“How shall we comfort ourselves,
the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?

Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent
and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out.

“I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo.

Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”

–excerpt The Gay Science (1882, 1887) by Friedrich Nietzsche, para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.]

The parable-of-madness penned by Nietzsche in the 1880s.  The story amounts to a cascade of questions.  The opening question is a desperate plea for help.  A nameless individual announces in the public square that he is searching for God.  The question impresses the man-on-the-street as a joke, the height of irony, a real knee-slapper.  (No one any longer feels faith in a divine presence.)  Boisterous laughter rings out, and witty responses.  The laughter is quickly silenced as the stranger asserts the charge of murder, — against everyone in earshot of his voice.

The dead-serious charge is followed by a drumbeat of questions:  How shall..who will..what water..what festivals..?  Those facing the “the madman” are left speechless by his shear audacity.  The shock begins to subside and the reader may ask “What-the-fuck have we done?’  “How did we do this?”  “How was I involved, etc. etc?”  The tale has the quality, the fated inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

The madman-stranger observes that the deed has not yet registered but that it will.  A star that tips into a supernova requires time before it is seen by a distant planet.  The stranger then smashes his lantern to the pavement, and the flame flickers out, — as if there’s no longer a point to carrying a lantern around.  Darkness is coming and we are all to be cold and blind.

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This is a story which I’ve read from time to time as the years have passed.  The cover of Time Magazine once featured the “God-is-dead” quotation by Nietzsche.  Today reading the parable again, the question arises, persists, “What is madness?”  Despite appearances, those who are insane are those who collectively have committed a capital crime, even if they individually had no idea they were participating in a heinous act.  The charge is as enormous as a crime-against-humanity.  Is not “the madman” despite his disheveled appearance the sole individual with sound judgment within this scene?  Madness rather is expressed by a society that recognizes no norms other than what is measurable, what is amenable to manipulation for power and profit.  We believe that we hold consequences in our hands.

My thoughts ran to the scene of the last day or so on the floor of the House of Representatives.  The hyper conservative Freedom Caucus Republicans and their ilk, their scrum for committee seats…  Kevin McCarthy, newly elected Speaker again proves to be soulless, refusing to condemn newly elected George Santos for his Lie-filled resume.  Too, the appearance of abject carelessness, given the second group of classified documents found at a location associated with President Biden…

Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down?

And-

Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Is it not commonplace for elected representatives, and Captains of industry to preen in the media as if a minor deity, exuding the aseity (to exist of and for itself) of divinity?  Becoming his/her own god…

If this causes a deeply felt uncertainty, you are not alone.  I suspect uncertainty is precisely what we need to meet the future.