Walking the Tightrope

Julian Young’s analysis of Thus Spoke Zarathustra provides several useful insights on what Nietzsche intended with his metaphorical work. Much of the book’s teaching is based on Nietzsche’s prior thinking about being a free spirit within common society. The town in which the tightrope walker has his encounter with the jester, for example, is called The Motley Cow. “The Motley Cow ('motley' is the word Plato's Republic uses to describe and condemn the democratic state) is just Western modernity. 'Motley' signifies the semi-'barbarism' we have repeatedly seen ascribed to modernity by Nietzsche's cultural criticism. 'Cow', obviously, signifies that the town is inhabited by 'the herd'. That modernity is herd-like might seem inconsistent with motleyness, but I think that what Nietzsche has in mind is the capacity of politicians and the press to whip up mass hysteria...” ( page 368 ) “...the failure to produce creative free spiri