"Every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (—its will to power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on."

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil


Is every human action motivated by the desire to obtain power over others?

I tend to believe that this is definitely the case... but only in certain people, people whose prime motivation is power. But I think other types of people, other motivations for human behavior exist as well.

Look at sex for example. Some people straight up just love to fuck. They are in it for the physical sensation and gratification. But other people are much more interested in what comes along with the sex. The status of dating a football player. The jealous stares from other guys that come along with dating a hot ass model. They get off on the status of the person they are having sex with more so than from the mere physical sensation. I think there are a great deal of games & power struggles in these types of relationships that don't exist when people are just trying to get laid.

Money is another example. Some people want to make alot of money because of all the cool shit they will be able to buy. They want stuff. But other people are into money for the social status that tends to come along with it. They want to buy a Jaguar, not because it would be fun to drive, but because of what it means to own a Jaguar.

And I don't think power is the motivating force in relationships of unconditional love. It could be between someone and a parent, child, significant other, even a close friend. It seems to me that people who risk and lose their lives for others would seem to contradict the "will to power" claim.

So, Will to Power? Sometimes. But Will to Other Stuff as well. Thoughts?

Nietzsche's conception of power is far wider than what we conventionally think of as "power", and most people get infuriated/dismiss the idea without fully understanding it.

For Nietzsche... you endeavoring to further your education, or seeking to help a little old lady carrying her shopping across the street is also "will to power" because in doing so, you are seeking to be something more than you are.

And it isn't just human conduct he's talking about either. He believed (well, he wrote... doesn't mean he believed) that animals behave in this way too. As do plants, and any other phenomena in our universe.

You won't get a decent debate on this on a Pearl Jam forum and a single passage of his writing, but in principle, I think Nietzsche's world view (not just will to power -- though that is a big part of it) gets you as close to the truth as any philosophical texts ever have. Frankly, it's a little scary.

Reading Nietzsche is a little like taking the red pill.

Well then we have to look at what the definition of power is. Nietzsche would argue that the "jealous stares" that come from other men knowing you have hot property is still power regardless, not just other stuff. And Nietzsche means everything in existence, down to atoms. Take the sun for example...what is it doing...its giant furnace burning off energy to create entirely new particles apart from what most of the universe consists of - hydrogen and helium (correct me if I'm wrong, but thats a star's job right?). So essentially, the essence of all matter is to better itself, and human beings wanting money and land and having sex to reproduce with an acceptable mate is no different.

I haven't read any Nietzsche but I thought of that long before I researched him. But yeah, its a terribly interesting theory which the Nazis used as an excuse to murder the citizens of Europe (Nietzsche was not actually a Nazi, his sister was a sympathizer who revised his works after he died so that might be where the connection comes from). But anyway, based on the Will to Power theory, one can take it either way they want. For me, I think its entirely plausible and reasonable but he also makes it very cynical. And yes, I agree with it.

His use of the word "power" always changes. Read the above two replies. As for the sense you had it in for the first post up there, the answer is: absolutely not. Human beings are not base animals constantly looking for dominance.

So even this unconditional love would be a will to power, because, love too, "strives to become master over all space and to extend its force". In fact, unconditional love might be the perfect example of a will to power. Anyone who has ever been in love, will attest to that: love, almost without us having any control over it, always seeks to deepen and grow. Even if it is unsuccessful in doing that.

In terms of unconditional love like with parent-child relationships... that can be seen as a will to power in that the love creates a bond, or a feeling that makes us feel like there's something more than just us. In a primal sort of way, unconditional love in this sense is a way of furthering our genes.

I guess Nietzche's point is that power, as we understand it: the kind that seeks to dominate another is only one form of many kinds of power. It suggests that power in and of itself is not inherently good or bad.

My analysis above is really rudimentary, and probably all wrong: I cannot do justice to his writings on this. But I think that's kind of the gist of it. It leads to the infuriating conclusion that people like Gandhi, actually act from the same instincts as Hitler. He never actually says this, but I think that's the implication.

It's a hard sell, because we all so desperately want to believe that good and evil emanate from different sources and that one can triumph over the other. It's unthinkable that they might actually be two sides of the same coin.

Cool response bro. I basically agree with all of it. I understand that the Will to Power is sort of a "theory of everything", a basis for understanding the operation of the universe, but I guess I was trying to relate it specifically to the motivations behind human behavior. But that's cool that you opened it up to the broader picture.

So the little old lady carrying her groceries across the street... Let's say she was my grandma, and someone who lost control of a car was speeding straight for her. So I push her out of the way and get hit instead. Was I trying to become something greater? Perhaps. I could have done it to be a hero, to be revered, and to make the 6:00 news. But maybe I wasn't thinking about that or subconsciously motivated by it at all. Maybe I just did it because she's my grandma? I guess what I'm asking is does altruism exist? Particularly if I lose my life in an "altruistic" action.

The red pill. Hahaha.

Good? Evil? Aren't those just perceptions though?

Doesn't your view of the 9/11 hijackers as heros or terrorists depend largely on the culture you were born into?

What's so infuriating about that?

I think that's exactly on the money.

But no one is going to want to hear any of it.

What? Altruism is fuelled by will to power? Fuck you!!!

See? The red pill.

The way you're defining it though, I don't perceive a negative connotation associated with the will to power. Shit, if my motivation for an altruistic action is "everything"- that's the hand of God for those of certain orientations. And that's cool, right?

For those not down with the G-word that doesn't really have any meaning anyway because of the way it has been bastardized and abused throughout history, it's life, it's evolution, it's Being. Cool.

Maybe not to you, but say that to my wacko Fox News watching family in Plano, TX and they'd deck you.

People genuinely believe in "good", that is inherently "good", and "evil" that is inherently "evil". Trouble is that all of this always sounds much better in abstract than it does when looked at in specific situations.

For instance, killing someone. Evil?

Everyone agrees... until we start to talk about self-defense. Or war. So immediately we get exceptions. So maybe it's only semi-evil?

(I need to lose these movie references )

But I'm sure you get my drift. People generally believe that there is such thing as "good" in this world. Hell, I like to believe it, until I start to think about Nietzsche again. We believe that giving money to tsunami victims is an inherently good thing to do. And maybe it is. But maybe all that money we give, when promised to victims, and then eaten up by jackass admininstrators, turns out to be a really cruel act.

This is the problem with the common perception, which is linked to Kant's writings. Nietzsche believed that Kant, as brilliant as he was, spent his entire life justifying what common folk think, and therefore became an idiot himself. Some of the stuff he says about him is rotfl funny.

There's no doubt in my mind that there's no such thing as absolute good, and absolute evil. It's what we want to believe, because it is convenient, and empowering to believe it.

Quasi-evil? The margarine of evil? Perhaps even the Diet Coke of evil- just one calorie, not evil enough?



Fuck that dude. Good? Evil? Everything "is". It just is. And it is all good and beautiful.

Nietzsche, it begins and ends with him

Is anybody here a parent?



Altruism, to me, is the most pure of all emotions. Now, I don't have any children, but I do have two cats. Let's hypothesize for a second. One cat comes in while I'm sitting on the computer and starts squeaking at me - let's say I get up to see what he wants, and am led to the fridge. I take out some ham and feed him. Why? It depends - maybe it was because I knew he needed fed, or because I didn't want to have to listen to him nagging me. Doesn't matter; I didn't really think about it and he got his ham anyway. Everyone wins. That's just me and my cat. Bump that up a scale or two, to parent and child. The same situation, same thing happens. Bottom line, to me, is that people mostly do things for a reason, usually to get some headpeace.

The question I'm surprised nobody else has asked, is why ole Frederick wrote this in the first place. Did his will to power compell him to let us in on the secret?

Somebody mentioned Gandhi; yes he gained power over others in a unique way. He attempted to make the whole world feel guilty for his failure to eat and satisfy a basic need. Everyone admires those who can deprive themselves of basic needs because most people don't even concern themselves with what they need, but rather what they want. Thus, Gandhi's strategy was unique because it hit people at the very nature of what it means to be alive in the physical sense- and that is through nourishment. It was through guilt instilled into the average person that pressure was placed on government powers to alter their actions. For of course, govt. officials cannot outwardly show their own guilt but can oblige the public that supports it.

i have never read nietzsche, but this thread has implored me to.

This is a real stretch. Gandhi starved himself to try and get the Indian mob to come to their senses and stop quibbling over shit. I'm pretty sure the rest of the world had scant to do with it.

He knew it would work because he was considered the father of the nation and people knew that if he wasn't around, India might never get freedom, and might not ever become a single nation. You can call it a guilt trip if you want, but that's only like a small slice of it. Mostly he succeeded by using reason, an appeal to justice, and endorsing practical nonviolent tactics in ousting the British.

Makes "guilt trip" seem fairly petty doesn't it?

The Birth of Tragedy seems like a good fit for you. Don't ask me why... just a hunch.

But if you're interested in the morality/ethics part of his writing as in some of the stuff we were talking about above, then probably Beyond Good and Evil, followed by On The Genealogy of Morals.

Is it better in the original German? I don't know if I can hack that, only being in the third quarter of that lovely language.

Someone just had a discussion or assignment in Philosophy 101.

Dude, I'm sure it is... Nietzsche was famous for having a brilliant turn of phrase in German, but unfortunately, like you, my German is merely passable, and secondly, Mr Walter Kauffman's translations are considered pretty accurate, and where some double meaning/extended German metaphor gets lost in translation, he has extensive footnotes to explain it.

I know someone who studied German, French, Latin and Ancient Greek so that he could have a more original philosophical experience.

Do you have time for that?