On The Thousand and One Goals

[Morality Games]

Since I'm getting really bored with debating religion, I quoted one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite philosophical books: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. What meanings exactly do you derive from this text?

Zarathustra saw many lands and many peoples: thus he discovered the good and evil of many peoples. And Zarathustra found no greater power on earth than good and evil. No people could live without first esteeming: but if they want to preserve themselves, then they must not esteem as the neighbor esteems. Much that was good to one people was scorn and infamy to another: thus I found it. Much I found called evil here, and decked out with purple honors there. Never did one eighbor understand the other: ever was his soul amazed at the neighbor's delusion and wickedness. A tablet of the good hangs over every people. Behold, it is the tablet of their overcomings; behold, it is the voice of their will to power. Praiseworthy is whatever seems difficult to a people; whatever seems indispensable and difficult is called good; and whatever liberates even out of the deepest need, the rarest, the most difficult -- that they call holy. Whatever makes them rule and triumph and shine, to the awe and envy of their neighbors, that is to them the high, the first, the measure, of the meaning of things. Verily, my brother, once you have recognized the need and land and sky and neighbor of a people, you may also guess the law of their overcomings, and why they climb to their hope on this ladder. "You shall always be the first and excel all others: your jealous soul shall love on one, unless it be the friend" -- that made the soul of the Greek quiver: thus he walked the path of his greatness. "To speak the truth and to handle bow and arrow well" -- that seemed both dear and difficult to the people who gave me my name -- the name which is both dear and difficult to me. "To honor father and mother and to follow their will to the root of one's soul" -- this was the tablet of overcoming that another people hung up over themselves and became powerful and eternal thereby. "To practice loyalty and, for the sake of loyalty, to risk honor and blood even for evil and dangerous thngs" -- with this teaching another people conquered themselves; and through this self-conquest they became pregnant and heavy with great hopes. Verily, men gave themselves all their good and evil. VFerily, they did not take it, they did not find it, nor did it come to them as a voice from heaven. Only man placed values in things to preserve himself -- he alone created a meaning for things, a human meaning. Therefore he calls himself "man," which means: the esteemer. To esteem is to create: hear this, you creators! Esteeming itself is of all esteemed things the most estimatable treasure. Through esteeming alone is there value: and without esteeming, the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear this, you creators! Change of values -- that is a change of creators. Whoever must be a creator always annihilates. First, peoples were creators; and only in later times, individuals. Verily, the individual itself is still the most recent creation. Once people hung a tablet of the over themselves. Love which would rule and love which would obey have together created such tablets. The delight in the herd is more ancient than the delight in the ego; and as long as the good conscience is identified with the herd, only the bad conscience says: I. Verily, the clever ego, the loveless ego that desires its own profit in the profit of the many -- that is not the origin of the herd, but its going under. Good and evil ahve always been created by lovers and creators. The fire of love glows in the name of all the virtues, and the fire of wrath. Zarathustra saw many lands and many peoples. No greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than the works of the lovers: "good" and "evil" are their names. Verily, a monster is the power of this praising and censuring. Tell me, who will conquer it, O brothers? Tell me, who will throw a yoke over the thousand necks of this beast? A thousand goals there have been so far, for there have been a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is lacking: the one goal is lacking. Humanity still has no goal. But tell me, my brothers, if humanity still lacks a goal -- is humanity itself not still lacking too? Thus spoke Zarathustra