Lou Salomé and I he Quest for Intimacy 269his visions of large-scale human annihilation? His response was as fol-
lows: if we experience the Dionysian tragic sensibility profoundly
enough, we will find, as far back as Greek tragedy, "the eternal pleasure
of evolving to be oneself, the pleasure that even embraces pleasure in
destruction" (6,312; EH"Birth of Tragedy^7 ' § 3).
Nietzsche gave a voice and shape to this pleasure in destruction with
his Zarathustra. At times, the process made him queasy. After complet-
ing the second book of Zarathustra in late August 1883, he wrote a letter
to Peter Gast in which he spoke of the "most awful antagonism I carry
around with me in my heart against the whole Zarathustra configura-
tion" (B 6,443). And after he finished the fourth book of Zarathustra, he
wrote to his friend Overbeck: "My life now revolves around the wish
that all things proceed in a manner different from the way I comprehend
them, and that someone will render my 'truths' implausible" (Β 7,63; July
2,1885).
The fantasies of annihilation that are associated with his image of the
Übermensch have two bases: the internal logic of his thoughts and a con-
stellation of existential issues.
The internal logic of his thoughts built on a notion Nietzsche had
already developed in The Birth of Tragedy, which held that culture is justi-
fied by great works and great individuals. If mankind does not exist "for
its own sake, if, rather, the goal lies in its peaks, in the great 'individuals,'
the saints and the artists (7,354), it is also permissible to use mankind as
material for the production of genius, masterpieces, or even the Über-
mensch. And if the masses are more of a hindrance, space has to be cre-
ated—by getting rid of the "degenerates," if necessary. Even in his
fantasies of annihilation, however, Nietzsche was still a highly sensitive
soul and hence more amenable to the option that the "misfits" could
offer to "sacrifice" themselves willingly (11,98).
As for the existential constellation, all of Nietzsche's past humilia-
tions fed into his destructive fantasies. Nietzsche had wanted to use the
power of thought to create a "second nature" that would be greater,
freer, and more sovereign than his first nature, which he described in