A short essay on Will

[Pinnacle_of_Reason]

Will

Will is the cause of rational human action. The causes of our actions are our psychology. The rational being who may forsake the will to power and the will to live. The rational being, as long as he is rational can not forsake the will to certainty and the will to uniformity. If the man trying to stay alive has the will to live, the man committing suicide has the will to die. If the man at the top has the will to power, then the man at the bottom has the will to mediocrity. But rational man is exemplified by taking on arguments. Anyone who argues has the will to certainty and the will to uniformity.

The purpose of an argument is to crush the opposition and thus converting the opposition to the speaker’s side by making the opposition feel certain of the speaker thus believing in him. The rational want certainty and friends. To have power is to have the world in uniform to the will of the powerful.

The strength of will is measured by persistence, resilience, the qualities of a hero. Weak willed individual are cowards who is constantly afraid of trouble. A no willed individual is someone who does not care. Human beings are remarkably similar, the one at the bottom is in physical terms indistinguishable from the one at the top. The cause of the one at the bottom is not so much a lack of expertise but the will to get expertise. The one at the bottom can not express his will. He may lack a will to express. The one at the top have no physical advantage, but a domineering will.

A man is said to have a will if he can overcome what comes naturally with what he wants. A man with a will when confronted with outside difficulties will preserver. A man feeling aroused when he knows he ought to restrain himself and successfully does so is said to have strong will. The saints are seen as powerful because of the denial of the physical desires. They have the will to overcome their physical desires when most of us would have easily succumbed to them. When one is feeling hungry and gives the food to a hungry kid, one has by the will overcome the power of hunger which had compelled the man to eat the food.

A man with a will is not always in denial of the natural desires, but that he by the power of his will can deny them. In this sense, the man with a will has greater control over his life than the man with lesser will, which implies the man with greater will has greater free will, for his will can be free from desires.

An example would be the Prime Minister making a T.V address and suddenly has an overwhelming desire to scratch the nose, which is highly inappropriate given the situation. And of course, the Prime Minster by the power of his will command his arms to stay still and not scratch his nose. Another common example would be someone feeling tired but have an assignment due tomorrow and he is almost through. He is now watching T.V. There are two distractions, the T.V and tiredness. The man wants to do his assignment, and with strong will, he can overcome the distractions. While a weaker willed man would have fallen before the distractions and never get ahead in life, because he makes too many stops along the way.

To be said to have a will, one must know what one want and the will power to get what one wants. Thus, if one wants to become a saint, one must have the will power to deny the body. If one wants to become a dictator, one must overcome conditioned psychology. If one has balloon phobia and one has to pop open the balloon to get what one wants. One need great will power to pop the balloon.

The worst that can happen to someone is to not want. The saint does not, not want, the body, but the saint wants to deny the body for the love of God. The one with no want, meaning no will is a passive observer being pushed and used like machines with a human appearance. These people will be always at the bottom of the social ladder for they have no will to move up, let alone the will power to battle those at the top. To not be a commoner, one must have a will and a mandatory will power to carry out the will.

Having talked about will and will power, one must understand human society. More importantly human beings. No one knows the ‘thing in itself’ let alone ‘the man in himself’. Human beings are the most indecipherable of all, there is always an element of the unknown. Therefore, unless one knows the masses or have become a superman meaning having acquired flying abilities one is a man with a will and a degree of will power. The will ought not to turn against the masses unless one is certain to overcome the masses before which the masses have the power and one can only exercise will power over them and to influence, which is different from to control.

[detrop]

PoR:

Are you saying that the WTP is strictly a language based manifestation of some game of rhetoric? You seem as if you use argument and persistence as evidence for a WTP, when I think that a “body-politic” happens even without language and argument.

Remember that the WTP cannot be an ethical evaluation if it is defined only as persistence and strength. Unless there are standards of right and wrong, there can be no mistaken WTP, and where one would be wrong, they will be wrong, and the idea will dissolve into nothingness.

Thw WTP must be the total ethical expression of the universe or not an individual expression at all. In this sense it cannot be metaphysical, or something abstracted, it must be immanent and bio-physically and bodily present.

I’m inclined to understand Nietzsche’s WTP, or what I have read of it so far, to be in reality a sort of bio-physics rather than a true metaphysics. I don’t see it as a moral argument at all, or, as an all encompassing moral rule that all are subject to, and therefore objective, a body-politic of forces and physics.

All or none, mate.

“All for one and one for all!”

[Pinnacle_of_Reason]

Hi de’trop

have you read my other response at

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … c&start=25

as for your response in this thread, I don’t know how to react because I do not register your jargons.

Nietzsche said power is good. his morality is basically a reversal of christian morality.

as I understand it, will to power means, that we are consciously wanting to exert our power and to dominate over others. will to power means we all want power. I see it as a psychological manefestation caused by years of unhealthy inferiority complex, as in the case of Nietzsche.

There is nothing ethically about will to power. I don’t believe in it. but I do believe in will power. will to power is about us having power to dominate others, will power on the other hand is about us dominating over ourselves. the saints do not have will to power, because they do not dominate over others, but they have will power in their denial of the body.

A man with will power has resilience, persistence, extremist, basically a man who can (or at least willing to) overcome all obstacles against his will.

[Lollipop_King]

I see the difference this way:

There is the power attained by the unity of cells and drives one calls self and then there’s the power attained by the unity of cells one calls a nation, culture, gang, tribe, society and so on.

The first feels that he has enough strength and talent to achieve whatever power he/she can on his/her own.
The second feel weak and sense their blandness and so attempt to achieve power through groups by becoming submissive and disciplined to group authorities, moralities and goals.

Nietzsche exemplified the mind that felt he was enough for the world, despite his flaws and imperfections - perhaps by being a product of isolation due to distinction or by being a result of a psychological inability to allow self to be fully integrated, due to pride or self-sufficiency or self-love or due to an excess of personality and character, or by having little ability to connect with others, due to poor social skills and a particular demeanour.

The Christian - as a general character with common traits created by a memetic structure - is exemplified by a mind that feels inadequate and not enough - perhaps by being the product of a terrifying chaotic universe or of an overprotective environment that soon faces the realities of an indifferent world and its own insignificance within it, or by being unable to perceive or analyze reality beyond a certain point or being unable to accept what it perceives reality to be, showing cowardice in the face of awareness, and so settling upon acceptable, taught “truths” that offer it flattering explanations, relief from life’s meaninglessness and solace in a world that frightens it, feigned importance within a unity and also offers it life goals and a psychological structure which tells it how to act, towards which direction to go and what to value, as a relief from liberty and self-reliance.

By the way: Nietzsche’s “morality” is not the “reversal” of the Christian one, as I understand it.
His opposition to Christianity was as it represented herd morality in general in his immediate environment, making it more intimate to him.
Christianity represented a mental disease, as opposed to ease, that threatened to eradicate the concept of self as a viable entity, making it but a piece of another Self representation.

Will to power is as much a will over ones own power, in relation to the world, as it is a power over those that lack this power. Whether one “dominates” others or is indifferent to this domination of others, even if he is capable of it, is only relevant as it serves ones personal empowerment and freedom within a given environment.
Since in our modern world the other cannot be completely ignored nor totally avoided, forcing a relationship with no possibility for escape, the possibility of self-realization and empowerment flows through the relationship of self to other(s).

All have a sense of their own feebleness in relation to a universe they are ignorant of and helpless in.
How one copes with this sense of weakness, and to what degree one does so, is what differentiates us from one another.

But if Nietzsche suffered from an “unhealthy” inferiority complex - as opposed to the healthy Christian variety, I presume, of humility and “selflessness” - then what do Christians suffer from that have placed omnipotence beyond time/space, so as to escape the requirement for rational argument and thusly alleviating the necessity for explanations and logical proofs, have placed themselves as God’s direct descendants, the center of His thoughts, so as to feel special and cared for and safe in a universe they fear and secretly loath, have subjugated their behaviour and thinking to a constraining set of ethical rules, so as to do away with the anxiety of self-reliance, repsonsibility and personal effort, have ceased questioning reality beyond a certain point which threatens their psychological stability, so as to prevent themselves from being diverted from their real goal of being completely integrated within a unity where they feel that instinctive sense of belonging and safety?

I will not deny that Nietzsche, just like any living creature, must have suffered from life’s uncertainties and from the demands of his instinctual drives, but the courage he showed in describing himself and the world around him as he perceived it and not as he wished it to be, was admirable.
If nothing else, he was aware of his Human all too Human prejudices.

I wonder how much of your own inferiority complex, Pinnacle of Reason smirk, you are aware of when you can only find power through group dynamics and moral self-righteousness.

I wonder how much of your own feebleness you are aware of every time you pray to an invisible unknown something and dream of a life after death, where the reality of this world’s “wrongs” will be made better and be given divine purpose.

I wonder how much of your own subjugation you are aware of every time you are comforted by supporting companions and fellow worshipers of hope or feel the comforting touch of belonging to a group.

I wonder how much of your own fears and anxieties you are aware of, lurking there behind your humility, selfless, loving compassionate persona, while the beast within is denied and/or ignored.

I wonder how civilized you are, how domesticated and castrated, made safe for a world wanting to make you part of its own self-realization and a tool for its own motives.

I wonder if you are even troubled by the phenomenon of having altruistic, pretentiously compassionate dogmas springing up, conveniently, within overpopulated environments and why such beliefs flourish mostly during periods of poverty and suffering while dwindling during times of affluence and comfort.

Do you even perceive the connection and the necessity it results in?

Do you even perceive how the Ten Commandments, just like all religious law, is guided by an economic element meant to create passive, non-aggressive, disciplined members who will enhance group cohesion rather than challenge it with their nature?

I wonder how much of your own disadvantage you are aware of, by being a member of a faith that was meant to bring cohesive power to the individually weak, by placing sin where the roots of their inadequacies lie and placing virtue where their wanton hearts find the consoling embrace of a shared fate.
Are you even aware of how the popularity of your faith is mostly a consequence of how it makes the feeble feel strong, the underprivileged feel extraordinary, the impoverished feel wealthy, the stupid feel enlightened, and the helpless feel hopeful?
Are you even aware of how your faith can be directly linked to the natural human psychological desire to avenge itself against its oppressor, whether this might be nature or the more advantaged other?

I wonder as I wander.