Esteemed Fire Philosophers, You’ve now received all the versions of Dale’s Nietzsche vs. Nagarjuna tale and we promise to not overwhelm you with more. Instead, here’s one more trick (or treat) in which we discuss Dale’s approach to writing this, his first work of fiction. In the conversation, I (Krzysztof) mention the origins of Nietzsche’s choice to use Zoroaster, the ancient Persian prophet as the model for his Zarathustra. According to Nietzsche, from Ecce Homo “Why I am a Destiny” section 3: “Zarathustra was the first to see in the fight between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things: the transposition of morality into metaphysics as force, cause, end in itself, is his work. But the very question itself of the value of existence had to be reached by a morality of denial; that is to say, the instinct of decadence had to be developed to the point of becoming the will to nothingness (the notion of ‘truth’ as a denial of everything false, as a negative judgment regarding the real). Zarathustra created this most fateful of errors, morality: consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it.” Below are two choice quotations from our conversation above: Dale Wright: It's clear to me, and not always to my readers, that I'm not just a Buddhist scholar or a Zen scholar. Because, probably, half or even more than half of my learning and reading has been in Western philosophy, and Buddhism and Asian traditions like Taoism and others are the other side. And these are always in juxtaposition, and each one is showing me something about the other. So when I have Nagarjuna be able to see things in Nietzsche's Zarathustra that he might not be able to see, that Nietzsche himself might not be able to see, and push him a little bit and give a little bit of a criticism. The same goes the other way. It's easy for me to see, as an avid reader of Nietzsche all these years, Nietzsche and other Western thinkers have certain perspectives on Buddhism that Buddhists don't have and can add to and extend. And so it's been my position all along that cross cultural thinking is the most lucrative place to position oneself in the world today. I mean, just think about it. For the first time in world history now, starting only at half a century ago, 50 years ago, we have access to traditions of the entire world. Nobody before us did. Nietzsche didn't. They had the faintest glimmer of what Buddhism might be about. Now we have access to really well translated texts from everywhere. And so why should we confine ourselves to some tradition we just happen to be born into? Dale: Nietzsche's other critique, and which is a good critique of Buddhism, is that historical consciousness needs to be added to the repertoire. That Buddhists are great about impermanence, everything's changing, everything depends on other things. I mean, that's what history means. But the historical turn that happened in Western philosophy is only now happening in Buddhism and under the influence of Western thought, even though they have the tools. And so Nietzsche says, well, you know, there are times when x is what you need and there are times when y is what you need. And if you're always doing x and y in balance, you're missing the time. So timing is essential, historical timing. As we continue to deepen into our explorations of How to Live, and our community of Fire Philosophers continues to expand and settle in, please consider sending us feedback on previous offerings and questions/ideas/real-world-conundrums you’d like us to wrestle with in upcoming conversations and explorations. 🙏 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit firephilosophy.substack.com/subscribe
