Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra 07: Individual Virtue

 Part II: The Virtuous, Thus Spake Zarathustra

“With thunder and heavenly fireworks must one speak to indolent and somnolent senses.
But beauty’s voice speaketh gently: it appealeth only to the most awakened souls...
At you, ye virtuous ones, laughed my beauty to-day. And thus came its voice unto me: ‘They want—to be paid besides!’”

A listless soul is called into being only by the sheer force of tragedy and malevolence, for its eyes are half closed and it overlooks the smaller, but surer signs of degeneration in its surroundings. And who dares make the claim that all of his soul is awake? The ones who lie in a blissful sleep, untouched yet by the force of the Terrible Mother, might still play their hand at a chance for redemption. What about those of us, who wilfully shut our eyes, to that which we deem unworthy of our notice? What about those of us, who find lost shines in others, and whole suns in our confines? And even if we blessed ones may find ourselves ensconced in brief interludes of inward sunniness, dare we see these times as anything but miracles to be wondered at, but not laid claim to? 

“But sure enough there are those to whom virtue meaneth writhing under the lash: and ye have hearkened too much unto their crying!
And others are there who call virtue the slothfulness of their vices; and when once their hatred and jealousy relax the limbs, their “justice” becometh lively and rubbeth its sleepy eyes.
And others are there who are drawn downwards: their devils draw them. But the more they sink, the more ardently gloweth their eye, and the longing for their God.
Ah! their crying also hath reached your ears, ye virtuous ones: ‘What I am NOT, that, that is God to me, and virtue!’”

Games of “virtue” are played by a great many of us, for we seek to become Gods in the face of the collapse of divinity that we ourselves sought to bring about. But there is utility in keeping the evil we partake in at the forefront of our vision by defining it anew each day, so that we might transcend it. We must beware of participating in dramas of unearned wisdom, for we shall be held accountable by the rules of the games we choose to play. We open our eyes to the Day of Judgement each day. 

Those of us who equate virtue with bleeding hearts, revel in the suffering such that they may rise to ranks of virtue in their own eyes. A great many would fain be playthings of virtue and vice, and offer up their souls to be instruments of the snakes in them, doomed to be fragmented by their plurality. Some who have fallen afoul of God, flung into the depths, not unlike our first parents, bereft of lost plenitudes, seek once more to be high enough to reach the Heavenly glow that still warms their memory.

“And others are there who go along heavily and creakingly, like carts taking stones downhill: they talk much of dignity and virtue—their drag they call virtue!
And others are there who are like eight-day clocks when wound up; they tick, and want people to call ticking—virtue...
And others are proud of their modicum of righteousness, and for the sake of it do violence to all things: so that the world is drowned in their unrighteousness.
With their virtues they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies; and they elevate themselves only that they may lower others.”

Some call it virtue to shoulder the existential burden that lies heavy on their shoulders, while some find virtue in the mundane tasks and labour of the day. Still others, who live in subjugation of their virtue, strike themselves and the world in its name, till their tyranny crowns them the ruler of ashes. They wage wars to establish the dominion of one man’s virtue over another, and make enemies out of those who choose different paths through the woods, so that they might go off to war morally. And like in all great wars, there are both martyrs and victims. 

“And again there are those who sit in their swamp, and speak thus from among the bulrushes: “Virtue—that is to sit quietly in the swamp.
We bite no one, and go out of the way of him who would bite; and in all matters we have the opinion that is given us.”
And again there are those who love attitudes, and think that virtue is a sort of attitude.
Their knees continually adore, and their hands are eulogies of virtue, but their heart knoweth naught thereof.”

For some, it is virtuous to sit quietly amidst a burning world, to have no opinion on anything of significance, to be a witness and not a participant. For them, their virtue lies in their harmlessness, which they take for granted too often than desirable. And then there are those who, eyeing recompense, clothe themselves in a raiment of virtue in times of convenience and take part in a masquerade.

“And again there are those who regard it as virtue to say: “Virtue is necessary”; but after all they believe only that policemen are necessary.
And many a one who cannot see men’s loftiness, calleth it virtue to see their baseness far too well: thus calleth he his evil eye virtue.—
And some want to be edified and raised up, and call it virtue: and others want to be cast down,—and likewise call it virtue.”
And thus do almost all think that they participate in virtue; and at least every one claimeth to be an authority on ‘good’ and ‘evil.’”

Still many others believe strongly in men of virtue than in virtue itself, and count themselves in the ranks of these men. How easily are they led into the tempting belief that they alone, are experts in matters of  “good” and “evil”, and justify their actions as virtuous ones! Not only our right, but it is our responsibility, they say, to carry out virtue through regimes that smack of a totalitarian mindset. Many call it virtue to be able to be able to see the worst in men, systems and themselves; they worship the value of unvalue and see nothing redemptive in the existential condition of mankind.

“But Zarathustra came not to say unto all those liars and fools: “What do YE know of virtue! What COULD ye know of virtue!”—
Verily, I have taken from you a hundred formulae and your virtue’s favourite playthings; and now ye upbraid me, as children upbraid.
They played by the sea—then came there a wave and swept their playthings into the deep: and now do they cry.
But the same wave shall bring them new playthings, and spread before them new speckled shells!
Thus will they be comforted; and like them shall ye also, my friends, have your comforting—and new speckled shells!—”

The sea of Chaos lays waste to these formulaic habits we define as virtue and drowns the ideals we have lived by for decades. But it is this very formless potential that births new forms. Forms that we will mold into whole civilisations to shelter us. Towards the middle section of our lives, or even perhaps the end, we will be asked to redefine our ideals in order that we may have a few more moments to rejoice in the performance of our art.

Virtue that is a face not a mask, that bears no expectation of reward or absolution, and that is not universal in its application. Virtue is that so personal that is inextricable from the Self. Wouldn't that be a sight?