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Of the Thousand and One Goals
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Rethinking Morality
The Superman and the Will to Power
Death of God and Christianity
Eternal Recurrence
Summary
Analysis
Zarathustra says that people’s love of neighbor is really just “bad love of yourselves.” Rather than rushing toward one’s neighbor, a person should instead love “the most distant”—in other words, “the man of the future,” or the Superman. But people fear the Superman and hide by loving their neighbor instead.
In this chapter, Nietzsche contrasts the German nächsten (nearest) with fernsten (most distant—particularly, those of the distant future). He does this in order to subvert the traditional Christian moral teaching of “love they neighbor.” Rather than loving the neighbor—that is, fellow human beings in their current state—it’s better to love the Superman version of humanity that could exist in the future, although the Superman is much more distant.
Themes
Zarathustra says that it’s better to find a neighbor’s company unendurable; then, a person has to find a friend in oneself. Most of the time, a neighbor only serves to prop up one’s own self-perception; solitude is far better, since the “distant man” ends up paying for love of neighbor.
Nietzsche’s discussion of the neighbor is another example of his contention that one ought to sacrifice the present for the future. Too much love of neighbor ends up being self-serving, and it shortchanges humanity’s future.
Themes
Zarathustra distinguishes between the “friend,” who is a preview of the Superman, and the neighbor. The friend is creative, a whole world unto himself. In a friend, the future and the Superman can be loved.
Zarathustra teaches that instead of loving neighbors indiscriminately, one should instead befriend a fellow creator who is also striving toward the Superman.
Themes
