Thus Wrote Nietzsche

Well, I did start reading Nietzsche again. And I have to say, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is better than I expected. There is much of value in the book, and perhaps I will read more by Nietzsche after this.

The Prologue, basically just the first chapter of the book, is certainly thought-provoking. The Ubermensch (umlaut over the U) are the end-goal of humanity, it seems. Though we will never reach it. Humanity will instead become content with being content; happy with the artifical happiness of removing pain from life. I think this is true. True when Nietzsche wrote it, and even truer now. Though I did not tie the two together a priori, I read The Time Machine last night, or rather, reread. The Eloi are perfect examples of the alternative to the Ubermensch. They live with no aspirations or goals, only ambivalently as cattle for the Morloks. In a figurative sense, can many people today be said to be all that much different? As I read today, Nietzsche supports inequality and war as a method of spurring development and progress towards the Ubermensch. This is certainly unconventional, but I would say it is the only way. As H.G. Wells wrote in explaining the Eloi, humanity only adapts and progresses when confronted with something that our instincts and habits cannot overcome. If all the world were equal and provided for, equal in a philosophical sense, then I can see why the impetus for progress would vanish. 

After the Prologue, the book is written in small, two-page 'speeches' given by Zarathustra to no one in particular. I read two today that stood out. First, pity is a great cause of shame and vengefulness. Accepting kindness and giving kindness results in a sort of moral inequality, which is not rectified as easily as exchanging money or services. I am not sure pity lead to the death of God, as Nietzsche puts it, but I can agree that pity itself is destructive. The other lesson was that virtue is quite hard to identify. Not only is virtue unrewardable and unpunishable, but more importantly everyone has their own concept of it. In accordance with Nietzsche's disdain for dogma, he doesn't give a good definition of 'virtue', at least not in the Aurelian sense. I'm afraid he wouldn't much care for stoicism.

After On Certainty will come The Seven Mysteries of Life, by Guy Murchie. It's an impressively large 650ish page tome, though dust-free. It's somewhat of a hybrid of natural science and philosophy - it looks complex but also very readable and digestible.