Having finished re-reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I've begun to wade into Carl Jung's seminar (though the original complete and unabridged version of course, not the compromised second draft). I think these classes will be very interesting; I'm immediately impressed by how widely read Jung is. For example, right off the bat there is a knowledgable discussion of Zorastrianism and its influence on Christianity and Judaism. Since I'm still constantly overcoming my prejudice that early psychoanalysis was all a bunch of pseudo-scientific bullshit (which is part of the point of reading the Jung lectures) I found myself impressed that Jung's description of Zorastrianism was remarkably close to the more modern descriptions I've perused recently. His dating of Zarathustra (~800BCE -- pg. 5) doesn't line up with the modern linguistic assessment of ~1400 BCE that Peter Clark provides, but otherwise he seems to summarize it pretty well.
[Clark makes an interesting suggestion that Zorastrianism's universal moral God had a direct influence on converting Judaism into a monotheistic religion; the Jews would have come into contact with Zorastrianism during their period of Babylonian exile. It had actually never occurred to me that Judaism was not always monotheistic, but in retrospect it makes complete sense. You don't go around telling folks that your God is the only real God and noisily proclaiming that this sole universal God just happened to select your particular tribe as his Chosen People unless you're pretty worried that your God was secretly no different than every other local tribal deity.]
Jung also devotes some illuminating pages to the pagan influence on Christianity. That the catholics are basically pagans in disguise has long been obvious to me. But I'd never heard of the particular cult of Mithras and the way its very similar rituals might have interacted with early Christianity.
None of this, however, is my point. My point isn't even that Jung is going to tackle the chapters in TSZ in order, as if they were the patient's dreams on successive night, and that this is a really hard, and somewhat dangerous, way to read Zarathustra. The book is specifically resistant to the live blogging (or live seminaring) format. Trying to understand the symbols in each chapter by going through it chronologically is bound to result in a huge stack of merely provisional identifications. Too many of the images and ideas are suggestive but almost totally ambiguous the first time they are introduced. They only gain in clarity and concreteness as they are reworked throughout the text, as if the only way to hear the original theme were to hear all the variations first. To make matters worse, as I mentioned last time, Nietzsche is wily. Which means that the provisional meaning of a passage can be a deliberate trap. Since I was already wrestling with the question of how to approach the text, I don't fault Jung for simply proceeding linearly. I don't really see another way to do it if you're trying to be systematic.
But who said we had to be systematic here at FPiPE? We'll get another ordered look at the book simply by following along with Jung. In the meantime -- and now, yes, at last, this is my point dude -- I'm going to try just skipping around and writing about TSZ thematically, whenever a thought occurs to me, and with reference to whatever part of the book sparks it.
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Today's theme is the self-overcoming of nihilism. It is brought to you by Graham Parkes' discussion of the Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani's book by the same name. Though apparently Nietzsche himself coined this apt phrase somewhere in his notebooks, so it's straight from the source. My interpretation of this idea is really simple, but I think it actually opens up a profound question. Why is nihilism so famously exhausting? I mean, if nihilism is true and nothing means anything, why is that a problem? The lack of meaning can only register as bad if we previously expected that finding meaning would be good. But this expectation too is meaningless. We're not real nihilists if we sit around bemoaning the fact that everything would be wonderful if only nihilism weren't true. In that case we're just cowards.
This is not to say that the nihilist position refutes itself. On the contrary. Nihilism is perfectly self-consistent. There's nothing logically incoherent about saying: " "I believe in nothing". Even this statement I just made." The problem is not logical, but existential. The very being of the nihilist refutes his position. Whatever the nihilist actually does indicates some sort of valuation by default. Whether it's passing out in a pool or cutting off our girlfriend's toe, the very facts of living shows that we do in fact, consider something to be meaningful, at least in that moment. So nihilism overcomes itself through the inevitability of action. And there's no escape from the evaluation implied by action. Even suicide reveals life's evaluation of itself -- as valueless. Even inaction is a form of action.
The way Nietzsche might phrase this, at least early on in TSZ, is to say that our body has never been a nihilist. Throughout the prologue and the early section of part 1, Zarathustra preaches about remaining "faithful to the earth" and the encompassing nature of the body.
But the awakened, the knowing one says: body am I through and through, and nothing besides; and soul is just a word for something on the body.
The body is a great reason, a multiplicity with one sense, a war and a peace, one herd and one shepherd.
Your small reason, what you call "spirit" is also a tool of your body, my brother, a small work- and plaything of your great reason.
"I" you say and are proud of this word. But what is greater is that in which you do not want to believe – your body and its great reason. It does not say I, but does I. (quoting from the Del Caro translation since I can't find a pdf version of Parkes, but using Parkers' page numbers -- pg. 30)
Only a spirit separated from its body can get wrapped around itself and fall into the apparent trap of nihilism. Nietzsche's point is that this despairing spirit is really only a tiny part of our experience, a part that is able to appoint itself judge of that experience only when the body is weak or sick or weary in some way.
This appeal to a larger "I", its link to the body, and the way it changes our perspective on the question of nihilism turns out to be remarkably similar to the Buddhist (particularly the Mahayana) view of the world. In fact, my understanding of the self-overcoming of nihilism was partly crystallized by reading Adyashanti. One of the potential pitfalls on the road to awakening is something he calls "the trap of meaninglessness". Consider the way he describes this problem.
One of the most common of these traps is a sense of meaninglessness. From our new view of reality we are free from the egoic desire to find meaning. We see that the ego's desire to find meaning in life is actually a substitute for the perception of being life itself. The search for meaning in life is a surrogate from the knowledge that we are life. Only someone who is disconnected from life itself will seek meaning. Only someone disconnected from life will look for purpose. (90)
The mind will start to say, "Oh God, I no longer have any purpose or meaning." You have seen too much of reality to believe in egoic purpose or meaning any longer. Yet there is still enough ego structure left to be invested in meaning and purpose. The illusion of ego is noticing that there is no meaning; it is peering into the truth, as it were, which can be very disorienting. (91)
I've met people over the years who have had a very real seeing, but their ego has reacted to what they saw. Ego literally reacts to the reality that was perceived, and the reaction can be very negative. The ego may get depressed; meaning and purpose have dissolved out of its structure, and there's still enough ego there to sit around and feel bad about it. (92)
Of course I am biased in many ways, but I've been constantly surprised how 'Eastern' Nietzsche feels now that I'm reading him as an adult.
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