will to power

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Elsewhere, IMP and I are “discussing” the idea of Nietzsche
will to power. In my long ago youth I too was a nietzschian.
Now I recognize the idea of will to power and the ubermensch are
ideas that the young seems to love. The will to power is really an
simplistic reduction of all human activity to one drive. Freud
after reading Nietzsche, also tried to reduce humans actions to one
then two drives, (sex, then death) William Reich stayed with the sex
drive for his whole life by the way. Anyway back at the ranch,
when its pointed out to the nietzschian that any specific person
clearly by actions is not driven by the will to power, the nietzschian
always, always says, oh they were too weak to to try it.
As this is my OPENING statement, I shall simply say,
the will to power is a simplistic and false rendition of the human
soul.

Kropotkin

2

i.e. you’ve leapt from your own experience to ‘this is a general rule of thumb’

That depends on how one interprets it

The strong and weak wills are often found in the same person and originate in the same causes. Re-read your Nietzsche. Don’t confuse Nietzsche’s work with Nietzscheans, who are for the most part no more intelligent than your average football fan and no more discerning about their alliance(s).

As such this is very true. But when one’s reading of an idea is false and simplistic one is a fool to attack said reading as false and simplistic…

3

My favorite psychologist Alfred Adler did a pretty good flip on the topic. He believed that the best kinds of humans seek power, but that it’s a cooperative power with humanity. He noted that indeed humans are a herd-like animal and one cannot separate themselves from that state.

He also pointed out that the people that have become immortal are those that have done something that has benefited large numbers of people, such as inventors and whatnot. There are a variety of selfish types that are still noted but it is done so for different reasons.

I tend to believe that it is the case that there are special people that get things done through will power, but as I suggested to Dunamis one time, these people are a lot more like bulls protecting the herd than wolves stalking it.

Finally, young men love Nietzsche because they are usually struggling with little support through school and the beginning of their careers. Inside they know that they are destined to become failures or at best middle-class folks and Nietzsche gives them the fantasy strength to believe that won’t happen them, so they can get over that twenties hump

4

Surely Nietzsche made pains never to reduce the human organism to ‘one drive’…the will to power has many forms…infinite perhaps…though I suppose if he was going to reduce it to one drive or froce - the will to power would have it.

I read once - not sure where - that Nietzsche was largely a ‘philosopher for youth’ - a philosophy of rebellion in ideas, at very least, embracing the manifold edges of experience and purging the creative facets of the human spirit…

There is a lot in Nietzsche that is young and untamed - surel he died at the age of 23? shit, i can’t remember.

5

One should not be too surprised if all is eventually rendered into one. The will to power is superior in its scientific encompassion to all other similar metaphysical propositions. Shopenhauer’s will to survive, Freud’s will to sex, all lack a certain fundamentality, a certain universality, a certain physicality. The Nietzschean will is simply the most convincing that we have so far, theoretically. Logistically, it is impeccable.

Besides, please note that this is a big besides, that to cum the entirety of Nietzschean philosophy up to the will to power, eternal recurrence, ubermensch, is naivete. That is no way to read any philosopher, any book, not even a way to enjoy any film. What counts in Nietzsche is absolutely every elegent line that the man ever wrote, every aphorism of his inform us an individual truth, all of them together explains, applies and proves sumamtions such as the will to power.

Young people are not experienced enough to be inspired by all that Nietzsche has wrote. The fact that they are impressed by the will to power may well be true, but that only means my point just made in the previous scentence. To capitalise Nietzsche’s popularity among youth against the man’s favour, is a classic cheap shot. Nietzsche is deep, my friend, not cheap. Those who find him easy to read, plainly do not dig him with enough depth. There are plenty of him that I can quote for you to chew over again and again for ten years without actually understanding their essence. Knowing how to spell the word ubermensch is not good enough. Writing an essay on the concept, hoping to be done with it, is no better. It takes a life time or two to absorb Nietzsche in full. That is just for reading him, try applying him into life. Whoever accomplish that particular existential task, who can say that I am the Lord reborn and people will believe him, in Nietzschean perspective, will love to believe him.

To say it once more, common philosophical reasoning has little use in analysing Nietzsche, as his philosophy is a grand refutation of it all. You are welcome to join the revolution, all you have to do is to realise that much of your inner most belief and existential following is very much approved by Nietzsche already.

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Beautifully put, Adlerian.

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Here is a thread at another forum where I attempted to initiate a discussion about the WTP. It didn’t evolve like I wanted it to, so pay more attention to the link I posted in the thread than the few posts of mine that followed.

The thread:

thinedge.org/cgi-bin/ikonboa … T;f=21;t=2

[Recently edited] I have removed the second link I posted because it isn’t working. My apologies.

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PK

WTP extends to all of existence, not just human activity.

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no doubt in the unpublished fragments N is experimenting with descriptions of this world. I tend to interpret the will to power along the ontological interpretation, that is, as will to power as the most elementary fact to which we and the stuff of the world decend. its much harder to do in the published writings.

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Thank you detrop.

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Nihilistic:

“WTP extends to all of existence, not just human activity.”

K: I have read Nietzsche and am aware of this, however
to extend an “human” ideal to all of existence is a
leap of faith into what all existence is really about.
I for one do not pretend to have enough wisdom to
state what all existence is all about.
I leave that, for those interested in metaphysics.
Yes, I know Nietzsche stance on metaphysics.
Save your breath.

Kropotkin

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PK
I for one do not pretend to have enough wisdom to
state what all existence is all about.
[/quote]

Just elucidating Nietzsche’s ideas for you.

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N’s ideas are a pathetic extension of Zhuangzi’s. Nietzsche read 'im, plagarized 'im, and then added a few extra lines of his own and viola!

I’m no Daoist, but Nietzsche is Daoism-lite with a strong misanthropist edge added.

I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing. The idea that we are all seperate from society and are able to transcend it and be a truly unique individual has universal appeal. That’s why both traditions are so enduring. Particularly amongst those who haven’t made their peace with society.

14

Peace with society is a lofty ideaology that cannot exist but exist in the imagination of many a herdish mentality. This is what basically Nietzsche tells you to overcome, that is to get out of the ethical matraix and shake clear of its sticky fluids, find yourself, in order to enteract with society in a smoothier way, of which the necessary sacrifice invloved does not have to be denied, oppressed and distorted into destructive existential obscurity. Nietzsche is not the enemy of the state, not if he addresses everyone in the name of the people. He is a light showing the way towards a happier culture. He only offends the general taste becasue his taste is simply too geat to many a small man. He is likened by rebellious people whose rebellian is a completely different story to Nietzsche’s own, only becasue of the fact that the general public gets pissed by him. Nietzsche has been politically capitalised in many historical occassions, none of which had a long lasting significance, everyone of which had been forseen by Nietzsche and dismissed and deprived of their credibility, together with their threat to the coming of the thousand year bright empire that lies beyond the miserable sea of good and evil. Once again, Nietzsche is not as disagreeable as many think.

15

The concept of the will to power emerged very early in Nietzsche’s career (traces of it can be found as early as the Dawn), and as such, virtually everything he thought would have come to him by way of this concept. In turn, the outright dismissal of the will to power is an outright dismissal of much everything he said. Certainly a bit short-sighted.

Moreover, in the sense of perspectivism, does it really matter? The OP makes the point this concept is ‘a simplistic and false rendition of the human soul’. Rendition of the human soul? What is more capable of honoring the tenents and rhetoric of perspectivism than a concept as this? The will to power is what one man understood as the driving force behind all life, saw evidence of it everywhere, and compiled a vast philosophy thereby. Nietzsche wrote himself into philosophical history by way of this concept, and in light of this and this alone, the concept has both merit and strength regradless if it holds up in any academic sense. In the end, the will to power was a mechanism for understanding the world, right or wrong, and it produced one of the great philosophies in history.

Furthermore, it shouldn’t go without saying the Nietzschean philosophy as a whole ought be understood as incomplete. There’s nothing to say, had he continued to write into his 50’s and 60’s, he would not have ultimately abandoned the idea, or at least dismissed its monistic significance: that his plans to write a late book entitled ‘The Will to Power’ were abandoned are enough to justifiy this view. The point would simply be that the will to power - as a foundational concept from which to build all else - worked in terms of its ability to produce what we know as the Nietzsche literature.

It is the will to power to thank, that is to say, for what we enjoy and admire of Nietzsche, whether we agree with him (or it) or not.

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I think I have to agree that philosophy and psychology are still in its infant stages or childlike stages. All philosophers and psychologists take their views from one of many perspectives. Yes humans are herd like, but, a bull protecting the herd uses the herd too, much as a wolf does.
Nietzsche is incomplete because he died young yet the same could be said for all dead philosophers and psychologists. Who knows perhaps Freud would have realized and error in his teachings and refuted his past work if he had not have died when he did.
Will to power may have a lot to do with culture, upbringing and core physical programming. The best way to approach it, is what works best for you on a personal level. For me,To follow any one persons teachings or thoughts is like burning a bridge or closing doors. To accept a socially accepted standard is like following those that claim the world is flat or flight is impossible. I follow which ever one best suits my needs and wishes and adjust as I go. (Thank Goodness I am a sweet and nice person. )
We will always have deviants that are grotesquely out of step and their ultimate goal is to harm or perhaps they believe they are helping.A strong will does not always lead to power. A herd has been known to turn on its bull from time to time. So social will can be stronger then the will of one. It is social will that we all start off with in one form or another. It helps to form our self will.

17

I agree very much with each of the last three posts (well done, gentlemen). Moreover, I would contend the original post offers virtually nothing to the discussion, hindering the thread’s development. Perhaps this is what someoneisatthedoor had in mind when he said: “…when one’s reading of an idea is false and simplistic one is a fool to attack said reading as false and simplistic.”

Wise indeed.

18

I hereby correct two matieral errors that were made in two of the last three posts. Nietzsche never formally planned to write a book titled as The Will To Power. Nietzsche never died young. Finally, I’d like to add that the encompassion of any book by Nietzsche matches upto that of the bible.

19

“After completeing Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche abandoned his previous plans for writing a work to be called The Will To Power.”

  • The Portable Nietzsche, p. 565.

56 (minus, of course, eleven years of non-productivity) is not young? … What’s old?

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Thank you.