Zarathustra calls the ugliest man the murderer of God! Certainly, this is one aspect of a certain kind of Atheism—the Atheism of the man who reveres beauty to such an extent that his own ugliness, which outrages him, must be concealed from every eye lest it should not be respected as Zarathustra respected it. If there be a God, He too must be evaded. His pity must be foiled. But God is ubiquitous and omniscient. Therefore, for the really GREAT ugly man, He must not exist. “Their pity IS it from which I flee away,” he says—that is to say: “It is from their want of reverence and lack of shame in presence of my great misery!” The ugliest man despises himself; but Zarathustra said in his Prologue: “I love the great despisers because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.” He therefore honours the ugliest man: sees height in his self-contempt, and invites him to join the other higher men in the cave.
criticism · Notes: Part IV
The ugliest man's atheism
Ludovici reads the ugliest man as the murderer of God by an atheism of the great ugly man who reveres beauty: an omniscient God's pity, lacking shame and reverence, could not be evaded and so must not exist; Zarathustra honours his self-contempt as the mark of a great despiser.
On Zarathustra
- The death of GodGod is killed because his all-seeing pity is unbearable.
- PityFlight from pity without reverence motivates the deed.
- The higher menThe great despiser is honoured as a higher man.