So, are you convinced that what Nietzsche meant by “power” is equivalent to “might”? And what exactly is meant by “might”? Is that like the power attributed to God as in “almighty” or omnipotence? If so, as I said before, I do not think that is an inherent dominant energy in all humans, just some. I believe you already know that I don’t agree with Nietzsche’s notion of the will to power in that sense, though I do see a will to power as energy, as long as that energy can take different forms, one of which could be thought of as “might.”
Now I wish to shine a lantern on the picture of that thought and then hold a mirror up to it. That describes my view, which inclines to be just the opposite of yours. It’s just because I don’t relate to mechanism that I cannot think of a mechanical action as having a will. In other words, that notion would be counter-intuitive to me. At the same time I cannot say it is wrong if there is a way that everything that exists has consciousness, although I’m not sure an argument could be made that having consciousness necessarily means having will. I’m not discounting the possibility though. What do you think?
The purpose of the quote was to bring about the point that when love, having the meaning of caring for someone else more than one cares for one self, is a factor in deciding how one should act then love is THE factor. Love outweighs a personal morality. This is the meaning of what you have questioned from Nietzsche.
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Evaluating an action by its outcome is one way to draw judgment. Another way to evaluate is to judge the action based on the intention, the purpose, of the action. Judging an action by its outcome is to assume the persons action served its intended purpose.
Again, it is not necessarily the outcome that is the only point of evaluation for making a judgment about a persons actions. The intentions of that person must also be evaluated.
Think about the Nietzsche form a personal point of view. When one loves someone more than they love one self, then the person in love is willing to act without concern for their own morals. That does not mean that the moralities will always be in conflict with one another, but that morality is not a concern when acting under the influence of love.
Meanwhile the entirely immoral intent behind the term “Power” may become at once clearer if one allows the original German word to come more prominently into view, as used by the philological man in question, who, if he is not for now to be blamed for the rise of Fascism, is certainly to be blamed for the rise of Philology, the no-less-dangerous love of precise wordings. The word he insistently uses everywhere is of course “Macht”, a special Indo-European fruit that is quite identical to the English “might” (indeed the variance is almost solely a matter of colloquial pronouncation) and shares its roots with another fruitful English word - “magic”.
You request impossible things of your correspondent. How can anything be explained to you, that is, made plain and uninteresting, when you are enamoured with the significance of your own opinion, and want there to be lofty mountains and picturesque vistas to discuss and admire in the realm of your convictions, when the entire “journey” is just crossing the sidewalk, pedestrian assumption and nothing besides. Never! Such an “explainer” who would philologically call sidewalks by their proper name would fast become the most disagreeable travelmate imaginable.
You made a claim and I asked you to explain it. That’s all. Then you go on a long screedy ad hominem to say why you won’t answer it. That is so bizarre, I can’t tell you.
Really, I just wanted to know why you considered the intent behind the will to power to be “immoral.” I still do. There might be a good discussion there.
Certainly, all can see for themselves that you were innocently admiring the sights, and partaking in pleasant discussion, when all of a sudden, out of the bushes, a cretin-yettin under the initials “WL” pounced on you with rapacious intent. Even then, under extreme duress, you were not swayed in the slightest in your peaceful convictions, or even if you had been somewhat, at least like a civil person, you made every effort to appear as though you hadn’t.
Such behaviour is inexcusable. My only redemptive hope is in the supposition that what occurs out of love, occurs beyond the “ad hominem”.
I think this marks the first time I’ve understood you WL. I thought you somewhat malicious in the past; mostly because your writing was over my head…
At once I finally understand the merit in your criticisms, and also why the regulars around here get a kick out of you. I think, perhaps, my understanding may have been limited in the past by my reluctance toward modesty - because that is exactly what you seem to evoke. I could not think of a better cause on a forum like this.
Consider, if the ever-so-legitimate desire to appear good and not to appear bad is one’s tyrant in the masquerade, can there ever be love & peace enduring? We have come to recognize that such goodness is no better than the observable goodness of a good kneejerk reflex.
Can the intellectual notion of what is good and bad itself be corrupted? For example, by aggressive cinematic advertisements.
Can finally “the heart” itself be too small and weak, and therefore servile (i.e. self-serving) and impure?
The “Nietzschean” mighty, magical immorality of love: its one eye looks on cheerfully together with all the world, but the other is closed, blind to it. This second I is like the vermiform appendix; supposedly a useless physiological atavism, or so men have thought, men in whom its natural function has been lost, and who have never felt it open wide to see with vivid clarity in the darkest moral darkness.
Who will dare to live the hypothesis that the grand philosophical aspiration for you and I can also be formulated as the ability to stand naked before one another as is, without the shamefully legitimate masquerade?
