The Will to Power as Individual within Society

Nietzsche takes it to be a fundamental error to place the goal of society in the masses, and not in the individual, as democracy and socialism do. Rather, in Nietzsche's opinion, the masses are the means to an end. He also considers it a mistake to treat sympathy as the most valuable trait in human beings, because, as he clearly states in section seven of The Antichrist, pity asks for the multiplication of suffering (I take Nietzsche to be using pity and sympathy interchangeably enough). Pity makes us weak as individuals, sapping us of our ability to exert our will to power in the natural, instinctive (violent) ways that we normally would. It helps foster the herd, by guilting us into helping to preserve those who would otherwise perish of their weakness and life-denying attitudes. The most redeeming quality of humans is, of course, their instinctive will to power. In §768, Nietzsche writes about this nature of humans in the form of its "ego":

The "ego" subdues and kills: it operates like an organic cell: it is a robber and it is violent. It wants to regenerate itself--pregnancy. It wants to give birth to its god and see all mankind at his feet.

As he says in §769, however, simply using violent force to bring another under one's power, though it is the most natural and instinctive method, is not always the most successful. Bringing other individuals under one's power (subjugating them) is not the same thing as simply causing them physical harm. It takes much more than that:

Every living thing reaches out as far from itself with its force as it can, and overwhelms what is weaker: thus it takes pleasure in itself. The increasing "humanizing" of this tendency consists in this, that there is an ever subtler sense of how hard it is really to incorporate another: while a crude injury done him certainly demonstrates our power over him, it at the same time estranges his will from us even more--and thus makes him less easy to subjugate.

As we have discussed, the Judeo-Christian-type moral imperatives of the herd in democratic and socialist societies prevent the individual from acting upon one's will to power in the normal, instinctive ways. The individual also has this "subtler sense" that physical violence alone will most likely make others resentful and indignant toward us, and may actually drive them farther away from being truly under our power. This keeping of the individual's more violent instincts in check through the state and the "subtler sense" described above does not, however, keep one's will to power in check as a whole. Rather, the ego learns to find other ways to exert its will to power than through the violent or forceful domination of others. No matter what type of situation individuals find themselves in, their will to power comes through in some way or another. Nietzsche calls these different ways the disguised forms of the will to power, meaning that they appear to stem from something else, such as altruism or sympathy, when they really originate in one's instinct to bring someone under one's own power. The first of these disguised forms of the will to power is a desire for freedom, independence, and peace. What this is at bottom, according to Nietzsche, is simply the will toward self-preservation and existence in general. One wants peace and independence so that one is not at risk from the possibly violent actions of others. Also, one does not want to become enslaved or subjugated by others. The second disguised form is that which Nietzsche calls enrollment. This form involves submission to those in power in order acquire a certain aspect of control over them. To achieve this control, one makes oneself indispensable to one's superiors in order to obligate them into gratitude. One simply does what his superior asks and does it to the best of his ability, so much that his superior begins to see him as vital and irreplaceable. This is the kind of power that one feels over one's employer when one is highly skilled and experienced at a certain job position that few others are willing or capable to perform at all, to say nothing of performing as proficiently. Love is also a form of enrollment, according to Nietzsche, in that it is also a way in which one gains control over the other person, while at the same time appearing to be submissive. The way in which Nietzsche talks about love is also one of the many examples of his poor attitude toward women. We are already aware that Nietzsche sees sympathy and pity as weaknesses, but he also lumps love in with this assessment as well. He looks upon women as the epitome of these "weaknesses," and often refers to love and sympathy as "effeminate" virtues. Nietzsche attributes to women exclusively, it seems, this use of love as a cunning way to gain control of others. In §777, he expresses this idea that women have used love as a means to get control of their men:

Love.--Look into it; women's love and sympathy--is there anything more egoistic?--And if they sacrifice themselves, their honor, their reputation, to whom do they sacrifice themselves? To the man? Or is it not rather to an unbridled urge?-- These desires are just as selfish even if they please others and implant gratitude--To what extent this sort of hyperfetation of one valuation can sanctify everything else!!

Nietzsche seems to display the attitude that women can find no other way to exert their will to power but by throwing themselves at men. It is strange that he does not attribute love to people in general; rather just women. Based on his conception of love as a way of attaining dominance over another, one might conclude that, in Nietzsche's opinion, men do not love in this way, since they are dominant over women to begin with. Aside from these concerns, however, we could say that Nietzsche's conception of love can be attributed to both men and women, seeing as Nietzsche's attribution of it to women exclusively is merely the result of a bias of the time in which he is writing. Anyhow, a third disguised form of the will to power is that of a sense of duty and conscience in which one feels a type of superiority over those who are really in power. Here one, or rather a group, creates and abides by a new set of values to which they hold even those who are in power accountable. This sort of thing is exactly what Nietzsche claims the Jews did during the occupation of Palestine by Rome. Being the oppressed, they inverted the noble values to make a virtue out of their own condition and an evil out of the standing of their oppressors. In this way, even though they appeared to be subjugated, they got control of the Romans through shaming and guilting them. To understand this idea better, it would be necessary to read Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals, specifically the second essay, in which he describes his theory of how the Jews accomplished this revaluation of the "noble" values. This particular disguised form of the will to power can also be interpreted as a way of mastering oneself, in that one forces oneself to adopt a new system of values and dutifully abide by them as well. In this way, one inflicts one's will to power not only on others, but also on oneself, having a mastery over one's instincts and passions. Yet another disguised form lies in the act of praising others. When a person praises another, he/she appears to be conceding the superiority of the other in the area of whatever has been accomplished by that person. However, as Nietzsche argues in §775, what the person is doing by praising is actually affirming his/her own power in having the aptitude and qualification to assess what the other has done:

What, then is praise? A sort of restoration of balance in respect of benefits received, a giving in return, a demonstration of our power--for those who praise, affirm, judge, evaluate, pass sentence: they claim the right of being able to affirm, of being able to dispense honors. A heightened feeling of happiness and life is also a heightened feeling of power: it is from this that man praises (--from this that he invents and seeks a doer, a "subject"--). Gratitude as virtuous revenge: most strenuously demanded and practiced where equality and pride must both be upheld, where revenge is practiced best.

Therefore, praise seems to be a way of getting back at someone for doing something that makes one feel as though one has been put under another's power by being obligated into gratitude. In effect, it restores one's sense of lost power at the hands of another. To sum up, the aforementioned actions are not what they appear to be on the surface, but rather they are the will to power in disguised form. Individuals are fundamentally egoistic in their pursuits, whether those pursuits look as though they are in the interests of others or not. Altruism is not possible, according to Nietzsche, and therefore neither is morality. For to even have a theory of ethics at all, one must presuppose that a psychological egoism is not essential to human nature. As Nietzsche puts it, the idea of there being selfless actions is a psychological error, out of which the concepts "moral" and "immoral" have arisen. He attributes this error, of course, to the Judeo-Christian priestly type, who professed the sinfulness of man and the accompanying instinctual drives that govern his actions. Since man's actions and drives are egoistic by nature, as Nietzsche believes, the priestly types were compelled to prescribe actions that were selfless and unegoistic, if one wanted to act in a way that would be free from sin. Thus it became moral to act in ways that are outside of one's own interests, and immoral to act self-interestedly. In other words, a profound value had been placed on actions that are absolutely impossible for a human being to perform, vis-à-vis, altruistic actions. Nietzsche, in these passages, is trying to wake us up to the fact that these so-called "selfless" actions have always proceeded from egoistic motives; that is, from the will to power.

I think world peace surely must come and hopefully with it some sort of rational family planning, birth control, stratification or eugenics etc. It is world peace as an effect of economic imperatives at this level.

Once upon a time population control could come with large scale war, but the nuclear deterrent militates against it as far as many populated countries go. Many populated countries are simply untouchable now.

Almost as if according to some natural law, in every century there seems to emerge a country with the power, the will, and the intellectual and moral impetus to shape the entire international system in accordance with its own values

Nothing annoyed Roosevelt as much as high-sounding principles backed by neither the power nor the will to implement them. He wrote to a friend: "If I must choose between a policy of blood and iron and one of milk and water ... why I am for the policy of blood and iron. It is better not only for the nation but in the long run for the world."

... Wilson told the Peace Conference on February 14, 1919:


The preservation of peace would no longer spring from the traditional calculus of power but from worldwide consensus backed up by a policing mechanism.

In Roosevelt's estimation, only mystics, dreamers, and intellectuals held the view that peace was man's natural condition and that it could be maintained by disinterested consensus.

Traditional American idealism must combine with a thoughtful assessment of contemporary realities to bring about a usable definition of American interests. In the past, American foreign policy efforts were inspired by utopian visions of some terminal point after which the underlying harmony of the world would simply reassert itself.

Wasn't sure if this belonged in politics or philosophy. here goes nothing

World peace: a nice thought, or a possibility?

I’m sure this will receive some interesting feedback. My personal opinion, is that world peace is only a nice thought. My faith in humans is low and few. The idea that various denominations can deny their grievances with one another is either totally or nearly impossible. In my experience, humans tend toward focus on the self rather than the collective. We on these forums are evidence of that.

This brings up a new question: on this forum, what is the dedication: the individual, or the collective? The fact that it’s a forum, and not some ill founded place run by 40 year old with no life gives this place the appearance of striving toward the collective.

Perhaps I state this in arrogance to a larger picture, and perhaps the tenants of these forums are focused on a collaboration of sorts, but it seems as though for a community to exist in any way what so ever, the individual must make some denial of them self. Please correct my logic if it’s flawed, but this is the conclusion I have come to.

cheers.

Stop being a cry baby. Do you really think that since you pay taxes, they should ask if you agree with what they do with this money? How many missiles do you think they can launch of that which you contribute? A slingshot maybe?

Do you voluntary pay those taxes or do they force you to?

If they force you, you being a "tax-payer" is no argument at all, it gives you no "right" to anything, besides doing what all those unhappy tax-payers do; hang in the pub or online complaining how their tax money is wasted on whatever.

Government means "they govern you".

D.