Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 16, No. 2, I982 25 1

Keith Jenkins

The Dogma of Nietzsches Zarathustra

There is no doubt that Haim Gordons article on Nietzsche, Nietzsches Zarathustra as educator, which appeared in the November 1980 edition of this Journal, is to be welcomed. For not only did it help to propel Nietzsche toward current educational debates (for instance, on styles of teaching) it also had a strong and ably executed argument running through it of interest to Nietzschean scholars. That argument is that Nietzsches Zarathustra not only presents Nietzsches vision, but also describes his manner of conveying it in such a way that if one understands the manner, then one is also near to answering Heideggers old question- who is Nietzsches Zarathustra?-just as one is nearer to understanding who Jesus was, or who Socrates was, through an analysis of their teaching styles [l]. Gordons reading of Nietzsche is made with this point in mind.

Thus Gordon depicts Zarathustra in Part One of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a man coming back to mankind after a ten year period of solitude, as a man delivering a message on a take- it-or-leave-it basis to crowds in a market place, and as a man who, having failed to persuade them of his message, leaves them to go off in search of other, more willing ears. Gordons comment here is that Zarathustras ability to learn from this initial failure distinguishes him from, say, Socrates (who never doubted that in the end a constant plugging away would result in converts), and for Gordon the remainder of Part One basically concerns itself with a description of the kind of rigorous self-education that is demanded of those who would become supermen. This metamorphosis involves not least a shedding of all previously held burdens (beliefs, values, etc.), the discovery of new sources of energy by which one grasps the resultant freedom, and the ability to then create (innocently/naturally) new values. As Gordon puts it: From an educational point of view Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a description of Zarathustras attempts to educate his companions to undergo these metamorphoses, these conversions [2]. Consequently Gordon sees much of Part Two as being concerned with a further unmasking of those things that would hinder such mens creativity: they must be free from compassion, they must not mix with the herd and they must not learn from famous philosophers, not even from Zarathustra himself [3]. For, for Zarathustra, such men as these must themselves bear the burden of their ascent towards the superman: the teacher having taught becomes redundant, superfluous. Gordon argues that Zarathustra never brings com- mands: he is a coaxer and a teacher not a legislator, and in Part Three he accordingly insists that the essence of a future superman is his ability to respond to his personal destiny. Alone such a man must stand that most abysmal thought, the eternal recurrence, just as joyfully as

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Zarathustra did, and embrace the eternity of his calling willingly. As Zarathustra puts it: a thrilling joy will always accompany the horrors of responding to ones calling and nearing the superman! [4], though in Part Four he himself has to admit that his own joy is somewhat damped by his recognition that not only did he fail to find such potential overcomers in the market place, but that even the more likely candidates he met subsequently were not ripe for education. In the end, Zarathustra leaves the world of all-too-human men empty handed.

This, very briefly, is the basic thrust of Gordons argument and from it he draws several interesting conclusions: that Zarathustra is a dedicated, sensitive, courageous and creative educator, well worth emulating [5]; that he recognises that the pupils existential situation is the starting point for the teacher of the superman [6]; that Zarathustras approach is, unlike the approaches of Jesus and Socrates, much more pupil-orientated [7]; that Zarathustra loves life, that he dances through it, and that, above all, he is extremely anti-dogmatic and anti- catechistic [8]. Of course, concludes Gordon, a clever distorter could develop a dogma and a catechism based on Zarathustras teachings; but the teachings as presented. . . rebel against being dogmatised or catechised [9]. There is no doubt that Gordon fully approves of this type of creative, personal, individualistic and open-ended teaching.

Now, this is all well and good, and there is no doubt that Nietzsches Zarathustra does go through the stages of discovery Gordon outlines: he is ignored by the masses, he does seek extraordinary men; he does see such men as utterly unlike existing mankind, and he does ultimately fail to find them. But there are issues in addition to these which Gordons account ignores or skirts: why does Nietzsches Zarathustra abandon the masses so quickly? (after all, what sort of a teacher is it that gives up with 99% of the population after only the very briefest of contacts?); why does he seek a few (an elite) and even for them, why does he come too soon?; why does he fail even with those? Indeed, why is it that at the end of the day this educator to be emulated has successfully educated absolutely nobody? The answers to these questions lie precisely in that which Gordon thinks Nietzsches Zarathustra has not got: a dogma.

Now, this omission from Gordons paper cannot be entirely rectified here in what is, after all, only a brief reply, but at least a few points can be made to show how the argument might run. They are these. Zarathustra ignores the masses because he has absolutely no intention of ever raising them (educating them) above their natural level as slave/herd types; indeed, in so far as Nietzsche wishes to inform them of anything, it is of their natural herd mentality. Zarathustra seeks the few because he is utterly elitist (against [the herd] I defend aristocracy) [lo], and he comes too soon even for them because Nietzsche has a view of the emergence of great men that is not individualistic at all but social and rigid (he says that his philosophy aims at an ordering of rank, not at an individualistic morality) [ I I]. And these views (themselves held dogmatically-there is absolutely nothing anywhere in Nietzsches corpus which indicates that they are not regarded as axioms) all hinge on the fact that Nietzsches Zarathustra is catechistic. There is really never any question of Zarathustras free creators creating just anything they like freely (they might create democracies!) whilst Nietzsche is himself, of course, a prophet-and there is little point in prophesying that just anything will happen! Rather it is the case that Nietzsches free-wheeling, dancing creators, dance only on conditions that actually enslave the great mass of humanity; on this he is consistent and clear:

Once we possess that common economic management of the earth that will soon be inevitable, mankind will be able to find its best meaning as a machine in the service of this economy-as a tremendous clockwork, composed of ever smaller, ever more subtly adapted gears; as an ever-growing superfluity of all dominating and com- manding elements; as a whole of tremendous force, whose individual factors repre- sent minimal forces, minimal values.

In opposition to this dwarfing and adaptation of man to a specialised utility, a reverse movement is needed-the production of a synthetic, summarising, justifying

The Dogma of Nietzsches Zarathustra 253

man for whose existence this transformation of mankind into a machine is a pre- condition, as a base on which he can invent his higher form of being.

He needs the opposition of the masses, of the leveled, a feeling of distance from them! he stands on them, he lives off them. This higher form of aristocracy is that of the future. [I21

Now it is not, of course, unnatural that Gordon in pushing for a liberal education sees Nietzsches Zarathustra as propounding an individualistic thesis, and that Zarathustras followers overcome their shortcomings alone and climb from their defective states to the peaks unaided by society. But it has to be stressed that Nietzsche has not got that sort of individualistic and asocial overcoming in mind. After all, Nietzsches admired Greek hero only emerged in the best age of the Greeks (the sixth century) out of the activities of the perpetually serving masses (chorus); the Greek culture that Nietzsche so admired had a slave base, and he saw no other culture worthy of its name standing otherwise: We must accept the cruel sounding truth that slavery is the essence of culture [13]. For if the superman could have arisen at any time by dint of his own individual efforts, then how do we construe Nietzsches view that it was precisely the objective conditions of the nineteenth century that prevented this happening? Well, it is undoubtedly in Nietzsches social ethic that such an explanation lies.

In short then, Zarathustras dogma, Nietzsches dogma, is that of an order of rank only after the establishment of which the free creators create; and create moreover whilst standing on the backs of the toiling masses themselves now left, forever, at their own, pathetic, market- place levels. This is clear from Nietzsches corpus as such, it is embodied in Nietzsches Zarathustra, and it is made explicit in his notes for that work (Notes for Zarathustra) as follows:

Zarathustra can dispense happiness only after the order of rank is established. Therefore this doctrine must be taught [sic] first. The order of rank develops into a system of earthly dominion: the lords of the earth come last, a new ruling caste. [I41

These arguments, then, constitute the sorts of issues not raised by Gordon, and which seriously call into question his reading of Zarathustra and his understanding of Nietzsche. What Gordon has done is to advocate a form of teaching/education, whereas Nietzsches Zarathustra offers (and insists upon) both form and content. It is, of course, perfectly, legitimate to divorce form from content in order to add fresh pedagogical perspectives and extend current thinking about education, and the above critique of Gordon is offered more as a complement to his points rather than a rejection of them. On the other hand, though, Gordons conclusion, that Nietzsches Zarathustra lacks dogma, cannot be held. Whatever else he may have been one thing that Nietzsche was not was a liberal, and it is unthinkable that his most famous persona, Zarathustra, was either. That being the case, one at least questions the use of Nietzsche for a purpose he himself would have flatly rejected. The last anti-liberal word can be left to Nietzsche himself:

We conserve nothing; neither do we want to return to any past periods; we are not by any means liberal; we do not need to plug up our ears against the sirens who in the market place sing of the future: their song about equal rights, a free society, no more masters and no [more] servants, has no allure for us. We simply do not consider it desirable that a realm of justice and concord should be established on earth (because it would be the realm of the deepest leveling and chinoiserie); we are delighted with all who love, as we do, danger, war, and adventure, who refuse to compromise.. . we count ourselves among conquerors; we think about the necessity for new orders, also for a new slavery-for every strengthening and enhancement of the human type also involves a new kind of enslavement.. . . We are no humani-

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tarians; we should never dare to permit ourselves to speak of our love of humanity; our kind is not actor enough for that. [ 151

Correspondence: Keith Jenkins, Department of History, West Sussex Institute of Higher Education, Bognor Regis College, Bognor Regis, West Sussex.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

[l] GORDON, HAIM (1980) Nietzsches Zarathustra as educator, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 14, pp. 181-192. 121 Ibid., D. 182. i3j Ibid., p. 185. [4] Ibid., p. 190. [5] Ibid., p. 191. [6] Ibid., p. 191. [7] Ibid., p. 191. [8] Ibid., p. 191. [9] Ibid., p. 191.

[lo] NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH (1967) The Will To Power, Note 936, KAUFMANN, WALTER Ed. (New York, Vintage Books).

[ I I] Ibid., note 287. (121 Ibid., note 866. [I31 NIETZSCHE, F. (1871) The Greek state, in Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays, Vol. 11, p. 7 of The Complete

Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Ed. LEVY, OSCAR (1909-13) (London, Allen & Unwin). [14] Ibid., Twilight of The Idols, Vol. XVI, p. 281, [I51 NIETZSCHE, F. (1974) The Gay Science, pp. 338-339 (New York, Vintage Books).