Overcoming And Becoming ‘Improvement’

8 Pages 1997 Words

offer our hand to the ghost when it wants to frighten us,” etc. These ‘heaviest things’ represent what Nietzsche believes are the values espoused by modern man. Therefore, the camel believes that by accepting morality it will be showing how strong it is. In Twighlight of the Idols Nietzsche writes that the supposedly improved men “are weakened, they are made less mischievous, they become sick by the depressing emotion of fear, by pain, sounds, and hunger” (Twighlight, 31). So when the spirit attempts to carry a great burden to show its strength, it actually volunteers to be made weaker. Although the camel believes that carrying a great weight displays its strength, the weight of established values actually tames and makes the spirit weaker.
The second metamorphosis is from camel into lion. This can only take place once the camel has relieved itself of the burden of modern values. This is what Zarathustra suggests when he claims that the camel runs into the desert, and that “in the loneliest desert the second metamorphosis occurs: the spirit here becomes a lion; it wants to capture freedom and be lord in its own desert” (Zarathustra, 54). The desert represents the conditions necessary for the spirit to rid itself of the weight of modern morality. To capture freedom means to be free from the great burden the spirit originally believed would make it stronger. To attain this freedom the spirit must confront and destroy the great dragon upon which “the values of a thousand years glitter on the scales” (55). According to Zarat...