The Virtue Of Foolishness Analysis

Across culture and history, the governing body of a nation has occupied a position of dominance over the individual. However, the status quo of the nature and purpose of government is constantly evolving due to intellectual breakthroughs. Such intellectual breakthroughs are often pioneered by ingenious thinkers, namely philosophers. Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand are both radical philosophers whose visions run the risk of dismantling the normalcy of society, particularly components of the government. Nietzsche’s philosophical work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Rand’s text, The Virtue of Selfishness contain viable answers to the following question: what is the nature and purpose of government? Although Nietzsche and Rand’s stance of the nature and purpose of the government hold similarities, they present unreconcilable distinctions that, in turn, …show more content…
He asserts that the current state is a layer of Zarathustra’s great dragon metaphor, which is an overarching dimension of the three metamorphoses. The notion of the great dragon represents the human creation of societal precedents such as rules, laws, values, and institutions that have been around long enough to procure the “thou shalt” status. “Thou shalt” represents the continuous existence of a long established situation because tradition eventually becomes accepted as truth through ubiquity. The existence of the state has been around long enough to create a mysterious truth under the notion that it is the way it “always” has been and has to be. Through the “thou shalt” status the government seduce useless people (those who can only perform a minimal number of tasks) through politicised promises, achieved by diluting complex concepts to secure the majority’s concession. Doing so suffocates the individual by unifying a society to support the state’s “ hundred appetites.” Such