Of God & Expectations in Zarathustra’s Realm

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche regards the concept of a supreme God as a problem

that weakens society. The rationalism behind the creation of this supreme deity is, to Nietzsche, a

rationalism that destroys the will and prevents humanity from seeking any higher purpose.

While, according to Zarathustra, the concept of God fills a gap of meaning in the lives of

humans, the concept is but a crutch used by those who refuse to create their own meaning. This

crutch is a barrier to growth and enlightenment, so it will ultimately lead to humanities

stagnation and destruction. Nietzsche’s solution is for individuals to break the chains of

conventional morality, cast off the burdens it places on them, and become something above-

human.

Zarathustra is a character portrayed with clarity of purpose as he descends from the

mountain top with the wisdom needed to solve the great dilemma of humankind and usher a

greater awareness. He has achieved this final stage of awareness, so is now a creator of his own

power. The straw figure of the saint is placed in the path of Zarathustra, this saint may be a

hermit, like Zarathustra, but he is an aesthetic priest who does not love mankind; his attention is

devoted to God. Zarathustra spares this saint from the knowledge that God is dead, perceiving

his lack of explanation as a mercy. Nietzsche’s own philosophical dilemma is expressed here; the

solution for the weakness of mankind is the acceptance that there is no God (Nietzsche,

2006/1883, pp. 1-5).

When Zarathustra comes to the marketplace to enlighten the masses, he comes upon a

spectacle. A tightrope walker is about to perform. This scene involving the tight-rope walker is a
metaphor for becoming the overman. Furthermore, it is evident that the process of becoming the

overman is based on efforts fraught with danger, and often leads to destruction for the individual.

In this parable, there is only death for the tightrope walker. One flair of strong emotion, one

misplaced word, or a moment of distraction at the wrong time is enough to derail a journey

across life’s tightrope. The social expectations of the human system are the strands that form a

rope, one which must be navigated with agility and steady persistence because clumsiness

inevitably leads to social death, isolation, and permanent placement in failure’s realm.

Zarathustra represents the informer. He has bypassed the tightrope and has completed his

journey without need of it. He speaks his mind freely, and has little care for the masses beyond

his own need to exude wisdom. The marketplace represents a market place of philosophy, a

forum of ideas; this is the perfect place for Zarathustra to spread his feathers like a peacock.

Zarathustra comes to enlighten humankind. Without an urgent care for his mission, he treats it as

a hobby. Zarathustra has no care for the people he speaks to, he speaks for the aggrandizement of

himself, but this is okay because as always, he is finding his own path. The prime difference

between himself and others is that he is honest.

Zarathustra regards himself as better than everybody else in the marketplace, he is

beyond concepts that normal humans are glued to. He is beyond promises. He has attained the

state of overman. It is here that Zarathustra subverts the concept of cross based salvation, “What

matters my pity? Is pity not the cross on which he is nailed who loves humans? But my pity is no

crucifixion.” (p. 7). God pities the humans who are struggling to walk this tight rope, and

promises relief from tightrope walk, steady ground. But Zarathustra is not the new savior, he is

the opposite of a new Christ. Zarathustra is the overman, he is the ultimate goal for all other

humans. The entire goal of the tight-rope walker is to reach the state Zarathustra has achieved by
navigating the fickle realm of expectations; the tightrope walker represents an attempt to attain

Zarathustra’s position by the most difficult possible means.

Zarathustra comes to the town to teach a disinterested crowd this truth. In doing so he

offers a replacement for God, “The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the

overman is the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth and

do not believe those who speak to you of extraterrestrial hopes! They are mixers of poisons

whether they know it or not.” (Nietzsche, 2006/1883, pp. 6). While Zarathustra spared the priest,

recognizing no hope for him, he attempts to enlighten the masses and pull them upwards to the

status of overman because he is weary of carrying his wisdom alone, “I am weary of my wisdom,

like a bee that has gathered too much honey. I need hands that reach out.” (Nietzsche,

2006/1883, pp.3). His gift to humankind was the wisdom that the tightrope of expectations was

no longer necessary. In giving this gift, Zarathustra is attempting to solve the problem of

humankind’s complacency. Yet humanity’s unwillingness to receive his news as good, and their

unwillingness to accept his solutions presents the sage with a dilemma.

Zarathustra attempts to solve the problem by using the tight-rope walker as a metaphor,

“Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and overman –a rope over an abyss.” (Nietzsche,

2006/1883, pp.7). The tight-rope walker demonstrates the difficulty for many in the trek towards

becoming awakened. The urgency of the problem is presented through this metaphor, and the

tight-rope walker, when rushed by the jester, experiences the perils firsthand, as the jester rushes

him and causes him to fall to his eventual death. Mere humans are stuck between animal and

overman because of their conventional morality, their insistence on obedience to something

whether it be God or man. And the tight-rope walker reveals his fatal flaw, his ordinary human
status, because he believes he will be dragged off to hell for being tripped up by demons. It is a

notion that Zarathustra is quick to disabuse him from (Nietzsche, 2006/1883, pp.11).

When the tight-rope walker falls to his mortal injury, Zarathustra does not console him by

telling him that hell no longer exists, but that there is no devil and is no hell. This statement

confirms Zarathustra’s belief that God was merely a concept from the beginning. When speaking

of the artist as a creator, Zarathustra states, “Lonely one, you go the way of the creator: you will

create yourself a god out of your seven devils.” (Nietzsche, 47, 2016/1883).

Zarathustra consistently condemns those who cling to the concept of God and claims the

entire concept of Christianity is an enforcement of human weakness. Strong condemnation is

directed at priests, the promoters of Christian religion. The term ‘priest’ is not to be associated

solely within the context of Catholicism in Zarathustra’s dialogue. It is used to identify those

who promote the worship of the Christian God. This is where Zarathustra speaks most of his

main philosophical problem, the enslavement of humanity to this God.

“but I suffer and suffered with them; to me they are

prisoners and marked men. The one they call redeemer clapped

them in irons:--

In irons of false values and words of delusion! Oh that

someone would yet redeem them from their redeemer!

False values and words of delusion: these are the worst

monsters for mortals – long does doom sleep in wait for them.

But at last it comes and wakes and devours and gulps

whatever built itself huts upon it.” (Nietzsche, 70, 2016/1883).

 Zarathustra addresses the problem of the Christian faith, possibly monotheism in general.

It is also Nietzsche speaking to the core of all philosophy, adding his voice to the attempt to

approach truth and expose that which is delusional. He condemns the nailing of a human to a

cross to propitiate God. Adoration of God is something that is used to fill in the unexplained, a

crutch. It is called a salve for suffering. The process of one of these priests becoming an overman

has never been witnessed by Zarathustra (Nietzsche, 47, 2016/1883).

In social context, the individual must navigate the rope of life, and the rope that

individual walks on is humanity. Whether humanity is represented by social structures, political

structures, human systems, religion, families, it is all human. The balancing act represents human

expectations. Nietzsche is appropriating the concept of the bridge to salvation and creating a new

bridge, a mere rope. Navigating the rope is a balancing act the individual must perform to

function in social context. Crossing a multitude of human social landscapes is a dangerous

balancing act for any individual that strives for higher status.

This balancing act represents the way the striving individual must behave. There are

demands both cultural and social on every aspect of the individual’s life. First is the demand for

civil behavior, obedience to the laws of both nations and organizations. Then there are cultural

expectations, both implied and explicit, that define what clothes the individual should wear,

when the individual should emote and how, and the tone of the individual’s speech. These are a

long list of actions an individual must do and ways the individual must behave to stay on the

rope. According to Zarathustra, the existence of an extraterrestrial God is merely one more

device to keep humans on the tightrope of expectations. He seeks to teach humans to live for

themselves and not the expectations of any authority, whether social or extraterrestrial.
 This is stated rather plainly when Zarathustra speaks of the Blessed Isles. Man cannot

create a God or even truly conceive of God, so Zarathustra dismisses the attempt as folly. God is

merely a conjecture. The solution to mankind’s problem according to Zarathustra and the

philosopher using Zarathustra as a fictional vessel is to abandon unattainable concepts for reality.

The concept of the overman is offered as a replacement for the concept of God. Nietzsche

attempts to solve the barrier of human complacency by calling for humans to be human and

achieve what is humanly possible (Nietzsche, 47, 2016/1883).

Often accused of Nihilism, Nietzsche does not display such tendencies in Thus Spoke

Zarathustra. While there is a total rejection of God, which relegates Him to conjecture.

Zarathustra does not display many signs of nihilism. Instead, the narrative asks people to become

the ‘overmen’, to do this is to think in terms of what is possible versus what is impossible, to

follow one’s own will, and to define morality on one’s own terms. The ‘overman’ represents a

humanity willing to move forward on its own terms, without God or the tight-rope of

expectations. What Zarathustra proposes is a radical new humanism. What this ultimately means

is left up to the individual.