Fourth and Last Part · LXXIII. The Higher Man

No comfort for sufferers; the lightning

Ye higher men, think ye that I am here to put right what ye have put wrong?

Or that I wished henceforth to make snugger couches for you sufferers? Or show you restless, miswandering, misclimbing ones, new and easier footpaths?

Nay! Nay! Three times Nay! Always more, always better ones of your type shall succumb,—for ye shall always have it worse and harder. Thus only—

—Thus only groweth man aloft to the height where the lightning striketh and shattereth him: high enough for the lightning!

Towards the few, the long, the remote go forth my soul and my seeking: of what account to me are your many little, short miseries!

Ye do not yet suffer enough for me! For ye suffer from yourselves, ye have not yet suffered FROM MAN. Ye would lie if ye spake otherwise! None of you suffereth from what _I_ have suffered.—

It is not enough for me that the lightning no longer doeth harm. I do not wish to conduct it away: it shall learn—to work for ME.—

My wisdom hath accumulated long like a cloud, it becometh stiller and darker. So doeth all wisdom which shall one day bear LIGHTNINGS.—

Unto these men of to-day will I not be LIGHT, nor be called light. THEM—will I blind: lightning of my wisdom! put out their eyes!

Zarathustra denies he is here to put right what they put wrong or to offer easier footpaths. He says they suffer from themselves, not from man, and that his wisdom, gathered like a cloud, will bear lightning that blinds the men of today.

The higher menZarathustra refuses to heal or ease the higher men, saying they do not yet suffer enough.
Self-overcomingMan grows to the height of the lightning only through harder and heavier suffering.

Commentary on this passage

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

A hard bed for higher menAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici holds that Zarathustra's greeting confirms his thesis that the philosophy aims to give higher men the great hope, but harshly: Nietzsche would be a hard bed to higher men, making them harder, not easing their way.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

H. L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908)

Equality and the death of GodH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues, quoting Zarathustra's reply to the market-place crowd that God is dead, that belief in equality and brotherhood is the mob-morality of the ancient Jews credited to their god, and that since educated men no longer believe in that god it is ridiculous to keep the ethics grounded on him.

Portrait of the supermanH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues that the superman will be perfect in body and mind, delight in combat, say yes to life's pleasures and ills, be scornful, merciless and free of fear of gods and laws, owe nothing to his neighbours and sacrifice himself only for generations unborn; he will distinguish instinct from passion and renounce from expediency, as Zarathustra's sayings to the brethren and to the higher men are taken to show.

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

The noble wickedness of higher menAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that depriving a higher man of his so-called wickedness may do violence to the greatest in him, and that the noblest wickedness, that of courage and determination, is vanishing under slave-moralities, which is why Nietzsche cried that man's baddest is so small and that to be brave is good.

The higher the type, the rarer successAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici calls Nietzsche's principle that the higher the type the seldomer it succeeds very important: the most deplorable waste is among higher individuals, because highly organised beings rarely reach full development, so the blind will to power in nature needs direction by man.

Learn to laughAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909exposition

Ludovici explains that the closing paragraphs of 'The Higher Man' protest against democratic seriousness: all that is good is cheerful, being able to joke about one's deepest feelings tests their value, and the greatest sin was the word 'Woe unto them that laugh now!'

Learn to laughAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909exposition