Dancing Above the Marketplace — Thus Spoke Zarathustra

At the feast Zarathustra gives a long speech to the higher men. He says he once foolishly went to the marketplace and learned that crowds do not believe in higher men. They blink and say everyone is equal. Now that God is dead, he says, they must leave the market and seek something greater than comfort.

His question is not how man can be kept safe, but how man can be surpassed. He warns against petty virtues, submission, and the happiness of the greatest number. Higher men must despair rather than bow. They must be honest, create their own values, and stop riding on other people's backs. Failure is common among them, but man's future still struggles inside them.

He ends by crowning himself with laughter and calling himself a dancer. Learn to laugh beyond yourselves, he says. Lift your hearts and your legs. Even heavy animals try to dance, but the best dancing is light, wild, and free. The higher men must learn to laugh. He mocks those who curse laughter and tells higher men to dance beyond themselves. He says creators must mother new values even when the work is unclean and hard. He crowns himself with laughter and tells them to lift hearts, legs, and good laughter too.