The tarantulas are the Socialists and Democrats. This discourse offers
us an analysis of their mental attitude. Nietzsche refuses to be
confounded with those resentful and revengeful ones who condemn society
FROM BELOW, and whose criticism is only suppressed envy. “There are
those who preach my doctrine of life,” he says of the Nietzschean
Socialists, “and are at the same time preachers of equality and
tarantulas” (see Notes on Chapter XL. and Chapter LI.).