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Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche was born in Prussia in
1844 to a religious family; his
father, uncle, and grandfathers
were all Lutheran ministers. His
father and younger brother died
when he was a young child, and
he was brought up by his mother,
grandmother, and two aunts. At
the age of 24 he became a professor
at Basel University, where he met
the composer Richard Wagner,
who influenced him strongly until
Wagner’s anti-semitism forced
Nietzsche to end their friendship.
In 1870 he contracted diphtheria
and dysentery, and thereafter
suffered continual ill health. Hewas forced to resign his
professorship in 1879, and for
the next ten years traveled in
Europe. In 1889 he collapsed in
the street while attempting to
prevent a horse from being
whipped, and suffered some
form of mental breakdown from
which he never recovered. He
died in 1900 aged 56.Key works1872 The Birth of Tragedy
1883–85 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
1886 Beyond Good and Evil
1888 Twilight of the Idolsaccumulated alone on the mountain.
So he decides to descend to the
market place to share this wisdom
with the rest of humankind.
On the way down to the town,
at the foot of the hill, he meets with
an old hermit. The two men have
already met, ten years before, when
Zarathustra first ascended the
mountain. The hermit sees that
Zarathustra has changed during
the past decade: when he climbed
the mountain, the hermit says,
Zarathustra carried ashes; but now,
as he descends, he is carrying fire.
Then the hermit asks Zarathustra
a question: why are you going to
the trouble of sharing your wisdom?
He advises Zarathustra to stay in
the mountains, warning him that
nobody will understand his
message. Zarathustra then asks a
question: what does the hermit do
in the mountains? The hermit
replies that he sings, weeps, laughs,
mumbles, and praises God. On
hearing this, Zarathustra himself
laughs. Then he wishes the hermit
well and continues on his way
down the mountain. As he goes,
See also: Plato 50–55 ■ Immanuel Kant 164–71 ■ Søren Kierkegaard 194–95 ■ Albert Camus 284–85 ■
Michel Foucault 302–03 ■ Jacques Derrida 308–13
THE MODERN WORLD
The prophet Zoroaster (c.628–551 BCE),
also known as Zarathustra, founded a
religion based on the struggle between
good and evil. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra
places himself “beyond good and evil.”Zarathustra says to himself, “How
can it be possible! This old hermit
has not yet heard that God is dead.”Behold the Superman
The idea of the death of God may
be the most famous of all Nietzsche’s
ideas, and it is closely related both
to the idea that man is something
to be surpassed and to Nietzsche’s
distinctive understanding of
morality. The relationship between
these things becomes clear as the
story continues.
When he reaches the town,
Zarathustra sees that there is a
crowd gathered around a tightrope
walker who is about to perform,
and he joins them. Before the
acrobat has a chance to walk across
his rope, Zarathustra stands up. It
is at this point that he says, “Behold!
I teach you the Superman!” He
continues by telling the crowd the
real point he wishes to convey:
“Man is something to surpassed...”.
Zarathustra follows this with a long
speech, but when he gets to the
end, the crowd only laughs,
imagining that the prophet is ❯❯