Anyone want to try it? Sometime regularly at a cafe.
Anyone hardcore into philosophy? linguistics, philology, semiotics?
or just doesn’t like dogmatism or dlalectics?
it is one of most difficult books ever written. i love it. let’s talk about it.
Fear woman when she loves for then she bears every sacrifice and every other thing she accounts meaningless… anyway something like that. That’s all I remember about Thus Spoke Zarathustra Man God.
and women could be a reference to truth. “what if truth were a woman?”
hmm. let’s read the Homeric hymms to Athena. why not.
I’m saying anyone want to do an in person group reading. Or here is ok too. Just too difficult. This is the first time where I’m reading it and looking at every single word. Everyone I look at it’s etymology and possible meanings. Fun stuff.
Like the beginning…
WHEN Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart changed
Yep, it’s really hard to have this kind of discussion online. By the way, usually it’s more interesting if you can say why you make a statement, e.g. why would you think that Z’s serpent is Satan?
Sure, the serpent is traditionally Satan, and I believe there is still an Eden reference, but in this case the serpent is supposed to be wisdom. The serpent in Eden is the one who leads man to wisdom, which God supposedly did not want, and therefore the serpent is bad, and in the God-Satan context the serpent would then necessarily be Satan.
But Z continually refers to the serpent as wisdom, e.g. at the end of the Prologue Z sees the eagle and the serpent once more and says:
“It is my animals!..The proudest animal under the sun and the wisest animal under the sun-they have come scouting…therefore I ask my pride always to go along with my wisdom!”
Nietzsche does not believe that God ever existed, but he knows that there was a time in human existence that people found it necessary and comforting to believe in God. However, he believes that that time has passed. He also doesn’t believe in the existence of Satan. So would his serpent really be Satan? Feel free to disagree with me!
twonavels…
very interesting. I have more familarity with Nietzsche’s other works than Zarathustra. I don’t recall references to eagles or serpants there; I’ll start looking.
I’ve read parts of Z but not the whole so this is the first time. It’s not well know, in a letter, Nietzsche has said Beyond Good and Evil says the same thing as Z but in different words, much different words. Then you probably know the Geneology is a supplement to BGE.
Why is the eagle there? Religious people have marched under the banner of eagles long ago. And you’ll still hear talk today of the battle between the eagle and the serpent.
Once I go through Z, this could take a long time. Well a lifetime but at least my first going through, a while, I might see than he could be using serpent each time with a different meaning.
Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice, as it flew in midheaven, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets which the three angels are about to blow!” - Revelations 8.13
Is not Z living with both light and dark, is he not always “an over-going and a down-going?”
and then there’s the references to Plato’s cave further below. Probably so much more as I read more.
Man, my knowledge of classical greek is bad.
hm. now that i think about it. maybe the serpent and the eagle refer to over-going and down-going. daybreak and twilight? other things? eden? i’m curious why you think that.
I see. Some people think the serpent not the devil but Nahash: “to learn by experience, to diligently observe, divine, practice divination or fortune telling, take as an omen.”
And Aaron’s staff is a serpent. So not necessarily evil or the devil.
At this moment i’m thinking of the eagle and Athena’s bright eyes.
And what is Z? Is it more about the death of man? Deleuze says so.
yes, this discussion is impossible online. We don’t really need to talk more. I had meant if anyone wanted to do an in person group reading… want to?
I have an idea. The eagle represents an eagle, and the serpent represents a serpent! :raspberry:
blah. 
Ah, Josefus…thus spoke the Ultimate Man. 
haha. hail the superman
You’re just jealous of my obviously brilliant interpretation. I’ve actually got a copy sitting here. It’s a good paperweight. 
let’s play some frisbee.
Superman? That would be me.