God is dead - Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Nietzsche abandoned religious believes at an early age, and replaced it with ‘freelancing philosophy’. His ideas were, as many philosophers, very complicated and revolved around common philosophical topics, such as whether the truth is actually discoverable, the different types of errors mankind goes through throughout their life and how they manage, or more likely not manage, to correct these errors. Nietzsche is a nihilist, just like Kierkegaard, which means that he believes that “life is without objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value”. He was very fond of sexual relationships and over the years he seemed to have one too many humiliating affairs. Nietzsche explains fear as the feeling of abscence of power.

What is truth?

Meaning of life?

In a man who thinks like this, the dichotomy between thinking and feeling, intellect and passion, has really disappeared. He feels his thoughts. He can fall in love with an idea. An idea can make him ill.

Goethe once wrote an essay on Winckelmann, and this came to be kind of the motto of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. "Zarathustra is the founder of of the ancient Persian religion" (p30) and his religion is basically built on conflicts between the Gods of good and light, and the Gods of darkness and evil. Even though the book is kind of loose with no real storyline as we are used to in novels written today, there is still something similar to a plot. Through the four different parts of this book his message about how man is something that must be overcome.

This is just a short summary of what the book is about, what I have managed to find out about it from reading the introduction, different reviews and blogs on the internet and also by talking and philosophising with friends about his ideas and work. I can't say I am more enlightened in the different topics being discussed in the book, but I do now have a better understanding of the various aspects of philosopy from a nihilists point of view - just like I got a wider understanding on architecture from reading From Bauhaus to Our House (see previous blog post) than I would have had about architecture if not reading it. The more time I spend reading works written by well known philosophers, the more knowledge I gain - but at the same time, I also seem to confuse myself even more, as new theories and ideas appear in my head.