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On Zarathustra’s ‘willing subject’

김주휘 1

1서울대학교 철학사상연구소

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ABSTRACT

Against two dominant understandings of Nietzsche’s subject, which are represented by Heidegger who regards “will-to-power” as the consummation of the metaphysics of modern subjectivity and as leading to the domination of the earth by technology, and by Deleuze and Foucault who find the de-construction of the very subjectivity in Nietzsche’s thought, this work follows the idea of Nietzschean subject as something to be created and to be achieved. According to this idea, Nietzsche shows his own prescriptive concern with the self-creating and value-creating subjects although he is in agreement with the de-constructionists as to the critique of the myth of the unified rational subject at the descriptive level. Also this work attends to ststus and the role of the Nietzschean self-creating subjects in the dynamics of a community. Nietzsche considered the sovereign self-creating individuals not only as the fruit of the community but also as the seeds of the new states and communities. From this, against the dominant asocial and apolitical rendering of Nietzschean individuals, this work probes on the role of the individuals in the dynamics of the communal life, as the center of its dynamics. and asks on what ground it is possible. The main argument of this work is that we can find the ground of the individuals being at the center of the dynamics of a community in the fact that both individuals and communities are considered to be the subjects of the ethical practice, the creators of values. This is shown by a close reading of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in comparison with “Schopenhauer as Educator.” Pursuing the question of what the redeeming and liberating willing and creating means in Zarathustra’s teaching, we find that it is none other than the very will to create the ethical life on earth, to create good and evil, that is, values. This can be made clearer if we compare Zarathustra with “Educator” where Nietzsche makes explicit that the liberation of life means the liberation of the higher self and that only it could lead to the creation of culture, which makes human life different from that of mere animals. We find in both works very similar contrasts of the higher human life with that of mere animals. Especially in Zarathustra, it is expressed as the contrast of those who could accept the status of man as the bridge to Übermensch, as something to be overcome, and the last men who pursue only happiness, the contented animal life. From these considerations, this work shows that the teaching of liberation and creation means the demand for a new ethical life on earth and for the subjects of the new ethical life, which would be different from the old life-negating ones, especially at the age of the demise of God, the demise of the old ethical communities and the arrival of the new idol, the modern state. The concluding remarks, Nietzsche’s insight into the necessary violence and cruelty which accompanies any cultural and ethical creation is understated as one of the major contributions of him although the investigation of its implications must be deferred to a future work.

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