3 of 6 in Chapter XXXVI. THE LAND OF CULTURE259 of 593 in work
The Naked Skeleton
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

A scathing critique of contemporary men as being hollow and 'divers-coloured' with borrowed beliefs, lacking any substance once their cultural veils are removed.

...ty mirrors around you, which flattered your play of colours, and repeated it! Verily, ye could wear no better masks, ye present-day men, than your own faces! Who could—RECOGNISE you! Written all over with the characters of the past, and these characters also pencilled over with new characters—thus have ye concealed yourselves well from all decipherers! And though one be a trier of the reins, who still believeth that ye have reins! Out of colours ye seem to be baked, and out of glued scraps.
All times and peoples gaze divers-coloured out of your veils; all customs and beliefs speak divers-coloured out of your gestures. He who would strip you of veils and wrappers, and paints and gestures, would just have enough left to scare the crows. Verily, I myself am the scared crow that once saw you naked, and without paint; and I flew away when the skeleton ogled at me. Rather would I be a day-labourer in the nether-world, and among the shades of the bygone!—Fatter and fuller than ye, are forsooth the nether-worldlings! This, yea this, is bitterness to my bowels, that I can neither endure you naked nor clothed, ye present-day men!
All that is unhomelike in the future, and whatever maketh strayed birds shiver, is verily more homelike and familiar than your “reality.” For thus speak ye: “Real are we wholly, and without faith and superstition”: thus do ye plume yourselves—alas! even without plumes! Indeed, how would ye be ABLE to believe, ye divers-coloured ones!—ye who are pictures of all that hath ever been believed! Perambulating refutations are ye, of belief itself, and a dislocation of all thought. UNTRUSTWORTHY ON...
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Reality's Hollow Men
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

Nietzsche expresses a profound revulsion for the 'present-day men' who lack faith and substance, viewing them as mere 'perambulating refutations' of belief who are less real than the ghosts of the past.

...ters also pencilled over with new characters—thus have ye concealed yourselves well from all decipherers! And though one be a trier of the reins, who still believeth that ye have reins! Out of colours ye seem to be baked, and out of glued scraps. All times and peoples gaze divers-coloured out of your veils; all customs and beliefs speak divers-coloured out of your gestures. He who would strip you of veils and wrappers, and paints and gestures, would just have enough left to scare the crows.
Verily, I myself am the scared crow that once saw you naked, and without paint; and I flew away when the skeleton ogled at me. Rather would I be a day-labourer in the nether-world, and among the shades of the bygone!—Fatter and fuller than ye, are forsooth the nether-worldlings! This, yea this, is bitterness to my bowels, that I can neither endure you naked nor clothed, ye present-day men! All that is unhomelike in the future, and whatever maketh strayed birds shiver, is verily more homelike and familiar than your “reality.” For thus speak ye: “Real are we wholly, and without faith and superstition”: thus do ye plume yourselves—alas! even…
UNTRUSTWORTHY ONES: thus do I call you, ye real ones! All periods prate against one another in your spirits; and the dreams and pratings of all periods were even realer than your awakeness! Unfruitful are ye: THEREFORE do ye lack belief. But he who had to create, had always his presaging dreams and astral premonitions—and believed in believing!— Half-open doors are ye, at which grave-diggers wait. And this is YOUR reality: “Everything deserveth to perish.” Alas, how ye stand there before...
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The Untrustworthy Real
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

The author critiques the 'realists' of his time as unfruitful, fragmented beings who lack the capacity for belief because they lack the capacity to create. He describes them as mere 'perambulating refutations' who embody the contradictions of all past periods without having a future of their own.

...that once saw you naked, and without paint; and I flew away when the skeleton ogled at me. Rather would I be a day-labourer in the nether-world, and among the shades of the bygone!—Fatter and fuller than ye, are forsooth the nether-worldlings! This, yea this, is bitterness to my bowels, that I can neither endure you naked nor clothed, ye present-day men! All that is unhomelike in the future, and whatever maketh strayed birds shiver, is verily more homelike and familiar than your “reality.”
For thus speak ye: “Real are we wholly, and without faith and superstition”: thus do ye plume yourselves—alas! even without plumes! Indeed, how would ye be ABLE to believe, ye divers-coloured ones!—ye who are pictures of all that hath ever been believed! Perambulating refutations are ye, of belief itself, and a dislocation of all thought. UNTRUSTWORTHY ONES: thus do I call you, ye real ones! All periods prate against one another in your spirits; and the dreams and pratings of all periods were even realer than your awakeness! Unfruitful are ye: THEREFORE do ye lack belief. But he who had to create, had always his presaging dreams and astral…
And this is YOUR reality: “Everything deserveth to perish.” Alas, how ye stand there before me, ye unfruitful ones; how lean your ribs! And many of you surely have had knowledge thereof. Many a one hath said: “There hath surely a God filched something from me secretly whilst I slept? Verily, enough to make a girl for himself therefrom! “Amazing is the poverty of my ribs!” thus hath spoken many a present-day man. Yea, ye are laughable unto me, ye present-day men! And especially when ye marve...
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Exile from Present Lands
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

A confession of profound alienation from the present age and a lack of a traditional homeland. The author expresses his devotion to a future 'children's land,' seeking to make amends for the past by sailing toward an undiscovered future.

...n. Yea, ye are laughable unto me, ye present-day men! And especially when ye marvel at yourselves! And woe unto me if I could not laugh at your marvelling, and had to swallow all that is repugnant in your platters! As it is, however, I will make lighter of you, since I have to carry what is heavy; and what matter if beetles and May-bugs also alight on my load! Verily, it shall not on that account become heavier to me! And not from you, ye present-day men, shall my great weariness arise.—
Ah, whither shall I now ascend with my longing! From all mountains do I look out for fatherlands and motherlands. But a home have I found nowhere: unsettled am I in all cities, and decamping at all gates. Alien to me, and a mockery, are the present-day men, to whom of late my heart impelled me; and exiled am I from fatherlands and motherlands. Thus do I love only my CHILDREN’S LAND, the undiscovered in the remotest sea: for it do I bid my sails search and search. Unto my children will I make amends for being the child of my fathers: and unto all the future—for THIS present-day!— Thus spake Zarathustra.
XXXVII. IMMACULATE PERCEPTION. When yester-eve the moon arose, then did I fancy it about to bear a sun: so broad and teeming did it lie on the horizon. But it was a liar with its pregnancy; and sooner will I believe in the man in the moon than in the woman. To be sure, little of a man is he also, that timid night-reveller. Verily, with a bad conscience doth he stalk over the roofs. For he is covetous and jealous, the monk in the moon; covetous of the earth, and all the joys of lovers....
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Now entering Chapter XXXVII. IMMACULATE PERCEPTION
Spirit's Shame
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra

A critique of asceticism and 'pure perception,' arguing that those who claim to gaze at life without desire are merely masking their bodily shame with a lying, 'dead' will.

...ong on the star-carpets:—but I like no light-treading human feet, on which not even a spur jingleth. Every honest one’s step speaketh; the cat however, stealeth along over the ground. Lo! cat-like doth the moon come along, and dishonestly.— This parable speak I unto you sentimental dissemblers, unto you, the “pure discerners!” You do I call—covetous ones! Also ye love the earth, and the earthly: I have divined you well!—but shame is in your love, and a bad conscience—ye are like the moon!
To despise the earthly hath your spirit been persuaded, but not your bowels: these, however, are the strongest in you! And now is your spirit ashamed to be at the service of your bowels, and goeth by-ways and lying ways to escape its own shame. “That would be the highest thing for me”—so saith your lying spirit unto itself—“to gaze upon life without desire, and not like the dog, with hanging-out tongue: To be happy in gazing: with dead will, free from the grip and greed of selfishness—cold and ashy-grey all over, but with intoxicated moon-eyes!
That would be the dearest thing to me”—thus doth the seduced one seduce himself,—“to love the earth as the moon loveth it, and with the eye only to feel its beauty. And this do I call IMMACULATE perception of all things: to want nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a hundred facets.”— Oh, ye sentimental dissemblers, ye covetous ones! Ye lack innocence in your desire: and now do ye defame desiring on that account! Verily, not as creators, as procreato...
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