Zarathustra’s Dionysian Modernism

In arguing that Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a philosophical explanation of the possibility of modernism that is, of the possibility of radical cultural change through the creation of new values the author shows that literary fiction can do the work of philosophy. Nietzsche takes up the problem of modernism by inventing Zarathustra, a self-styled cultural innovator who aspires to subvert the culture of modernity (the repressive culture of the last man) by creating new values. By showing how Zarathustra can become a creator of new values, notwithstanding the forces that hinder his will to innovate, Nietzsche answers the skeptic who proclaims that new-values creation is impossible. Zarathustra is a story of repeated clashes between Zarathustra s avant-garde, modernist intentions and figures of doubt who condemn those intentions.