Dimitri’s Reviews > Ainsi pensait Zarathoustra > Status Update

Ann Van Sevenant sharply contrasts Zoroaster's plea for balance with our postmodernism since ca. 1968 [ A generational opinion I cannot relate to ] ; she's right, tough: he can be relevant as precedent to our modern concept of Ecology & as antidote against ravenous globalism.

Zoroaster contrasts the concepts of "Generation & Regenaration". Generation is a form of passivity, both as in Edmund Burke's "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" as in small, everyday acts of spite or neglect that contribute to a badder world. Regeneration is an active, positive attitude. It ensures the compatibiity of the old & the new to keep the world in progress.

Ecological awareness linked against spiritual poverty? Do I sense echoes of Spengler's Untergang des Abendlandes ? "les 2500 ans du processus de civilisation ont institué en Occident une mentalité d'appropriation, d'exploitation de la planète et des richesses naturelles y compris des facultés intéllectuelles de l'homme."

Like all texts, the Getha's are re-interpreted with each translator and by each reader; notably by Protestant orientalists, who project their anti-Catholicism. This suited Nietzsche, whose belief in supranationalism for Europe didn't stop him from seeing Asian cultures as complimentary to his own (!). The connection between both beliefs is not clear to me.

Teacher to Greek philosophers, medieval sourcerer, Renaissance white magician... Zoroaster's reputation wore many hats. Perhaps disentangling his Gheta's from the corpus of the Indian Avesta (translated into German in the 1770s) would clarify matters.

The salaving intro already echoes Buddhism via a non-antropocentric creation, hints at Goethes Divan, announces Plato & St. Augustinus, uses "man is dead" as an intellectual predecessor to "workers unite" and shows respect for individual spirituality as "to each his Zoroaster".