Who Decides What's Good and Bad? — Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Zarathustra traveled many lands and saw how each people names good and bad differently. What one nation honors, another mocks. No neighbor truly understands the other's moral language. Each people hangs a table of excellencies over itself. That table shows what helped it survive, rule, and hope.

Greeks prized being first and bold with truth. Persians prized skill with bow and word. Other peoples prized honoring parents or keeping dangerous fidelity. Humans did not receive these values from heaven. They assigned them to stay alive. Valuing is creating. Without valuation, existence would be hollow.

Loving creators made good and bad through love and wrath. Peoples came first; individuals came later. A thousand peoples mean a thousand goals. Humanity still lacks one goal. Zarathustra asks whether humanity itself is still missing while that single goal remains unfound. Change of values means change of creators. He who must create also destroys old tables. The herd's good conscience once came before the ego's bad conscience. Crafty ego seeking crowd advantage ruins the herd rather than founding it. Praise and blame remain a wild power. Who will master this thousand-necked animal of moral judgment? Valuation itself is the jewel inside every valued thing. Hear it, ye creating ones.