Introduction to Philosophy -- Thinking and Poetizing

Chapter Two The Creation of the New Home Out of the Will to Power

Chapter Two The Creation of the New Home Out of the Will to Power§8. The Homeless Ones as the Conquerors and Discoverers of the New Home The following two notes are left over from the time of the transition of 1885–1886, when much was decisive for Nietzsche’s thinking insofar as he actually here began to think the thought of the will to power (vol. XIV, no. 295, p. 414): We homeless ones—yes! We want to make the most of the advantages of our condition, never mind perishing from it, and to let the open air and the powerful overflow of light prove advantageous for us. The homeless ones that Nietzsche means are the willing ones, willing in the sense of the will to power, to whom the essence of their willing—wherein they will and through which they have come to be at home—appears in the abundant light of the brightest midday, and all homesickness and longing die away. That is why in the closing stanza of the “Postlude,” “From high Mountains,” in Beyond Good and Evil, we read (vol. VII, p. 279): 33 Dies Lied ist aus,—der This song is over—the Sehnsucht süßer Schrei   sweet cry of longing    Erstarb im Munde:    died in my mouth: Ein Zaubrer tat’s, der, A magician did it, a friend at Freund zur rechten Stunde   the right hour, Der Mittags-Freund—nein! The midday-friend—no! Do fragt nicht, wer es sei—   not ask, who it is— Um Mittag war’s, da wurde it was around midday when Eins zu Zwei . . . . .   one turned to two . . . Nun feiern wir, vereinten now we are celebrating, Siegs gewiß,   certain of unified victory, Das Fest der Feste:   the festival of festivals: Freund Zarathustra kam, Friend Zarathustra came, the der Gast der Gäste!   guest of guests! Nun lacht die Welt, der grause Now the world laughs, the Vorhang riß,   dread curtain tore, Die Hochzeit kam für Licht . the marriage came for light und Finsternis . . . .   and darkness . . . In the essence of willing, out of which the homeless ones will the open space [dasFreie], being itself appears, which as will to power thoroughly dominates [durchherrscht] all beings. But the essence of the will emerges [steht auf] in the figure of Zarathustra. He is the highest uprising [Aufstand] of the modern essence of the human. In the figure of Zarathustra, the essence of absolute subjectivity appears for itself as the will willing itself. The human of this essence leaves the previous human behind while it discovers a new home, “new” in the sense that only now the essence of modernity comes to light and decides what is left behind as home and as the meaning of home in general for the human of the will to power. Another note that is concurrent with the previous one from 1885–1886 states (vol. XIV, no. 295, p. 414): We homeless ones from the beginning—we have no choice, we have to be conquerors and discoverers: so that we perhaps may bequeath to our descendants what we ourselves lack—that we bequeath a home to them. Let us pay good and long attention to this: The new home is a home bequeathed by the conquerors and discoverers; a home 34 The Creation of the New Home [125–126] that the will of the “homeless ones from the beginning,” and only this will, wants to create in order to entrust [anheimzugeben ] the future of humanity with what has been created. In this sense of the new homeless conquerors of the home, Nietzsche says: In this age (where one conceives that science is beginning) constructing systems—is child’s play. Rather: to grasp the lengthy decisions concerning methods, for centuries!—since the guidance of the human future must at least once be grasped! —But Methods that arrive out of our instincts by themselves, thus regulated habits, which already exist; e.g., exclusion of goals. (1884, vol. XIV, no. 292, p. 413) But how, we now ask, if this homelessness itself characterizes the essence of the new home? How [would it do this] if the thinking of the thinker experiences the godlessness and worldlessness to their very core from out of the fundamental attunement of this homelessness; how, if this thinking within the “thought of thoughts” would have to think only this one thing: the grounding of homelessness as the absolute modern essence of the...