The Rabble Also Drink
LIFE is a well of delight;
but where the rabble also drink,
there
all fountains are poisoned.
To everything clean I am well disposed;
but I hate to see
the grinning mouths
and the thirst of the unclean.
They cast their eye down into the fountain:
and now glance up to me
their odious smile out of the fountain.
They poisoned the holy water with their lustfulness;
and when they called their filthy dreams
delight, then
they also poison
words.
Indignant becomes the flame
when they put their damp hearts
to the fire;
the spirit itself bubbles and smokes
when the rabble
approach the fire.
Schmaltzy and mushy-ripe
becomes the fruit in their hands:
unsteady, shriveled becomes
the fruit-tree top
by their gaze.
And many who have turned away from life,
have only turned away from the rabble:
he hated to share with them fountain, flame, and fruit.
And many who have gone into the wilderness
and suffered thirst with beasts of prey,
disliked only to sit at the cistern
with filthy camel drivers.
And many who have come along as a destroyer,
and as the hailstorm to all cornfields,
wanted merely to put his foot into the jaws of the rabble,
and thus stop their throat.
And it is not this mouthful which has most choked me,
to know that life itself requires enmity and death and torture-crosses:–
But I asked once, and suffocated almost with my question:
What? Is the rabble also necessary for life?
Are poisoned fountains necessary, and stinking fires,
and filthy dreams, and maggots in the bread of life?
Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, Trans. by Thomas Common, The Rabble, Part 2, No. 28
A friend shared a link with me, to this video. The speaker laments that our society is overrun by a highly contagious stupidity. The notion that my ignorance is worth just as much as your expertise. That a media megaphone, with a herd of followers has palpable throw-weight, more recognition than a life-time dedicated to medical research, or a lifetime of word-smithing as a playwright or novelist or poet. Joe Rogan comes to mind here, …
If you are inclined to view the YouTube video, The Death of Intelligence: Why Modern Society Celebrates Stupidity CLICK HERE.
Nietzsche/Zarathustra speaks to our condition. The writer makes the assumption that life itself is a shared phenomenon. Simply “to be”, just to be alive, aware, the here-and-now experience of human life is none other than a ticket to drink from a well of delight.
BUT, the rabble, the herd that stampedes into the fountain, muddies, contaminates the water with their filth. Avarice is unleashed, incompetence, servile leader loyalty poisons the water, not to mention blatant racism, and objectification of women that are just a few of the toxins.
How could a reader possibly prepare him/herself for the question that the writer finally poses! Life by definition cannot ever be a “bed of roses.” Pain and severe discipline, even cruelty is called for according to circumstance. Life itself requires enmity and death and torture-crosses.
What? Is the rabble also necessary for life?
More tomorrow!
2 thoughts on “The Rabble Also Drink”
You ask: “What? Is the rabble also necessary for life?” Is it not they who pick you cabbage from the dirt? It is with dirty hands that a mechanic repairs your car and so many other people who get their hands dirty to serve you, yet it seems as though you turn them into filthy rabble. Why?
Gary you misunderstand the position that is advanced by Nietzsche/Zarathustra. The rabble is not who you think they are. The unwashed herd are not necessarily those who have dirty hands on account of manual labor. Think about it. You’ve known me for years. I come from blue collar roots. Also, my living has always been by some form of manual labor. For many years I worked alongside employees, as a peer, a co-worker in a company that afforded us all a means for a decent living.
The ‘rabble’ in the quotation selected is a reference to anyone, eager to believe any BS, every empty promise shilled to them by a bully, unable to think with self-criticism, taking responsibility for themselves, and for their immediate circle of family and friends. Gary, my friend, that is the apex of stupidity. That’s my description of the herd following individual, hostile, who hangs upon every word of his/her ‘great leader.’
I’ve not turned anyone who does manual labor into a filthy rabble.