Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will To Power. Edited by Walter K.

Kristen

The Will to Power is a great book. Although it is philosophy; the book isn't written with the consideration of logic. He spares no race, religion of creed, and I felt myself arguing against him as I read. At the same time, he embraces them; offering counterpoints and several different viewpoints. In the end it gave me a new perspective of the era. It's worth a read.

americandream

The age of consumerism must surely rank as the epoch of supreme servitude!
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Hagakure_Leofman

Schadenfreude · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jan 16, 2008 Posts: 606

Nietsche isn't really useful or enlightening nowadays except as part of an historical survey of philosophy. He was most relevantly made obsolete by Freude and Freude's treatises on ego.

...And now Freude is more or less well out-of-date also.

Nietsche was working before modern psychology, before the discoveries of modern genetics and just immediately after Darwin, before the full impact of Darwinism took hold. So he didn't have the full benefit of those sciences. He seems to describe the will to power as some fundamental essence of Life. Wrong. It's just evolution. What works best survives to reproduce. The structure of the brain is what is passed along.

Probably the science of human power relationships will continue to be probed as the human brain slowly gives up its secrets. People will probably learn that the social part of their brains are 1.26% genetically different in than those in a pack of wolves. After all, like wolves, we're mammals - even the Pope, that annoyingly ever-present uber-mensche and alpha.

Most accounts of Nietsche describe him him as an isolated, disheveled nut scribbling away in the attic. Poor thing.
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satjeet · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 15, 2004 Posts: 129

I'm a great fan of Spinoza whom Nietzche surely had read. Spinoza is a monist - we are all modes in one substance, i.e. Deus siva Natura.

But the individual modes - e.g. a man - has "conatus". All individual modes have a "conatus". An ant has a very ant like conatus. A rock a very rock like conatus.

But conatus - or drive - can be describe in Nietachean terms as a will to power.

Makes sense to me.