WITH thunder
and heavenly fireworks
must one speak
to lethargic and drowsy senses.

But beauty’s voice
speaks gently:
it appeals only
to the most awakened souls.

My buckler gently vibrated
and laughed to me to-day;
it was beauty’s holy laughing and thrilling.

At you, you virtuous ones,
laughed my beauty to-day.
And thus came its voice to me:

“They want – to be paid besides!”

You want to be paid besides,
you virtuous ones!
   you want reward for virtue,
      and heaven for earth,
         and eternity for your to-day?

And now you scold me
for teaching that there is no reward-giver,
nor paymaster?
And truly, I do not even teach
that virtue is its own reward.

Ah! this is my sorrow:
into the basis of things
have reward and punishment been insinuated
— and now even into the basis of your souls,
you virtuous ones!

Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Thomas Common, The Virtuous, Part 2 No. 27

“Pay up sucker,” is a crass expression, an attempt to extract payment when as a matter of fact, nothing of value has been received!

Human beings are a species of mammal whose manner of life, the very earliest response to the external environment is a focus upon getting it right, right vs wrong behavior. We humans are scarcely programmed by instinct. Perhaps a reactive response to feed at the touch of a mother’s breast is among the earliest and strongest of our instincts. I am not sure there is anything more. In any case, a great deal remains for us to learn, a trial and error process of deciding what works, what fails, and the divide between “good” and “evil.”

By the onset of adulthood, each of us tends to regard him/herself as an expert on virtue, or at least we feel that we are. Nietzsche/Zarathustra speaks candidly to his followers, about their expertise to understand virtue, the distinction between goodness and its obverse, evil.

He notices their half awake, dulled awareness to ask if they are waiting for “heavenly fireworks” the voice of a divinity to dispense instruction about right and wrong. To the contrary, such insight comes gently and quietly only to the awakened soul. Nietzsche/Zarathustra imagines he holds a magic shield (buckler) that vibrates against his body as if beauty were laughing… Such is the manner of learning right from wrong, a mode of quiet reflection.

So, to everyone who fancies him/herself expert at understanding virtue, is hurled a fundamental complaint: the notions of virtuous behavior is entangled with a transactional expectation of reward and penalty. “What, you really expect a reward for doing the right thing!?” Or, that you deserve punishment for your failure? Making this diagnosis even more dire: reward and punishment are now inscribed into the basis of your souls. Full disclosure, I paraphrased Nietzsche’s assertion, to capture the force of his observation.

Reward or punishment, expectations of payment, is declared vulgar, out of place by Nietzsche. Not only is there no paymaster, but – is virtue its own reward?

It isn’t.

More tomorrow.