/lit/ - Literature

>>13149760
It completely subverts Zarathustra's message fyi, and Nietzsche openly acknowledges this. I recommend reading the Gathas instead, which are the unaltered words of Zarathustra dating to 800-1100 BCE, and I think Mary Boyce's translation is one of the best. This quote from Nietzche always pisses me off, though it does make certain correct claims:

"For what constitutes the tremendous historical uniqueness of that Persian is just the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to consider the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things: the transposition of morality into the metaphysical realm, as a force, cause, and end in itself, is his work. [...] Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it. [...] His doctrine, and his alone, posits truthfulness as the highest virtue; this means the opposite of the cowardice of the "idealist” who flees from reality [...]—Am I understood?—The self-overcoming of morality, out of truthfulness; the self-overcoming of the moralist, into his opposite—into me—that is what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth."
—Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, "Why I Am a Destiny", §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann