, but for the sake of his and others’ freedom from oppressive burdens, as well as the building of something entirely new.
According to Zarathustra, submission to traditional morality just perpetuates people’s enslavement to it; the aim of the new, higher morality should be the arrival of the “Superman,” a higher form of humanity. Zarathustra gives concrete examples of elements of traditional morality that he believes ought to be rejected. For instance, he rejects the traditional Christian teaching to “turn the other cheek,” or to avoid retaliation when someone commits a wrong against another. He does this through a story in which an adder (a type of snake) bites him, and Zarathustra thanks the adder for awakening him in time for his long journey and makes the snake suck the deadly venom out of his wound. The moral of this story is that when “you have an enemy, do not requite him good for evil: for that would make him ashamed. But prove that he has done something good to you.” The badness of the snake’s bite is a matter of perspective—Zarathustra thanks the snake for it because it allowed Zarathustra to wake up and embrace life. What’s more, just forgiving somebody who has hurt you shames the other person, puts them in your debt, and creates resentment, thereby allowing the moral system to persist. Zarathustra also urges people to love the Superman more than they love their neighbor. While love of neighbor is one of the foundational elements of Christian morality, Zarathustra thinks that it aims at the wrong thing: “You crowd together with your neighbours and have beautiful words for it. But I tell you: Your love of your neighbour is your bad love of yourselves. […] May the future and the most distant be the principle of your today: […] you should love the Superman as your principle.” In other words, it’s better for oneself and other people if one loves and pursues humanity’s progression, instead of shortsightedly loving one’s neighbor, which after all is a desire to be loved and admired in return.
It’s important to note that, for Nietzsche, destroying current forms of morality is a creative work that comes from love—it’s not destruction for destruction’s sake. Rather, it looks forward to the progression of humanity as a whole into a higher, more noble form of morality that isn’t artificially constrained by ideas of good and evil.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Rethinking Morality ThemeTracker
Rethinking Morality Quotes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
A light has dawned for me: Zarathustra shall not speak to the people but to companions! Zarathustra shall not be herdsman and dog to the herd! […]
Behold the good and the just! Whom do they hate most? Him who smashes their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker—but he is the creator. […]
The creator seeks companions, not corpses or herds or believers. The creator seeks fellow-creators, those who inscribe new values on new tables.
I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance.
And when I beheld my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: it was the Spirit of Gravity—through him all things are ruined.
One does not kill by anger but by laughter. Come, let us kill the Spirit of Gravity!
I have learned to walk: since then I have run. I have learned to fly: since then I do not have to be pushed in order to move.
Zarathustra has seen many lands and many peoples: thus he has discovered the good and evil of many peoples. Zarathustra has found no greater power on earth than good and evil. […]
Much that seemed good to one people seemed shame and disgrace to another: thus I found. I found much that was called evil in one place was in another decked with purple honours. […]
Truly, men have given themselves all their good and evil. Truly, they did not take it, they did not find it, it did not descend to them as a voice from heaven.
Do I exhort you to love of your neighbour? I exhort you rather to flight from your neighbour and to love of the most distant!
Higher than love of one's neighbour stands love of the most distant man and of the man of the future […]
You cannot endure to be alone with yourselves and do not love yourselves enough: now you want to mislead your neighbour into love and gild yourselves with his mistake.
Truly, too early died that Hebrew whom the preachers of slow death honour: and that he died too early has since been a fatality for many.
As yet he knew only tears and the melancholy of the Hebrews, together with the hatred of the good and just—the Hebrew Jesus: then he was seized by the longing for death.
Had he only remained in the desert and far from the good and just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and learned to love the earth—and laughter as well!
You solitaries of today, you who have seceded from society, you shall one day be a people: from you, who have chosen out yourselves, shall a chosen people spring—and from this chosen people, the Superman.
Truly, the earth shall yet become a house of healing! And already a new odour floats about it, an odour that brings health—and a new hope!
One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels? […]
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you. […]
And once more you shall have become my friends and children of one hope: and then I will be with you a third time, that I may celebrate the great noontide with you.
Free from the happiness of serfs, redeemed from gods and worship, fearless and fearful, great and solitary: that is how the will of the genuine man is.
The genuine men, the free spirits, have always dwelt in the desert, as the lords of the desert; but in the towns dwell the well-fed famous philosophers – the draught animals. For they always, as asses, pull—the people’s cart!
That is your entire will, you wisest men; it is a will to power; and that is so even when you talk of good and evil and of the assessment of values.
You want to create the world before which you can kneel: this is your ultimate hope and intoxication. […]
[W]hat the people believe to be good and evil betrays to me an ancient will to power.
It was you, wisest men, who put such passengers in this boat and gave them splendour and proud names – you and your ruling will!
My will clings to mankind, I bind myself to mankind with fetters, because I am drawn up to the Superman: for my other will wants to draw me up to the Superman. […]
And he who does not want to die of thirst among men must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who wants to stay clean among men must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.
'Spirit of Gravity!’ I said angrily, 'do not treat this too lightly! Or I shall leave you squatting where you are, Lamefoot—and I have carried you high!
‘Behold this moment!' I went on. 'From this gateway Moment a long, eternal lane runs back: an eternity lies behind us.
'Must not all things that can run have already run along this lane? Must not all things that can happen have already happened, been done, run past?’
The shepherd […] bit as my cry had advised him; he bit with a good bite! He spat far away the snake's head—and sprang up.
No longer a shepherd, no longer a man—a transformed being, surrounded with light, laughing! Never yet on earth had any man laughed as he laughed!
Whether one be servile before gods and divine kicks, or before men and the silly opinions of men: it spits at slaves of all kinds, this glorious selfishness!
Bad: that is what it calls all that is broken-down and niggardly-servile, unclear, blinking eyes, oppressed hearts, and that false, yielding type of man who kisses with broad, cowardly lips. […]
And he who declares the Ego healthy and holy and selfishness glorious – truly he, a prophet, declares too what he knows: 'Behold, it comes, it is near, the great noontide!'
Man is the cruellest animal towards himself; and […] all who call themselves "sinners" and “bearers of the Cross" and "penitents" […]
Ah, my animals, this alone have I learned, that the wickedest in man is necessary for the best in him,
that all that is most wicked in him is his best strength and the hardest stone for the highest creator; and that man must grow better and wickeder: […]
[I cried] ‘Alas, that his wickedest is so very small! Alas, that his best is so very small!’
'For your animals well know, O Zarathustra, who you are and must become: behold, you are the teacher of the eternal recurrence, that is now your destiny!
That you have to be the first to teach this doctrine—how should this great destiny not also be your greatest danger and sickness!
Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally and we ourselves with them, and that we have already existed an infinite number of times before and all things with us.
If ever my anger broke graves open, moved boundary-stones, and rolled old shattered law-tables into deep chasms:
[…]
for I love even churches and the graves of gods, if only heaven is looking, pure-eyed, through their shattered roofs; I like to sit like grass and red poppies on shattered churches:
Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings—the Ring of Recurrence!
