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The Will to Power
Nietzsche’s notebooks, kept by him during his most productive years, offer a fascinating glimpse into the workshop and mind of a great thinker, and compare favorably with the notebooks of Gide and Kafka, Camus and Wittgenstein. The Will to Power, compiled from the notebooks, is one of the most famous books of the past hundred years, but few have studied it. Here is the first critical edition in any language.
Down through the Nazi period The Will to Power, was often mistakenly considered to be Nietzche’s crowning systematic labor; since World War II it has frequently been denigrated. In fact, it represents a stunning selection from Nietzsche’s notebooks, in a topical arrangement that enables the reader to find what Nietzsche wrote on nihilism, art, morality, religion, the theory of knowledge, and whatever else interested him. But no previous edition—even in the original German—shows which notes Nietzsche utilized subsequently in his works, and which sections are not paralleled in the finished books. Nor has any previous edition furnished a commentary or index.
Walter Kaufmann, in collaboration with R. J. Holilngdale, brings to this volume his unsurpassed skills as a Nietzsche translator and scholar. Professor Kaufmann has included an approximate date of each note. His running footnote commentary offers information needed to follow Nietzsche’s train of thought, and indicates, among other things, which notes were eventually superseded by later formulations. The comprehensive index serves to guide the reader to the extraordinary riches of this book.
Down through the Nazi period The Will to Power, was often mistakenly considered to be Nietzche’s crowning systematic labor; since World War II it has frequently been denigrated. In fact, it represents a stunning selection from Nietzsche’s notebooks, in a topical arrangement that enables the reader to find what Nietzsche wrote on nihilism, art, morality, religion, the theory of knowledge, and whatever else interested him. But no previous edition—even in the original German—shows which notes Nietzsche utilized subsequently in his works, and which sections are not paralleled in the finished books. Nor has any previous edition furnished a commentary or index.
Walter Kaufmann, in collaboration with R. J. Holilngdale, brings to this volume his unsurpassed skills as a Nietzsche translator and scholar. Professor Kaufmann has included an approximate date of each note. His running footnote commentary offers information needed to follow Nietzsche’s train of thought, and indicates, among other things, which notes were eventually superseded by later formulations. The comprehensive index serves to guide the reader to the extraordinary riches of this book.
575 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1901
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About the author
Friedrich Nietzsche
4,267 books24.6k followersFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.
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July 25, 2017
دوستانِ گرانقدر، اکثریت این اعتقاد را دارند که به یقین حکیمی که شاهکار و مشهورترین اثر جهانیِ خود را به نامِ بزرگترین شخصیتِ تاریخیِ ایران، یعنی «زرتشت»، عنوان دهی (معنون) کرده است، جالبِ توجهِ هر ایرانی میباشد... البته من این موضوع را قبول ندارم که ایرانی ها یقیناً به خاطرِ ارادتِ <نیچه> به زرتشتِ بزرگوار، نوشته های او برایشان جالبِ توجه باشد، چراکه نه تنها نیچه و ایرانی هایِ خردگرا، بلکه هر انسانِ خردمندی « زرتشت» را به عنوانِ الگویِ اخلاق و آدابِ زندگیِ انسانی انتخاب میکند، در هر صورت برایِ ما این موضوع قابلِ اهمیت است که «زرتشت» فقط و فقط راهنمایِ انسان ها به رفتار و کردارِ نیک و انسانی بوده است، و همچون اعرابِ سخیف و بیابانی و یهودیانِ خرافاتی، به دروغ ادعایِ پیغمبری و پیامبری نکرده است و انسان ها را به نام دین و جهاد در راهِ خدایِ دروغین و موهوم، تشویق و ترغیب به تجاوز و غارت و ریختنِ خون و کشتنِ یکدیگر نکرده است... او تنها یک فیلسوف و ادیب بزرگوار و دانا و خردمندی انسان دوست و آموزگاری مهربان بوده است
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عزیزانم، سخنانِ نیچه در این کتاب، حولِ محورِ «نیست گرایی» میگردد... لحظه ای تلاش دارم تا به سخنانش امیدوار بشوم، امّا با برخی جملات مرا نا امید کرده و همه چیز را خراب میکند... مثلاً خیلی خوب است که نیچه پیش بینی میکند که انسان به این باور میرسد که خدا و دین وجود ندارد و موهوماتی بیش نمیباشد، ولی در ادامه میگوید: «نیست گرایی» باعثِ تعارض و تضاد در راست و زیبا و نیک میشود و بی شک منظورش بی اخلاقی میباشد... در صورتیکه خرد انسانی میگوید: هر انسانی که پی به دروغ هایِ دین و مذهب برده و خود را از منجلابِ متعفنِ دین نجات بدهد، این نشان از خردِ و اندیشۀ درستِ آن انسان دارد
دوستانِ گرامی، اگر من به دین و مذهب معتقد نباشم و خرد را راهنمایِ خویش قرار دهم و بر عرب پرستی و جهل و نادانی خطِ بطلان بکشم. آیا بی اخلاق هستم؟! اتفاقاً تازه معنیِ انسان بودن و انسانیت را درک میکنم
نیچه میگوید از عواقبِ نیست گرایی، «وطن پرستی» میباشد،... حال در مورد این سخنِ نیچه، این سؤال پیش می آید که، مگر فدا شدن در راهِ میهن و عشق به خاکِ سرزمین بد است؟! اگر نیچه از زرتشت و اندیشه هایِ زرتشت پیروی کرده، پس باید بداند که زرتشت بارها و بارها از عشق و تعصب به سرزمین و آباد کردنِ خاکِ میهن، سخن گفته است
عزیزانم، فدا شدن خوب نیست، مگر آنکه مجبور باشید... اگر انسان قصدِ فدا شدن دارد، در درجۀ اول، اولویت با خانواده است، سپس میهن و سرزمینِ عزیزمان و در آخر تمامِ انسانها و انسانیت
نیست گرایی طبقِ تعریفِ نیچه، یعنی برترین ارزش ها، ارزشِ خویش را از دست میدهند، پس طبقِ نوشته هایش، نیچه وطن پرستی و ترکِ خرافات و موهوماتِ دینی و مذهبی را ارزش قلمداد نمیکند.. در صورتیکه هر انسانِ خردمندی میداند که رهایی از فاضلابِ دین و مذهب و رهایی از بندِ این خرافاتی که همچون انگل به جانِ انسانیت افتاده است، ارزش محسوب میشود... میهن پرستی یک ارزش بالا میباشد... زیرا اگر میهن پرست باشید و عاشق و دلسوزِ سرزمینتان باشید، دیگر همچون یک موجودِ احمق و ضعیف و بی غیرت به عضویتِ امتِ بی ارزش و گروه هایِ کثیفِ دینی، مثلِ امتِ اسلامی و گروه های فدایی در راه اسلام و محافظانِ حرم در نمی آیید
درست است که «نیچه» و فلسفهٔ او، طرفدارهایِ خودش را دارد، ولی اگر طرفدارهایِ نیچه فلسفه و کتبِ ارزشمندِ فلاسفه ای همچون «برتراند راسل» و «آرتور شوپنهاور» را با دقت مطالعه کنند، بدونِ تردید هم از فلسفه لذت میبرند و هم با اصولِ فلسفه ای که به انسان و خردِ انسان و در کل انسانیت اهمیت میدهد آشنا میشوند
در کل کتابِ بدی نبود، حتی موضوعِ «نیست گرایی» نیز بسیار خوب بود، ولی برخی از مسائلی که نیچه به سلیقۀ خویش در بازۀ «نیست گرایی» قرار داده بود به نظرم درست نبود
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امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ شناختِ این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>
*********************
عزیزانم، سخنانِ نیچه در این کتاب، حولِ محورِ «نیست گرایی» میگردد... لحظه ای تلاش دارم تا به سخنانش امیدوار بشوم، امّا با برخی جملات مرا نا امید کرده و همه چیز را خراب میکند... مثلاً خیلی خوب است که نیچه پیش بینی میکند که انسان به این باور میرسد که خدا و دین وجود ندارد و موهوماتی بیش نمیباشد، ولی در ادامه میگوید: «نیست گرایی» باعثِ تعارض و تضاد در راست و زیبا و نیک میشود و بی شک منظورش بی اخلاقی میباشد... در صورتیکه خرد انسانی میگوید: هر انسانی که پی به دروغ هایِ دین و مذهب برده و خود را از منجلابِ متعفنِ دین نجات بدهد، این نشان از خردِ و اندیشۀ درستِ آن انسان دارد
دوستانِ گرامی، اگر من به دین و مذهب معتقد نباشم و خرد را راهنمایِ خویش قرار دهم و بر عرب پرستی و جهل و نادانی خطِ بطلان بکشم. آیا بی اخلاق هستم؟! اتفاقاً تازه معنیِ انسان بودن و انسانیت را درک میکنم
نیچه میگوید از عواقبِ نیست گرایی، «وطن پرستی» میباشد،... حال در مورد این سخنِ نیچه، این سؤال پیش می آید که، مگر فدا شدن در راهِ میهن و عشق به خاکِ سرزمین بد است؟! اگر نیچه از زرتشت و اندیشه هایِ زرتشت پیروی کرده، پس باید بداند که زرتشت بارها و بارها از عشق و تعصب به سرزمین و آباد کردنِ خاکِ میهن، سخن گفته است
عزیزانم، فدا شدن خوب نیست، مگر آنکه مجبور باشید... اگر انسان قصدِ فدا شدن دارد، در درجۀ اول، اولویت با خانواده است، سپس میهن و سرزمینِ عزیزمان و در آخر تمامِ انسانها و انسانیت
نیست گرایی طبقِ تعریفِ نیچه، یعنی برترین ارزش ها، ارزشِ خویش را از دست میدهند، پس طبقِ نوشته هایش، نیچه وطن پرستی و ترکِ خرافات و موهوماتِ دینی و مذهبی را ارزش قلمداد نمیکند.. در صورتیکه هر انسانِ خردمندی میداند که رهایی از فاضلابِ دین و مذهب و رهایی از بندِ این خرافاتی که همچون انگل به جانِ انسانیت افتاده است، ارزش محسوب میشود... میهن پرستی یک ارزش بالا میباشد... زیرا اگر میهن پرست باشید و عاشق و دلسوزِ سرزمینتان باشید، دیگر همچون یک موجودِ احمق و ضعیف و بی غیرت به عضویتِ امتِ بی ارزش و گروه هایِ کثیفِ دینی، مثلِ امتِ اسلامی و گروه های فدایی در راه اسلام و محافظانِ حرم در نمی آیید
درست است که «نیچه» و فلسفهٔ او، طرفدارهایِ خودش را دارد، ولی اگر طرفدارهایِ نیچه فلسفه و کتبِ ارزشمندِ فلاسفه ای همچون «برتراند راسل» و «آرتور شوپنهاور» را با دقت مطالعه کنند، بدونِ تردید هم از فلسفه لذت میبرند و هم با اصولِ فلسفه ای که به انسان و خردِ انسان و در کل انسانیت اهمیت میدهد آشنا میشوند
در کل کتابِ بدی نبود، حتی موضوعِ «نیست گرایی» نیز بسیار خوب بود، ولی برخی از مسائلی که نیچه به سلیقۀ خویش در بازۀ «نیست گرایی» قرار داده بود به نظرم درست نبود
----------------------------------------------
امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ شناختِ این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>
May 14, 2018
What can I say about a book that I enjoyed the experience of reading but would never recommend to folks unless I knew them very well?
Social conventions would dictate: admit that you've read it when at a dinner party & then shuffle the conversation back to Dickens, the lovely Mr. Gaiman or newest Superhero movie. "Leave it alone, don't pick!", your conscience would say.
Well, here on GR, we can pick; it's what we do. Will to Power's a great book. Period. It's also frightfully creepy. It's loaded with enough logical arguments to freak out a conformist of any self assigned warren. I'd recommend as the book to start with for anyone who'd like to seriously begin reading Nietzsche. Since this book contains his notebook in a logically organized fashion, anything else by him surely is easier to read. Will to Power has many outlines for his basic frameworks. This makes it highly quotable. It also introduces you to his thoughts at their beginning stages. From here, you can move on to his finished early works and eventually his later ones. But don't listen to me, just take your own gander, decide for yourself if & where you'd like to begin reading Nietzsche.
On Context:
Pushkin's poems are a natural beauty, filled with wisdom & nature imagery. But Solzhenitsyn's prose beats us over the head with how context can be distorted by simply taking a line of Pushkin's poem and injecting it into the most horrific situations. Suddenly a line of beauty becomes a sign of terror.
Nietzsche's ideas were also taken horribly out of context to his own dismay in his lifetime. Reading Will to Power in the context of the lines around each line gives us the complete picture of what he's saying. Nietzsche's ideas out of context leads to mini tyrants with simple birdlike thoughts. No offence to birds.
My Blog Review:
The Will to Power: Context is Key
http://www.biblioatlas.com/2018/05/th...
Social conventions would dictate: admit that you've read it when at a dinner party & then shuffle the conversation back to Dickens, the lovely Mr. Gaiman or newest Superhero movie. "Leave it alone, don't pick!", your conscience would say.
Well, here on GR, we can pick; it's what we do. Will to Power's a great book. Period. It's also frightfully creepy. It's loaded with enough logical arguments to freak out a conformist of any self assigned warren. I'd recommend as the book to start with for anyone who'd like to seriously begin reading Nietzsche. Since this book contains his notebook in a logically organized fashion, anything else by him surely is easier to read. Will to Power has many outlines for his basic frameworks. This makes it highly quotable. It also introduces you to his thoughts at their beginning stages. From here, you can move on to his finished early works and eventually his later ones. But don't listen to me, just take your own gander, decide for yourself if & where you'd like to begin reading Nietzsche.
On Context:
Pushkin's poems are a natural beauty, filled with wisdom & nature imagery. But Solzhenitsyn's prose beats us over the head with how context can be distorted by simply taking a line of Pushkin's poem and injecting it into the most horrific situations. Suddenly a line of beauty becomes a sign of terror.
Nietzsche's ideas were also taken horribly out of context to his own dismay in his lifetime. Reading Will to Power in the context of the lines around each line gives us the complete picture of what he's saying. Nietzsche's ideas out of context leads to mini tyrants with simple birdlike thoughts. No offence to birds.
My Blog Review:
The Will to Power: Context is Key
http://www.biblioatlas.com/2018/05/th...
January 23, 2022
Pernicious nonsense wrapped in twiddle twaddle ramblings while easily being one of the most influential books published in the 20th century. This is the most different of all of Nietzsche’s books while simultaneously epitomizing all of his other writings even to the point of making this book seem unoriginal, something that I’ve never felt with any of his other books. It’s clear that a lot of this book were notes from his other books, and the rest were notes for what would become this book. There is one thing that struck me about this book, overall it was the most unoriginal of all of Nietzsche’s writings because he had for the most part said it elsewhere in his writings but says it here in such a way that it will appeal to the proto-fascist and soon-to-be Nazis who will lap this stuff up.
Ayn Rand loved Nietzsche and was going to use his quotations as chapter headings for ‘The Fountainhead’ until she realized that she misunderstood him; she obviously agreed with his fascism but wasn’t able to understand his philosophy beyond the superficial and I suspect it was this book that originally hooked her. Heidegger wrote an incredibly influential book explaining this book that influenced Derrida, Foucault and Rorty, but, most importantly, Oswald Spengler explicitly cites Nietzsche and Goethe as his major influences for volume I of Decline of the West (by all means read that God awful book if only to understand why one can call Trump a fascist), and lastly in Hitler’s autobiography, Nietzsche with Goethe, Luther and Fredrich the Great were Hitler’s acknowledged greatest influences. BTW, within this book I would say that Goethe was equally praised by Nietzsche as Hitler and Spengler praised him.
Make no mistake. This book is vile. The ‘always conniving Jew uses their knowledge against the ignorance of the other’ or whatever nonsense Nietzsche wrote, hysterical women never can learn or write good literature, the German is superior, Machiavelli was a great thinker, and so on and so on. But, that’s not my real problem with this book since it’s easy to dismiss that has nothing but prejudices.
All of the perniciousness of fascism lurks within this book. All of Donald Trump and what he is trying to do against humanity is within this book. Equality is anathema for them. Humanism is irrelevant and dangerous to them. A great leader, according to Nietzsche is required in order to save us. Spengler made Julius Caesar his great leader while in this book Nietzsche did too, but also Napoleon would do, or until a Hitler comes along or a Trump. Trump has anointed himself as the self-appointed uber-mensch for our time. Nietzsche is really saying ‘stop thinking and follow me and let your feelings be your guide’. There is no being, there is only becoming and a great thinker will be needed to rise above the herd. A thinker who is not encumbered by sympathy, empathy or reciprocity and one who is a narcissist with socio-pathological tendencies would be Nietzsche’s ideal, and Hitler would fit the bill as would Trump. Somebody who would always be able to always say that they didn’t fail, but only those around them failed, since the uber-mensch is always right by definition and all failure must come from the herd.
Anyone who is not in synch with what Nietzsche desires is considered weak, corrupt and not worthy of consideration exactly how Trump campaigned in 2016, and all awhile fascist such as Trump projects their faux strength through bluster and flays against imaginary windmills and also real windmills as he babbles incoherently how the TV won’t work on non-windy days if we attach windmills to the power grid. Overall, Nietzsche makes as much sense as Trump does regarding windmills, and both are just as dangerous.
Nietzsche will say that morality is immoral and therefore only the morality that he feels is worthwhile or worthy of consideration since Truth is what an uber-mensch says it is. Of all the statements from fascist beware of the statement such as ‘stop thinking and follow me, and all facts are alternative facts, and no science is true except for the science I say’. All are ravings of a lunatic, but only a bigger lunatic could believe such crap, and Nietzsche does have that kind of crap within this book, and there will always be Fox News viewers who want to be afraid of the imaginary windmills. They only need to be told.
Spengler, Heidegger, Hitler and Ayn Rand loved this book and were influenced by it until they weren’t for a reason. This book gives a ground for the hate they want to practice, and ironically, a justification since in the end Nietzsche believes the only justification that exists is the justification that we make for ourselves, just like Donald Trump does.
Before I had read this book, I wasn’t sure that it was really representative of Nietzsche. But now, I’m fairly certain that it does represent him overall since so much of what was in this book seemed to overlap with what he had written elsewhere. In this book, he’s more explicit on his active nihilism, moralic acid and his contempt for democracy, equality and his always blaming the individual for not understanding that morality is immoral because he says it is, but overall, that only differs from what he previously said by degrees not kind. By putting all of his twiddle twaddle in one place the wanna be fascists were falsely lulled into a non-existence coherence within this guidebook on becoming a good fascist.
Ayn Rand loved Nietzsche and was going to use his quotations as chapter headings for ‘The Fountainhead’ until she realized that she misunderstood him; she obviously agreed with his fascism but wasn’t able to understand his philosophy beyond the superficial and I suspect it was this book that originally hooked her. Heidegger wrote an incredibly influential book explaining this book that influenced Derrida, Foucault and Rorty, but, most importantly, Oswald Spengler explicitly cites Nietzsche and Goethe as his major influences for volume I of Decline of the West (by all means read that God awful book if only to understand why one can call Trump a fascist), and lastly in Hitler’s autobiography, Nietzsche with Goethe, Luther and Fredrich the Great were Hitler’s acknowledged greatest influences. BTW, within this book I would say that Goethe was equally praised by Nietzsche as Hitler and Spengler praised him.
Make no mistake. This book is vile. The ‘always conniving Jew uses their knowledge against the ignorance of the other’ or whatever nonsense Nietzsche wrote, hysterical women never can learn or write good literature, the German is superior, Machiavelli was a great thinker, and so on and so on. But, that’s not my real problem with this book since it’s easy to dismiss that has nothing but prejudices.
All of the perniciousness of fascism lurks within this book. All of Donald Trump and what he is trying to do against humanity is within this book. Equality is anathema for them. Humanism is irrelevant and dangerous to them. A great leader, according to Nietzsche is required in order to save us. Spengler made Julius Caesar his great leader while in this book Nietzsche did too, but also Napoleon would do, or until a Hitler comes along or a Trump. Trump has anointed himself as the self-appointed uber-mensch for our time. Nietzsche is really saying ‘stop thinking and follow me and let your feelings be your guide’. There is no being, there is only becoming and a great thinker will be needed to rise above the herd. A thinker who is not encumbered by sympathy, empathy or reciprocity and one who is a narcissist with socio-pathological tendencies would be Nietzsche’s ideal, and Hitler would fit the bill as would Trump. Somebody who would always be able to always say that they didn’t fail, but only those around them failed, since the uber-mensch is always right by definition and all failure must come from the herd.
Anyone who is not in synch with what Nietzsche desires is considered weak, corrupt and not worthy of consideration exactly how Trump campaigned in 2016, and all awhile fascist such as Trump projects their faux strength through bluster and flays against imaginary windmills and also real windmills as he babbles incoherently how the TV won’t work on non-windy days if we attach windmills to the power grid. Overall, Nietzsche makes as much sense as Trump does regarding windmills, and both are just as dangerous.
Nietzsche will say that morality is immoral and therefore only the morality that he feels is worthwhile or worthy of consideration since Truth is what an uber-mensch says it is. Of all the statements from fascist beware of the statement such as ‘stop thinking and follow me, and all facts are alternative facts, and no science is true except for the science I say’. All are ravings of a lunatic, but only a bigger lunatic could believe such crap, and Nietzsche does have that kind of crap within this book, and there will always be Fox News viewers who want to be afraid of the imaginary windmills. They only need to be told.
Spengler, Heidegger, Hitler and Ayn Rand loved this book and were influenced by it until they weren’t for a reason. This book gives a ground for the hate they want to practice, and ironically, a justification since in the end Nietzsche believes the only justification that exists is the justification that we make for ourselves, just like Donald Trump does.
Before I had read this book, I wasn’t sure that it was really representative of Nietzsche. But now, I’m fairly certain that it does represent him overall since so much of what was in this book seemed to overlap with what he had written elsewhere. In this book, he’s more explicit on his active nihilism, moralic acid and his contempt for democracy, equality and his always blaming the individual for not understanding that morality is immoral because he says it is, but overall, that only differs from what he previously said by degrees not kind. By putting all of his twiddle twaddle in one place the wanna be fascists were falsely lulled into a non-existence coherence within this guidebook on becoming a good fascist.
April 11, 2016
“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities—I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures.”
December 15, 2014
I think the most important thing to keep in mind when reading “The Will to Power” is that it is NOT a “book” in the proper sense of the term. It is merely a collection of thoughts and scraps that are extensions of previous thoughts, meditations on works that were being fleshed out at that time, and projections towards future investigations. As Kauffman points out (who, by the way, I became a bit annoyed with throughout this edition with his constant self aggrandizement – despite the fact that he is probably the best Nietzsche scholar to date) this is to be regarded as a journal and nothing more.
The confusions inherent to the nature of this collection though seems to be that it is often hard to distinguish between when Nietzsche is making an evaluative description or a normative judgment. His basic principle of “the will to power” which is often juxtaposed and exemplified by hyperbolic examples, do not necessarily mean that he is advocating such means – simply that these are examples which justify his critique of epistemology and modernist idealisms/moralisms of all sorts. In other words, the contradictions that arise from any philosophy or theology that denies the world.
Of most importance to me in this “book” though is the third section entitled “Principles of a New Evaluation.” This is the basis or ground (in my opinion) by which to evaluate all of which is explored throughout the whole volume; primarily in Nietzsche’s assertion of the innocence of becoming. Once this is taken into consideration then some of the most aggressive passages are in all sincerity passionate defenses of his position against those who suppose a “being” of things and consequently the negation of this principle. As notes to himself with zero intention of being published, they express Nietzsche’s authentic (i.e. HUMAN in his Dionysian sense) and empathy towards the ultimate fate of mankind.
There is, and has been, much more to say of “The Will to Power.” Rather than pick and choose which points one finds contentious and others genius, I must agree with Kauffman that this volume is only of secondary importance in regards to the entire cannon of Nietzsche’s published work. Nietzsche continued to write and publish beyond the scope of time which comprises “The Will to Power,” and so to assume these jottings and scraps as the pinnacle of his thought is to do an injustice to his philosophy.
Nevertheless, for those interested in his thoughts and in general the inner workings of the mind which came up with such influential works of philosophy, this is a must read. As with anything indefinite and unauthorized though (and even those which are) it is essential to take it cum grano salis, and as Nietzsche would have it, from your own point of view.
The confusions inherent to the nature of this collection though seems to be that it is often hard to distinguish between when Nietzsche is making an evaluative description or a normative judgment. His basic principle of “the will to power” which is often juxtaposed and exemplified by hyperbolic examples, do not necessarily mean that he is advocating such means – simply that these are examples which justify his critique of epistemology and modernist idealisms/moralisms of all sorts. In other words, the contradictions that arise from any philosophy or theology that denies the world.
Of most importance to me in this “book” though is the third section entitled “Principles of a New Evaluation.” This is the basis or ground (in my opinion) by which to evaluate all of which is explored throughout the whole volume; primarily in Nietzsche’s assertion of the innocence of becoming. Once this is taken into consideration then some of the most aggressive passages are in all sincerity passionate defenses of his position against those who suppose a “being” of things and consequently the negation of this principle. As notes to himself with zero intention of being published, they express Nietzsche’s authentic (i.e. HUMAN in his Dionysian sense) and empathy towards the ultimate fate of mankind.
There is, and has been, much more to say of “The Will to Power.” Rather than pick and choose which points one finds contentious and others genius, I must agree with Kauffman that this volume is only of secondary importance in regards to the entire cannon of Nietzsche’s published work. Nietzsche continued to write and publish beyond the scope of time which comprises “The Will to Power,” and so to assume these jottings and scraps as the pinnacle of his thought is to do an injustice to his philosophy.
Nevertheless, for those interested in his thoughts and in general the inner workings of the mind which came up with such influential works of philosophy, this is a must read. As with anything indefinite and unauthorized though (and even those which are) it is essential to take it cum grano salis, and as Nietzsche would have it, from your own point of view.
April 24, 2009
It seems to me that the only thing more tragic than the fact that Nietzsche was never able to write the Will to Power, is that this hodgepodge of notes and jottings was mistaken for it. Still I am surprised that so many academics simply accepted all the ludicrous claims that it was his masterpiece. There was Heidegger who, perhaps defensively, suggested ignoring the published works in favor of it. And at an even further extreme was Derrida who thought we really ought to be looking more closely at the sentence, "I have forgotten my umbrella," in an 'unpublished manuscript' (which I have been told was merely a shopping list!).
I have to admit that I have found several sections to be useful in clearing up some interpretative ambiguities. Nevertheless, I think much of the fascination with the unpublished manuscripts has been the consequence of a cult of genius for which Nietzsche provided an insightful critique at the early stages of his career in Human all to Human: from the souls of artists and writers. One section seems particularly relevant here.
155
The belief in inspiration.— It is to the interest of the artist that there should be a belief in sudden suggestions, so-called inspirations; as if the idea of a work of art, of poetry, the fundamental thought of a philosophy shone down from heaven like a ray of grace. In reality the imagination of the good artist or thinker constantly produces good, mediocre, and bad, but his power of judgment, most clear and practiced, rejects and chooses and joins together, just as we now learn from Beethoven's notebooks that he gradually composed the most beautiful melodies, and in a manner selected them, from many different attempts. He who makes less severe distinctions, and willingly abandons himself to imitative memories, may under certain circumstances become a great improvisatore; but artistic improvisation ranks low in comparison with serious and laboriously chosen artistic thoughts. All great men were great workers, unwearied not only in invention but also in rejection, reviewing, transforming, and arranging.
I have to admit that I have found several sections to be useful in clearing up some interpretative ambiguities. Nevertheless, I think much of the fascination with the unpublished manuscripts has been the consequence of a cult of genius for which Nietzsche provided an insightful critique at the early stages of his career in Human all to Human: from the souls of artists and writers. One section seems particularly relevant here.
155
The belief in inspiration.— It is to the interest of the artist that there should be a belief in sudden suggestions, so-called inspirations; as if the idea of a work of art, of poetry, the fundamental thought of a philosophy shone down from heaven like a ray of grace. In reality the imagination of the good artist or thinker constantly produces good, mediocre, and bad, but his power of judgment, most clear and practiced, rejects and chooses and joins together, just as we now learn from Beethoven's notebooks that he gradually composed the most beautiful melodies, and in a manner selected them, from many different attempts. He who makes less severe distinctions, and willingly abandons himself to imitative memories, may under certain circumstances become a great improvisatore; but artistic improvisation ranks low in comparison with serious and laboriously chosen artistic thoughts. All great men were great workers, unwearied not only in invention but also in rejection, reviewing, transforming, and arranging.
July 21, 2025
---
Few quotes of much Meaning:
-"You are never destroyed by Anyone except Yourself."
-"He who cannot put his Will into Things, usually puts a Meaning into it, and in that is implied and already acting Will (principle of Belief)."
-"One must pay dearly for Immortality." - Immortalized Thoughts, Desires, Becoming of Oneself.
-"Moral Corruption is the Result of Decadence -> resulting in the Weakness of the Will and the Need of Strong Stimulants."
-"A certain kind of Man is most useful to Himself, when he hinders his own Action (or Reaction) as much as Possible. --> to do Nothing is often more useful than to do Something"
Few quotes of much Meaning:
-"You are never destroyed by Anyone except Yourself."
-"He who cannot put his Will into Things, usually puts a Meaning into it, and in that is implied and already acting Will (principle of Belief)."
-"One must pay dearly for Immortality." - Immortalized Thoughts, Desires, Becoming of Oneself.
-"Moral Corruption is the Result of Decadence -> resulting in the Weakness of the Will and the Need of Strong Stimulants."
-"A certain kind of Man is most useful to Himself, when he hinders his own Action (or Reaction) as much as Possible. --> to do Nothing is often more useful than to do Something"
January 3, 2011
Comment:
Nietzsche makes his world, based on Becoming and Creating, in order to replace (Destroy! God help us!) Plato’s world which was based on Being and Knowing. I should really say Plato’s worlds; after all, Modernity and its various Ideologies are also, for Nietzsche, Platonisms that have descended into nihilism …That is the difficulty, ‘Worlds’, even philosophically manufactured worlds, tend to fragment over time. It is exactly as Heidegger somewhere indicated; nihilism is not the destruction of values; but their instauration. The creation of value always always ends in nihilism, that is one problem. ...But humanity - and this is the other problem, may the gods be merciful - cannot live without values. And Nietzsche is making a World!
However, a word of caution about the Will to Power might be in order here. The Will to Power is composed of notes that never found their way into Nietzsche’s books. Indeed it is composed, in part, of materials that Nietzsche consigned to the trashcan, according to Bernd Magnus in 'Reading Nietzsche,' page 225. Of course, there are serious defenders of the opposite view, most famously Heidegger, who said:
“But Nietzsche’s philosophy proper, the fundamental position on the basis of which he speaks in these and all the writings he himself published, did not assume a final form and was not itself published in any book, neither in the decade between 1879 and 1889 nor during the years preceding. What Nietzsche himself published during his creative life was always foreground. […] His philosophy proper was left behind as posthumous unpublished work.” Nietzsche, Volume 1, 1979, pages 8-9.
Heidegger prefers Nietzsche's unstructured notes to the esoterically structured works of the final period because he wishes to largely ignore Nietzsche's secretive purposes...
Nietzsche makes his world, based on Becoming and Creating, in order to replace (Destroy! God help us!) Plato’s world which was based on Being and Knowing. I should really say Plato’s worlds; after all, Modernity and its various Ideologies are also, for Nietzsche, Platonisms that have descended into nihilism …That is the difficulty, ‘Worlds’, even philosophically manufactured worlds, tend to fragment over time. It is exactly as Heidegger somewhere indicated; nihilism is not the destruction of values; but their instauration. The creation of value always always ends in nihilism, that is one problem. ...But humanity - and this is the other problem, may the gods be merciful - cannot live without values. And Nietzsche is making a World!
However, a word of caution about the Will to Power might be in order here. The Will to Power is composed of notes that never found their way into Nietzsche’s books. Indeed it is composed, in part, of materials that Nietzsche consigned to the trashcan, according to Bernd Magnus in 'Reading Nietzsche,' page 225. Of course, there are serious defenders of the opposite view, most famously Heidegger, who said:
“But Nietzsche’s philosophy proper, the fundamental position on the basis of which he speaks in these and all the writings he himself published, did not assume a final form and was not itself published in any book, neither in the decade between 1879 and 1889 nor during the years preceding. What Nietzsche himself published during his creative life was always foreground. […] His philosophy proper was left behind as posthumous unpublished work.” Nietzsche, Volume 1, 1979, pages 8-9.
Heidegger prefers Nietzsche's unstructured notes to the esoterically structured works of the final period because he wishes to largely ignore Nietzsche's secretive purposes...
May 26, 2014
مبدئيا أريد أن أصب جام غضبى وكامل سخطى على من نصحنى بقرائته ، ومن ناحية أخرى اريد أن استأثره بالشكر والعرفان فهذا الكتاب ليس للقراءة فقط وإنما كما كتب فى بدايته هو " إنجيل المستقبل " الكتاب لم يبق على قيمة من القيم العليا
لدى الإنسان إلا وفندها تفنيدا منهجيا منتقدا إياه من كل الجوانب وبكل السبل ..
يناقش الكتاب العديد من المسائل مثل العدمية ونقد الدين والأخلاق ونقد الفلسفة والعقل والمنطق والحقيقة المخدوعين بكونها حقيقة والقدر والقانون
بغض النظر كونى متفق على اجمال ما جاء فى هذا الكتاب " التحفة الفلسفية " وتناول نقد المثل الأعلى بمنتهى الجدية والدقة وبرع فيها فى تصورى ،، ،
نيتشه قلب كل القيم ولكن مأخذى الجوهرى على الكتاب أنه لم يدع مجالا للعيش بسلام مع الضعفاء والمحرومين ، يعطى كامل الحق للأقوياء فى العيش والبطش والإغتصاب وينفى أو يرفض تصفية الصفات المنبوذة فى الإنسان القوى حينما قال " بجعلنا الإنسان شريرا نصيّره أفضل ولن يكون بوسعنا أن تكون هكذا دون ان نكون هكذا .. ونقد الإشتراكية برغم أن هدفهما واحد وهو الإرتقاء بالإنسان ..
إلا أن نيتشه يريد للإنسان القوى فقط أن يحياويحرم الاخرين ، بينما الإشتراكية تريد أن ترتقى بالإنسان كمجتمع ودولة ،،
هذا ما أخفق نيتشه به ..
وحصر الشر فى ثلاثية ( الصدفة - اللايقين - والفجأة ) وما وجه الإختلاف بين الصدفة والفجأة
وتحت عنوان " العودة الأبدية " نجد نيتشه غامض فى تفسيره وشرحه ما ذا يريد من العالم وماذا يريد العالم أن يكون وكيف نحدد هدف العالم وغايته ..
ستشعر انك بعد قراءة الكتاب غير قبل قرائته ولن تندم على قرائته رغم تحفظك ..
لدى الإنسان إلا وفندها تفنيدا منهجيا منتقدا إياه من كل الجوانب وبكل السبل ..
يناقش الكتاب العديد من المسائل مثل العدمية ونقد الدين والأخلاق ونقد الفلسفة والعقل والمنطق والحقيقة المخدوعين بكونها حقيقة والقدر والقانون
بغض النظر كونى متفق على اجمال ما جاء فى هذا الكتاب " التحفة الفلسفية " وتناول نقد المثل الأعلى بمنتهى الجدية والدقة وبرع فيها فى تصورى ،، ،
نيتشه قلب كل القيم ولكن مأخذى الجوهرى على الكتاب أنه لم يدع مجالا للعيش بسلام مع الضعفاء والمحرومين ، يعطى كامل الحق للأقوياء فى العيش والبطش والإغتصاب وينفى أو يرفض تصفية الصفات المنبوذة فى الإنسان القوى حينما قال " بجعلنا الإنسان شريرا نصيّره أفضل ولن يكون بوسعنا أن تكون هكذا دون ان نكون هكذا .. ونقد الإشتراكية برغم أن هدفهما واحد وهو الإرتقاء بالإنسان ..
إلا أن نيتشه يريد للإنسان القوى فقط أن يحياويحرم الاخرين ، بينما الإشتراكية تريد أن ترتقى بالإنسان كمجتمع ودولة ،،
هذا ما أخفق نيتشه به ..
وحصر الشر فى ثلاثية ( الصدفة - اللايقين - والفجأة ) وما وجه الإختلاف بين الصدفة والفجأة
وتحت عنوان " العودة الأبدية " نجد نيتشه غامض فى تفسيره وشرحه ما ذا يريد من العالم وماذا يريد العالم أن يكون وكيف نحدد هدف العالم وغايته ..
ستشعر انك بعد قراءة الكتاب غير قبل قرائته ولن تندم على قرائته رغم تحفظك ..
September 27, 2007
The lack of coherent structure in this work which may delight such lovers of disorder who might like to claim poor Fritz as their own is, in sooth, due to the unfortunate fact that Will to Power was not really written by Nietzsche. His sister, who appears to have gotten the short end of the genius stick in the family (and was thus deeply anti-semitic) collected her favorite of her brother's aphorisms which he had never intended to publish. At the time he was laid up in bed, sick and a maniac, so there wasn't a thing he could do about it. The Nazis found this work to be the most appealing since it contained none of the thinkers fairly frequent rants against Germany, nationalism, the state, etc. The sister, Elisabeth Foerster, later tried to found a proto-Nazi commune in South America. In spite of all this there are still some worthwhile tidbits in this all-too-human collection.
September 1, 2024
a presentation of Nietzsche’s most fundamental ideas posthumously arranged by his sister. At times there is a quality of incompleteness, thematic discontinuity, obscurity, something a bit unnatural about the assemblage of his thought. This could all be because of my knowing that it was someone other than Nietzsche that organized this work, so perhaps my criticisms aren't necessarily true. Nietzsche, despite his colossal intellect always made sure to retain some obscurity within his work.
I was already familiar with a reasonable amount of Nietzsche's work before taking on this book. So, I had already encountered his great ideas and relished in the personal epiphanies I had when confronted with these brutally honest and deeply moving theories on life and honor, motivation and glory. If you happen to encounter Nietzsche at the right time and his ideas work themselves into your constitution, revisiting him later in a book that provides some kind of structural framework for his thought might lack the same poetic power you had previously experienced. This all comes down to the experiences of the reader. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I would consider this book more sober than some of his other work.
According to Nietzsche, everything we do, everything we are, everything we strive for is our own desire for a will to power. This seems obvious enough but Nietzsche's target is a bourgeois morality that has taken hold of contemporary men, who believes his ideals are structured around an innate goodness or morality, when this morality really serves as another means of acquiring strength and power through condemnation of the acts of immorality, which are bare-faced actions of men who readily admit its power and glory they are after. This new morality is its own form of cowardice, says Nietzsche, since its practitioners are those not brave enough to commit the acts of power themselves, but participate on an edifice of power relations that enables them to capture power while not soiling their own consciences. Ultimately, the bourgeois coward and the immoral "great man" (ie. Napoleon) want the same thing and the ends one seeks functions as its own kind of stand-alone moral system. Perhaps the coward chooses not the means which are usually deemed immoral but, according to Nietzsche, this is because he lacks the courage and not because he is a genuinely morally compelled individual. Accordingly, "the will to be moral" was merely the "will to power" in disguise, and "even the hatred and contempt they feel for the will to power is itself a form of power-seeking."
Some quotes and commentary:
"Each has artificially arranged his nature into a 'mirror', taking an interest in things, but only superficially, epidermically, if you will; each maintains an invariable coolness and equipoise, a low temperature just below the thin surface on which they is warmth, movement, 'storm' and the play of waves." (p.55)
- Nietzsche's critique focuses in 'the herd' or masses. These are the types socially conscious enough to absorb, practice, and imitate the forms that present themselves. They possess no ostensible personality type, just mass man always receptive to the accelerated currents of culture without ever penetrating deeper within himself. Modern man appears to crave this mobility, this agility to move nimbly through the cultural landscape; movement that is presumably good in and of itself simply because it signifies progress rather than stasis, but that betrays lack of devotion to any singular cause, idea, or form. It means he is never truly captivated by anything because this would entail a kind of exclusionary way of being, where one would have to stand outside of culture itself. And since culture is what provides mass man his form, the thought is intolerable.
"Romanticism is a kind of nostalgia for the 18th century; a pent up longing for its grandiose enthusiasm (...the wish was to pose as a person of strong character and grand passions.)" (p. 66)
-This reiterates Nietzsche's point that mass man absent genuine passion, will, and knowledge are only capable of mimicking that which they yearn for, rather than a kind of organic construction of being, which definitely requires the will, to achieve greatness or an authentic self. In essence, they become marionettes. They can only play with surface ideas and act them out. This is a failure of instinct and is a weakness of will that the structure of man's life is premised upon (ie. it's all false, socially regulated, formulaic, deeply and profoundly artificial). What man does, rather than reasoning his own being and how it fits into the endless bounds of life, is utilize a kind of false reason where he exists within pre-ordained structures, both secular and moral, and he therefore denies the will's power to make value judgments. In this we find a homeopathic way of being, where man finds his personality (or lack thereof) only in his weakness, which means it is no personality at all, but a simulacrum of one. Only genuine will along with a potent instinct can we erect the true man because only then is man relying on his strength to reach understanding and totality. Anytime you rely on weakness, you regress back to the herd, the milieu, the processes of culture, which rely entirely on the conformity and predictability of man. Anytime you show recourse to such things, you melt into an ether of formlessness. Despite these attempts at acquired form through the mechanisms of culture, despite an ostensible aggrandizement and grounding in (invented) reality and moral illusion, you've rendered yourself into absolutely nothing - it's essentially self-annihilation.
Nietzsche argues that the priest and also the masses create a morality "in order to be considered the highest type of man."
-You may notice the tendency of mass man to recoil at disagreement and counter-arguments as being highly offensive to some objectively good ethos that he hasn't contemplated, much less constructed of his own accord. This refusal to assume responsibility for the ethical framework that underpins the totality of one's life experience gives way to a fragility and insecurity of the self. All of man's ideas and the way in which they are assembled, the hierarchy he has established for himself in the world, are imitations and it becomes clear that when confronted with the sturdiness, clarity, and resoluteness of morality derived and established through strength, his so-called convictions collapse - they were, after all, just superficial furnishings to begin with, functioning as a mechanisms for socio-cultural status/acceptability as well as psychological support.
"He seeks power by the holy lie in recognition of the fact that he does not already possess it in a physical, military sense...The holy lie augments his power - it furnishes him with a new notion - 'truth!'"
-Even though you may find a more secular world in the modern age, where traditional religious authority has been almost entirely emptied of any genuine authority, Nietzsche says we must understand that religious power is never truly destroyed - it is merely transferred to another body or milieu and presented within a different framework and on different terms. This is the bridge that exists between an outmoded religious world and contemporary man. By embracing a certain ethos, man can augment his social and moral position within the world and can shore up his own psychological cohesion. In other words, the practitioners of the modern secular religion as embodied in the proto-typical bourgeoisie moral schema are looking for a means to comfort, security, and in some sense, authority.
"That which is especially Christian in the ecclesiastical sense is anti-Christian from the outset; conformity to things and people instead of to symbols, conformity to history instead of eternal truths; conformity to formulas, rituals, and dogmas instead of to practice, a way of life..." (p. 105)
"In order to become 'divine,' the main thing is that we be sick of sin."
-Sin, through our own internal reordering and quest for perfection, through the deep discovery of oneself and one's own desire for divine, God-like perfection, sin becomes intolerable and incompatible to one's way of being. It so contrasts with one's being that one can no longer discern its appeal, nor could one maintain the constancy and form of their character by indulging in sin. This, according to Nietzsche, is the only appropriate way to perceive sin, rather than understanding it as something we must steel ourselves against through practices and adherence to dogma. These are not about the perfectibility of our being; they are rote performances that help us identify ourselves safely within an order, which appears as a seemingly passive posture when compared to the action towards self-mastery where we become incompatible with sin altogether. That's when you've really reached a state of divination, when you've become God-like. "Salvation through faith, namely, that there is no other way to become sons of God save through the way of life taught by Christ, is turned into its opposite: salvation through believing that there is some miraculous redemption from sin which is not accomplished by man by by Christ's act. To that end, Christ on the cross has to be reinterpreted." Religion, according to Nietzsche, is a receptacle for the "little people"; a way to legitimize their values and a spurious and capricious ethical bulwark against strength and power. It is essentially a mechanism for concealing oneself, for abdicating the sovereignty of your own will, and all that attends to that will - your mental and emotional capacities are subjugated to this ultimate authority and inevitably they begin to atrophy, making its adherents more malleable to forces of power that engender their own strength through acquiescence that has been obtained through general appeals to modes of authority (institutional and other), consensus opinion, and specious appeals to virtue and compassion. All of them negate the individual will and applaud the person for exercising virtue when it's really just an "escape from freedom" they're seeking.
I was already familiar with a reasonable amount of Nietzsche's work before taking on this book. So, I had already encountered his great ideas and relished in the personal epiphanies I had when confronted with these brutally honest and deeply moving theories on life and honor, motivation and glory. If you happen to encounter Nietzsche at the right time and his ideas work themselves into your constitution, revisiting him later in a book that provides some kind of structural framework for his thought might lack the same poetic power you had previously experienced. This all comes down to the experiences of the reader. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I would consider this book more sober than some of his other work.
According to Nietzsche, everything we do, everything we are, everything we strive for is our own desire for a will to power. This seems obvious enough but Nietzsche's target is a bourgeois morality that has taken hold of contemporary men, who believes his ideals are structured around an innate goodness or morality, when this morality really serves as another means of acquiring strength and power through condemnation of the acts of immorality, which are bare-faced actions of men who readily admit its power and glory they are after. This new morality is its own form of cowardice, says Nietzsche, since its practitioners are those not brave enough to commit the acts of power themselves, but participate on an edifice of power relations that enables them to capture power while not soiling their own consciences. Ultimately, the bourgeois coward and the immoral "great man" (ie. Napoleon) want the same thing and the ends one seeks functions as its own kind of stand-alone moral system. Perhaps the coward chooses not the means which are usually deemed immoral but, according to Nietzsche, this is because he lacks the courage and not because he is a genuinely morally compelled individual. Accordingly, "the will to be moral" was merely the "will to power" in disguise, and "even the hatred and contempt they feel for the will to power is itself a form of power-seeking."
Some quotes and commentary:
"Each has artificially arranged his nature into a 'mirror', taking an interest in things, but only superficially, epidermically, if you will; each maintains an invariable coolness and equipoise, a low temperature just below the thin surface on which they is warmth, movement, 'storm' and the play of waves." (p.55)
- Nietzsche's critique focuses in 'the herd' or masses. These are the types socially conscious enough to absorb, practice, and imitate the forms that present themselves. They possess no ostensible personality type, just mass man always receptive to the accelerated currents of culture without ever penetrating deeper within himself. Modern man appears to crave this mobility, this agility to move nimbly through the cultural landscape; movement that is presumably good in and of itself simply because it signifies progress rather than stasis, but that betrays lack of devotion to any singular cause, idea, or form. It means he is never truly captivated by anything because this would entail a kind of exclusionary way of being, where one would have to stand outside of culture itself. And since culture is what provides mass man his form, the thought is intolerable.
"Romanticism is a kind of nostalgia for the 18th century; a pent up longing for its grandiose enthusiasm (...the wish was to pose as a person of strong character and grand passions.)" (p. 66)
-This reiterates Nietzsche's point that mass man absent genuine passion, will, and knowledge are only capable of mimicking that which they yearn for, rather than a kind of organic construction of being, which definitely requires the will, to achieve greatness or an authentic self. In essence, they become marionettes. They can only play with surface ideas and act them out. This is a failure of instinct and is a weakness of will that the structure of man's life is premised upon (ie. it's all false, socially regulated, formulaic, deeply and profoundly artificial). What man does, rather than reasoning his own being and how it fits into the endless bounds of life, is utilize a kind of false reason where he exists within pre-ordained structures, both secular and moral, and he therefore denies the will's power to make value judgments. In this we find a homeopathic way of being, where man finds his personality (or lack thereof) only in his weakness, which means it is no personality at all, but a simulacrum of one. Only genuine will along with a potent instinct can we erect the true man because only then is man relying on his strength to reach understanding and totality. Anytime you rely on weakness, you regress back to the herd, the milieu, the processes of culture, which rely entirely on the conformity and predictability of man. Anytime you show recourse to such things, you melt into an ether of formlessness. Despite these attempts at acquired form through the mechanisms of culture, despite an ostensible aggrandizement and grounding in (invented) reality and moral illusion, you've rendered yourself into absolutely nothing - it's essentially self-annihilation.
Nietzsche argues that the priest and also the masses create a morality "in order to be considered the highest type of man."
-You may notice the tendency of mass man to recoil at disagreement and counter-arguments as being highly offensive to some objectively good ethos that he hasn't contemplated, much less constructed of his own accord. This refusal to assume responsibility for the ethical framework that underpins the totality of one's life experience gives way to a fragility and insecurity of the self. All of man's ideas and the way in which they are assembled, the hierarchy he has established for himself in the world, are imitations and it becomes clear that when confronted with the sturdiness, clarity, and resoluteness of morality derived and established through strength, his so-called convictions collapse - they were, after all, just superficial furnishings to begin with, functioning as a mechanisms for socio-cultural status/acceptability as well as psychological support.
"He seeks power by the holy lie in recognition of the fact that he does not already possess it in a physical, military sense...The holy lie augments his power - it furnishes him with a new notion - 'truth!'"
-Even though you may find a more secular world in the modern age, where traditional religious authority has been almost entirely emptied of any genuine authority, Nietzsche says we must understand that religious power is never truly destroyed - it is merely transferred to another body or milieu and presented within a different framework and on different terms. This is the bridge that exists between an outmoded religious world and contemporary man. By embracing a certain ethos, man can augment his social and moral position within the world and can shore up his own psychological cohesion. In other words, the practitioners of the modern secular religion as embodied in the proto-typical bourgeoisie moral schema are looking for a means to comfort, security, and in some sense, authority.
"That which is especially Christian in the ecclesiastical sense is anti-Christian from the outset; conformity to things and people instead of to symbols, conformity to history instead of eternal truths; conformity to formulas, rituals, and dogmas instead of to practice, a way of life..." (p. 105)
"In order to become 'divine,' the main thing is that we be sick of sin."
-Sin, through our own internal reordering and quest for perfection, through the deep discovery of oneself and one's own desire for divine, God-like perfection, sin becomes intolerable and incompatible to one's way of being. It so contrasts with one's being that one can no longer discern its appeal, nor could one maintain the constancy and form of their character by indulging in sin. This, according to Nietzsche, is the only appropriate way to perceive sin, rather than understanding it as something we must steel ourselves against through practices and adherence to dogma. These are not about the perfectibility of our being; they are rote performances that help us identify ourselves safely within an order, which appears as a seemingly passive posture when compared to the action towards self-mastery where we become incompatible with sin altogether. That's when you've really reached a state of divination, when you've become God-like. "Salvation through faith, namely, that there is no other way to become sons of God save through the way of life taught by Christ, is turned into its opposite: salvation through believing that there is some miraculous redemption from sin which is not accomplished by man by by Christ's act. To that end, Christ on the cross has to be reinterpreted." Religion, according to Nietzsche, is a receptacle for the "little people"; a way to legitimize their values and a spurious and capricious ethical bulwark against strength and power. It is essentially a mechanism for concealing oneself, for abdicating the sovereignty of your own will, and all that attends to that will - your mental and emotional capacities are subjugated to this ultimate authority and inevitably they begin to atrophy, making its adherents more malleable to forces of power that engender their own strength through acquiescence that has been obtained through general appeals to modes of authority (institutional and other), consensus opinion, and specious appeals to virtue and compassion. All of them negate the individual will and applaud the person for exercising virtue when it's really just an "escape from freedom" they're seeking.
Read
April 13, 2018Nietzsche's magnum opus, the crown of his philosophy, the book that has been accused of creating a world war, the book that some held as their bible, the book that took me seven months to finish, the book that influenced the Nazis.
,
It is long, hard-reading book and it is not really a book written by Nietzsche himself, it is a collection of his notes which he wrote in his most productive years of his life, he was trying to finish his philosophy, to create a new valuation for the world after he had destroyed all other values, the revaluation of all values, then he gets sick and eventually becomes insane and unable to finish what he had started.
,
Nietzsche wants to destroy. If you take a quick look at the contents of the book you will realize that there has not been anything left in this world that he didn't put under criticism and eventually destroyed. He starts from criticizing nihilism, then he goes for the highest values, from religion to Christianity to morality to philosophy to science to logic and everything you can possibly think of.
,
Nietzsche wants to re-create. After he destroys every value that has been held for thousands of years he tries to re-create new values, because only he who can create have the right to destroy.
,
This book was not written for me to read, nor for someone like me, it was written and dedicated to a stronger being, to those who will inherit the earth. " I write for a species of man that does not yet exist: for the "masters of the earth."
,
As he talks to his friends, those who he writes for them, the men of the future, the overmen, supermen, he talks to them in the end of the book and says:
" do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”
,
I have not spent so much time with any books before, it accompanied me for a long time, I lived with it and had moments when I was so frustrated by not understanding what he is saying, and moments, when I felt that I was standing in the presence of a prophet, moments where I would read a line or a paragraph and I, would enter a state of overwhelmingly astonishment like I have discovered something, like I have been handed a prophecy. It certainly was a beautiful experience, Freddy, Thank you for that birthday present.
,
There are few books that I cannot rate, Quran and this book are examples of those so there will be no rating this time.
,
It is long, hard-reading book and it is not really a book written by Nietzsche himself, it is a collection of his notes which he wrote in his most productive years of his life, he was trying to finish his philosophy, to create a new valuation for the world after he had destroyed all other values, the revaluation of all values, then he gets sick and eventually becomes insane and unable to finish what he had started.
,
Nietzsche wants to destroy. If you take a quick look at the contents of the book you will realize that there has not been anything left in this world that he didn't put under criticism and eventually destroyed. He starts from criticizing nihilism, then he goes for the highest values, from religion to Christianity to morality to philosophy to science to logic and everything you can possibly think of.
,
Nietzsche wants to re-create. After he destroys every value that has been held for thousands of years he tries to re-create new values, because only he who can create have the right to destroy.
,
This book was not written for me to read, nor for someone like me, it was written and dedicated to a stronger being, to those who will inherit the earth. " I write for a species of man that does not yet exist: for the "masters of the earth."
,
As he talks to his friends, those who he writes for them, the men of the future, the overmen, supermen, he talks to them in the end of the book and says:
" do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”
,
I have not spent so much time with any books before, it accompanied me for a long time, I lived with it and had moments when I was so frustrated by not understanding what he is saying, and moments, when I felt that I was standing in the presence of a prophet, moments where I would read a line or a paragraph and I, would enter a state of overwhelmingly astonishment like I have discovered something, like I have been handed a prophecy. It certainly was a beautiful experience, Freddy, Thank you for that birthday present.
,
There are few books that I cannot rate, Quran and this book are examples of those so there will be no rating this time.
June 25, 2015
لنشن الحرب على كل الفرضيات التى على أساسها تم تخيل العالم
................................................
من إصدارات دار افريقيا الشرق
كتاب إرادة القوة
للفيلسوف الألمانى فردريك نيتشه
بترجمة محمد الناجى
.............................................................
هكذا تلخص المقدمة ما اراده نيتشه والتى اطلق عليها محاولة قلب كل القيم
.........................................
أفكار نيتشه التى ظهر ت فى الكتاب
العدمية التى افتتح بها
العودة الابدية - الانسان الراقى
نقد الدين والاخلاق والسياسة والفضيلة والانجطاط
..........................................
كل ما أتامل فى كلمات هذا الفيلسوف لا يبدوا جنونه شيئا غريباً فالرجل استنفذ كل طاقة العقل
وتمرد على كل القواعد
........................
ملاحظات
- حاقدا على الاخلاق والفضيلة
- يحمل تقديرا كبيراً لنابليون
- لا يحمل اى تقدير للمرأة
- هاجم بضراوة شوبنهاور
- هجوم قاسى على المسيحية ورجال الكهنوت
- دفاع عن اصحاب السلوك الاجرامى
- تكريس لفلسفة القوة
- الحاد مطلق
-قلب كل القيم بلا استثناء مهما كلف الامر
- تعليق الأمر كله على الوهم
- امتهان الانسان
............................................
هذا الكتاب لا يقرأ مرة واحدة
أسلوب نيتشه قوى لغويا متمكن فلسفيا
مهد لكل من قدم بعده لافكار الوجودية والعدمية
وفى النهاية أقتبس مايوضح لنا فلسفة نيتشه
" لو سألنا طفلاً قوياً وشجاعاً : هل تريد أن تكون فاضلاً ؟ لنظر الينا بسخرية
ولو سألناه هل تريد أن تصبح أقوى من زملائك ؟ لنظر إلينا بعينين واسعتين .
................................................
من إصدارات دار افريقيا الشرق
كتاب إرادة القوة
للفيلسوف الألمانى فردريك نيتشه
بترجمة محمد الناجى
.............................................................
هكذا تلخص المقدمة ما اراده نيتشه والتى اطلق عليها محاولة قلب كل القيم
.........................................
أفكار نيتشه التى ظهر ت فى الكتاب
العدمية التى افتتح بها
العودة الابدية - الانسان الراقى
نقد الدين والاخلاق والسياسة والفضيلة والانجطاط
..........................................
كل ما أتامل فى كلمات هذا الفيلسوف لا يبدوا جنونه شيئا غريباً فالرجل استنفذ كل طاقة العقل
وتمرد على كل القواعد
........................
ملاحظات
- حاقدا على الاخلاق والفضيلة
- يحمل تقديرا كبيراً لنابليون
- لا يحمل اى تقدير للمرأة
- هاجم بضراوة شوبنهاور
- هجوم قاسى على المسيحية ورجال الكهنوت
- دفاع عن اصحاب السلوك الاجرامى
- تكريس لفلسفة القوة
- الحاد مطلق
-قلب كل القيم بلا استثناء مهما كلف الامر
- تعليق الأمر كله على الوهم
- امتهان الانسان
............................................
هذا الكتاب لا يقرأ مرة واحدة
أسلوب نيتشه قوى لغويا متمكن فلسفيا
مهد لكل من قدم بعده لافكار الوجودية والعدمية
وفى النهاية أقتبس مايوضح لنا فلسفة نيتشه
" لو سألنا طفلاً قوياً وشجاعاً : هل تريد أن تكون فاضلاً ؟ لنظر الينا بسخرية
ولو سألناه هل تريد أن تصبح أقوى من زملائك ؟ لنظر إلينا بعينين واسعتين .
May 23, 2019
In the final years of his sane life, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, decided to work out a new philosophical programme – a philosophy for the future philosopher. After destroying religion, philosophy, science and morality in his earlier works, and hinting at a future ‘new species’ of man which would take back its freedom to act, the only reasonable thing left do – or so one would think – was to sketch the path to this new species.
Nietzsche was planning to publish this new programme in a work he announced as Wille zur Macht: Versuch einer Umwertung aller Werte in his 1887 publication Zur Genealogie der Moral. Alas, he never got to write this future work: after attempting multiple times to order the necessary material from his notebooks and trying to systematize it, he gave up on his attempt. Then, in January 1889 while in Turin, he threw himself around the neck of a horse, proclaimed the animal a Saint, and was put in a mental hospital by his friends. The rest of his life he basically spent in a vegetative state in his sister’s estate, dying in 1900.
His sister, together with an intimate friend of Nietzsche, decided to publish the unpublished material that he collected for Wille Zur Macht, incorporating relevant material from his older notebooks in the book as well. As far as can be distilled from historical evidence, it was Nietzsche’s friend Heinrich Köselitz (who reportedly was very familiar with Nietzsche’s work and thoughts) who collected and ordered the material; and it was his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche who published the work and gave it its title. Rumour is that Nietzsche’s sister, a proto-nazi herself, used Nietzsche’s material to promote her own ideological causes, but historical analysis doesn’t verify this at all.
Anyway, Der Wille Zur Macht is arguable the most accessible book of Nietzsche. Nietzsche saw himself as a ‘Sentenzen-schleifer’ - a sculptor of sentences – and this explains the inaccessibility of the work he published while still alive. It takes much effort to understand and follow him, a problem that is caused in most cases by his peculiar style of writing. Der Wille Zur Macht, on the other hand, contains his notes and jottings down, while the material itself is basically the same as in his published works. I’d go so far as to claim that reading Der Wille Zur Macht might give one a better insight into Nietzsche’s later philosophy than reading his published works. But yeah, who am I?
The book consists of four volumes, which cannot really be summarized appropriately, since their contents are so wide ranging and overlapping. The same elemental Nietzschean themes return in all the four volumes and in different disguises – this is rather a big plus, since it hammers home the points one didn’t get the first time one encountered them. In Book 1, one can read Nietzsche’s ciriticism of the European nihilism that he saw all around him. The plan was to write a history of European nihilism, as basically Christianity self-destructing through its absurd emphasis on goodness and honesty – science is the dynamite that Christianity created and which is about to destroy Christianity – its truth claims, its morality, etc. – itself.
The second book is occupied with a critique of religion, morality and philosophy (science). Nietzsche fulminates against all and tries to show how all three abominations spring from the same root cause: the will to truth. Which is a good bridge to the third book, in which Nietzsche explains the principle which is responsible for these old perspectives, as well as the foundation for the new values (to be developed in the last book). According to Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, the Will to Power, wants to dominate the world. Morality, science, even logic, are all creations of ourselves, which we then objectify and start to study as if they’re things as such. The truth of logic is inherent in its creation: we subconsciously want the world to be ordered according to logic, so we find it ordered by logical principles. No shit, Sherlock!
This is a deeply disturbing vision on reality, the implications of which most people don’t fully realize. For Nietzsche all attempts to order the world – into good and bad, into truth and falsehood, etc. – are nothing but our own illusions. We create these illusions and then live like these illusions are objective facts. For Nietzsche there are no objective facts, there is only Will to Power. This Will acts on its instincts and enforces its values on the world; when we think we observe facts, we actually read our own values into reality. There are no facts, only interpretations. This is the central theme of Nietzsche’s philosophy.
All we can do is interpret the world from our own perspective; the best we can do is to observe from new, multiple perspectives, which makes us stronger. We should stop believing in the false dichotomies good and bad, true and false – this means we should give up religion, philosophy, science and morality.
But then, seriously, should we do? This is what Nietzsche wanted to work out in the last volume (4) of Der Wille zur Macht. It is arguably the most important (and shortest) part of the whole work. According to Nietzsche, the new species of man has to transcend the old illusions. For starters, he has to recognize and acknowledge that Wille zur Macht is all there is. No more science, religion or morality. Next, he should cultivate himself. Nietzsche uses the word ‘Züchtung’ which means multiple things at the same time: breeding, cultivating, nurture, educate.
What he seems to mean (to me) is that this new breed of man should embrace suffering and feed on it, grow strong from it. Use suffering as nutrition to overcome the existential nihilism and pessimism that life leads to. Through suffering one grows stronger; happiness is only a fleeting reward for overcoming suffering. Disciplining yourself will lead to happiness, but happiness is no end in itself – there is no end. One simply acts, without restraint. Only when one is free in this sense, when one has transcended both acceptance and rejection of suffering, when one simply acts and doesn’t care, is one fit for this new species of man.
The ultimate litmus test, to see if one has reached this state of the Übermensch, is the eternal recurrence. This ‘Euwige Wiederkehr des Gleichen’ – the eternal recurrence of the same – means that due to the constitution of the universe, which is cyclical, your lift – all your suffering and fighting and overcoming life – will recur forever and ever and ever, in the exact same sequence as in the life you’re now leading. Only when one wants, wills, that this life will eternally recur, has one reached the state of the Übermensch.
This in and of itself is rather a comical, metaphysical – and we thought Nietzsche abhorred metaphysics like nature abhors a vacuum! – sketch of the future vision of a recluse. The controversial part – the devil is always in the details – lies in the path to this new species of man. It is pretty obvious that contemporary society breeds degenerate herd animals, so to breed a better species of man, something needs to change. According to Nietzsche, European societies should stop democratizing, stop equalizing everyone, stop fleeing in both otherworldly things (such as religion or metaphysical philosophical systems à la Kant and Spinoza) and pessimism and nihilism (such as Schopenhauerian transcendence and Buddhism).
What is needed, is a society that lets loose all reigns. In such a society, when people can act freely, the most tyrannizing – in spiritual and physical sense – individuals will dominate. The geniuses, the truly Freier Geisten (free spirits) will come to rule. It is these proto-Übermenschen that can then exploit the useless, meaningless masses for their own goals. Like Napoleon used the useless French to pursue his will to dominate and unify Europa. This elite class of human beings, living economically and politically off the worthless masses, will then need to cultivate their Wills, to free themselves of the millennia long indoctrination of ‘conscience’, guilt, pity and shame. This elite is the breeding ground for the new species of man, and the eternal recurrence the litmus test to see when the first of these new men are there.
In short: the species man has to be sacrificed (literally) to breed a new, better species of man.
It is easy to see how these doctrines were very appealing to later Nazi ideologues and it is not surprising that many in Nazi Germany looked to Nietzsche for inspiration. But it would be dishonest and not factual to claim Nietzsche was a proto-Nazi. The doctrines of Nazi ideology were thoroughly anti-Semitic, biological and nationalist. Nietzsche regarded anti-Semitism as the disease of a sick backward German people; when using the term race clearly meant it in a sociological, rather than a biologically determined sense; and looked down on the petty nationalism of people like Bismarck.
The only conclusion that an honest person can (and should) draw from the comparison between Nietzsche and Nazism, is the doctrine that it is morally desirable to sacrifice the masses, which from both perspectives are deemed existentially unworthy and useless, in order to pursue a higher goal: create a nobler and better species of man.
It is unclear to me to what degree Nietzsche actually believed in the words he himself wrote down. He himself was a sickly recluse, a man who physically suffered from disease and want all his life, uncomfortable in the presence of people, feeling alienated from society, and who struggled all his life against his own disappointments and failed expectations. I simply cannot believe he thought himself to be the model for the new species of man, which would mean that he himself would be one of those who had to be sacrificed to breed this new species. Perhaps he saw in this fact a beauty, even a meaning, to a miserable life?
Nietzsche was planning to publish this new programme in a work he announced as Wille zur Macht: Versuch einer Umwertung aller Werte in his 1887 publication Zur Genealogie der Moral. Alas, he never got to write this future work: after attempting multiple times to order the necessary material from his notebooks and trying to systematize it, he gave up on his attempt. Then, in January 1889 while in Turin, he threw himself around the neck of a horse, proclaimed the animal a Saint, and was put in a mental hospital by his friends. The rest of his life he basically spent in a vegetative state in his sister’s estate, dying in 1900.
His sister, together with an intimate friend of Nietzsche, decided to publish the unpublished material that he collected for Wille Zur Macht, incorporating relevant material from his older notebooks in the book as well. As far as can be distilled from historical evidence, it was Nietzsche’s friend Heinrich Köselitz (who reportedly was very familiar with Nietzsche’s work and thoughts) who collected and ordered the material; and it was his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche who published the work and gave it its title. Rumour is that Nietzsche’s sister, a proto-nazi herself, used Nietzsche’s material to promote her own ideological causes, but historical analysis doesn’t verify this at all.
Anyway, Der Wille Zur Macht is arguable the most accessible book of Nietzsche. Nietzsche saw himself as a ‘Sentenzen-schleifer’ - a sculptor of sentences – and this explains the inaccessibility of the work he published while still alive. It takes much effort to understand and follow him, a problem that is caused in most cases by his peculiar style of writing. Der Wille Zur Macht, on the other hand, contains his notes and jottings down, while the material itself is basically the same as in his published works. I’d go so far as to claim that reading Der Wille Zur Macht might give one a better insight into Nietzsche’s later philosophy than reading his published works. But yeah, who am I?
The book consists of four volumes, which cannot really be summarized appropriately, since their contents are so wide ranging and overlapping. The same elemental Nietzschean themes return in all the four volumes and in different disguises – this is rather a big plus, since it hammers home the points one didn’t get the first time one encountered them. In Book 1, one can read Nietzsche’s ciriticism of the European nihilism that he saw all around him. The plan was to write a history of European nihilism, as basically Christianity self-destructing through its absurd emphasis on goodness and honesty – science is the dynamite that Christianity created and which is about to destroy Christianity – its truth claims, its morality, etc. – itself.
The second book is occupied with a critique of religion, morality and philosophy (science). Nietzsche fulminates against all and tries to show how all three abominations spring from the same root cause: the will to truth. Which is a good bridge to the third book, in which Nietzsche explains the principle which is responsible for these old perspectives, as well as the foundation for the new values (to be developed in the last book). According to Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, the Will to Power, wants to dominate the world. Morality, science, even logic, are all creations of ourselves, which we then objectify and start to study as if they’re things as such. The truth of logic is inherent in its creation: we subconsciously want the world to be ordered according to logic, so we find it ordered by logical principles. No shit, Sherlock!
This is a deeply disturbing vision on reality, the implications of which most people don’t fully realize. For Nietzsche all attempts to order the world – into good and bad, into truth and falsehood, etc. – are nothing but our own illusions. We create these illusions and then live like these illusions are objective facts. For Nietzsche there are no objective facts, there is only Will to Power. This Will acts on its instincts and enforces its values on the world; when we think we observe facts, we actually read our own values into reality. There are no facts, only interpretations. This is the central theme of Nietzsche’s philosophy.
All we can do is interpret the world from our own perspective; the best we can do is to observe from new, multiple perspectives, which makes us stronger. We should stop believing in the false dichotomies good and bad, true and false – this means we should give up religion, philosophy, science and morality.
But then, seriously, should we do? This is what Nietzsche wanted to work out in the last volume (4) of Der Wille zur Macht. It is arguably the most important (and shortest) part of the whole work. According to Nietzsche, the new species of man has to transcend the old illusions. For starters, he has to recognize and acknowledge that Wille zur Macht is all there is. No more science, religion or morality. Next, he should cultivate himself. Nietzsche uses the word ‘Züchtung’ which means multiple things at the same time: breeding, cultivating, nurture, educate.
What he seems to mean (to me) is that this new breed of man should embrace suffering and feed on it, grow strong from it. Use suffering as nutrition to overcome the existential nihilism and pessimism that life leads to. Through suffering one grows stronger; happiness is only a fleeting reward for overcoming suffering. Disciplining yourself will lead to happiness, but happiness is no end in itself – there is no end. One simply acts, without restraint. Only when one is free in this sense, when one has transcended both acceptance and rejection of suffering, when one simply acts and doesn’t care, is one fit for this new species of man.
The ultimate litmus test, to see if one has reached this state of the Übermensch, is the eternal recurrence. This ‘Euwige Wiederkehr des Gleichen’ – the eternal recurrence of the same – means that due to the constitution of the universe, which is cyclical, your lift – all your suffering and fighting and overcoming life – will recur forever and ever and ever, in the exact same sequence as in the life you’re now leading. Only when one wants, wills, that this life will eternally recur, has one reached the state of the Übermensch.
This in and of itself is rather a comical, metaphysical – and we thought Nietzsche abhorred metaphysics like nature abhors a vacuum! – sketch of the future vision of a recluse. The controversial part – the devil is always in the details – lies in the path to this new species of man. It is pretty obvious that contemporary society breeds degenerate herd animals, so to breed a better species of man, something needs to change. According to Nietzsche, European societies should stop democratizing, stop equalizing everyone, stop fleeing in both otherworldly things (such as religion or metaphysical philosophical systems à la Kant and Spinoza) and pessimism and nihilism (such as Schopenhauerian transcendence and Buddhism).
What is needed, is a society that lets loose all reigns. In such a society, when people can act freely, the most tyrannizing – in spiritual and physical sense – individuals will dominate. The geniuses, the truly Freier Geisten (free spirits) will come to rule. It is these proto-Übermenschen that can then exploit the useless, meaningless masses for their own goals. Like Napoleon used the useless French to pursue his will to dominate and unify Europa. This elite class of human beings, living economically and politically off the worthless masses, will then need to cultivate their Wills, to free themselves of the millennia long indoctrination of ‘conscience’, guilt, pity and shame. This elite is the breeding ground for the new species of man, and the eternal recurrence the litmus test to see when the first of these new men are there.
In short: the species man has to be sacrificed (literally) to breed a new, better species of man.
It is easy to see how these doctrines were very appealing to later Nazi ideologues and it is not surprising that many in Nazi Germany looked to Nietzsche for inspiration. But it would be dishonest and not factual to claim Nietzsche was a proto-Nazi. The doctrines of Nazi ideology were thoroughly anti-Semitic, biological and nationalist. Nietzsche regarded anti-Semitism as the disease of a sick backward German people; when using the term race clearly meant it in a sociological, rather than a biologically determined sense; and looked down on the petty nationalism of people like Bismarck.
The only conclusion that an honest person can (and should) draw from the comparison between Nietzsche and Nazism, is the doctrine that it is morally desirable to sacrifice the masses, which from both perspectives are deemed existentially unworthy and useless, in order to pursue a higher goal: create a nobler and better species of man.
It is unclear to me to what degree Nietzsche actually believed in the words he himself wrote down. He himself was a sickly recluse, a man who physically suffered from disease and want all his life, uncomfortable in the presence of people, feeling alienated from society, and who struggled all his life against his own disappointments and failed expectations. I simply cannot believe he thought himself to be the model for the new species of man, which would mean that he himself would be one of those who had to be sacrificed to breed this new species. Perhaps he saw in this fact a beauty, even a meaning, to a miserable life?
January 28, 2012
این آخرین جملات نیچه در این کتاب هست:
و آيا مي دانيد جهان از نظر من چيست؟ آيا آن را در آينه ي خويش به شما نشان خواهم داد؟ اين جهان هيولايي از كارمايه (انرژي) است، بي آغاز و بي انجام، يك انبوه محكم و آهنين از نيرو كه بزرگتر يا كوچكتر نمي شود، كه خود را به مصرف نمي رساند، بلكه تنها خود را دگرگون مي سازد؛ در كل، اندازه ي دگرگوني ناپذير دارد، موجودي خانه اش نه خرج مي شود و نه هرز مي رود، اما نيز بر درآمدش افزوده نمي شود؛ محصور در حصار <هيچي> است؛ نه چيزي محو شدني يا هدر رفتني است نه چيزي كه گسترش بي پايان يافته باشد، بلكه در فضايي معين همچون نيرويي معين قرار گرفته است، و نه فضايي كه ممكن است اينجا و آنجا خالي باشد، بلكه همچون فضايي از نيروي سراسري، همچون بازي نيرو ها و امواج نيرو ها، در همان حال يكي و بسياري، فزاينده در اينجا و در عين حال كاهنده در آنجا؛ دريايي از نيرو ها كه جاري مي شوند و با هم هجوم مي آورند، جاودانه در حال دگرگوني، جاودانه در حال سيلان معكوس، با سالهاي عظيم رجعت، با افت و خيز در صور آن؛ از ساده ترين صورت ها به جانب پيچيده ترين ها تلاش و تقلا مي كند، از آرامترين، صلب ترين و سردترين صورتها به جانب خروشان ترين، پرتناقض ترين و داغترين ها، و سپس از نوبه خانه بازمي گردد، از چندگانگي به سادگي، از بازي تناقضات به لذت هماهنگي، در حالي كه همچنان در اين نظم چرخه ها و سالها ابراز وجود مي كند، خود را متبرك مي سازد همچون صيروتي كه هيچ سيري، هيچ بيزاري، هيچ خستگي نمي شناسد: اين است دنياي ديونيزوسي من كه جاودانه خود-آفريننده، جاودانه خود-ويران كننده است، دنياي رمز و راز شادماني شهوتناك دو لايه، اين است آنچه من فراسوي نيك وبد مي خوانم، بي هدف، مگر اين كه لذت دوران خود یک هدف باشد؛ بدون اراده، مگر اين كه يك حلقه اين اراده ي نيك را داشته باشد كه تا ابد، در مدار خودش، گرد خويش بچرخد.
آيا براي اين جهان نامي مي خواهيد؟ پاسخي به همه ي معماهاي آن؟ نوري براي شما، نيز، براي شما پنهان ترين، نيرومندترين، بي پرواترين و مرموزترينِ مردمان؟ اين جهان اراده ي قدرت است - و ديگر هيچ! و شما نيز خود اراده ي قدرت ايد - و ديگر هيچ!
و آيا مي دانيد جهان از نظر من چيست؟ آيا آن را در آينه ي خويش به شما نشان خواهم داد؟ اين جهان هيولايي از كارمايه (انرژي) است، بي آغاز و بي انجام، يك انبوه محكم و آهنين از نيرو كه بزرگتر يا كوچكتر نمي شود، كه خود را به مصرف نمي رساند، بلكه تنها خود را دگرگون مي سازد؛ در كل، اندازه ي دگرگوني ناپذير دارد، موجودي خانه اش نه خرج مي شود و نه هرز مي رود، اما نيز بر درآمدش افزوده نمي شود؛ محصور در حصار <هيچي> است؛ نه چيزي محو شدني يا هدر رفتني است نه چيزي كه گسترش بي پايان يافته باشد، بلكه در فضايي معين همچون نيرويي معين قرار گرفته است، و نه فضايي كه ممكن است اينجا و آنجا خالي باشد، بلكه همچون فضايي از نيروي سراسري، همچون بازي نيرو ها و امواج نيرو ها، در همان حال يكي و بسياري، فزاينده در اينجا و در عين حال كاهنده در آنجا؛ دريايي از نيرو ها كه جاري مي شوند و با هم هجوم مي آورند، جاودانه در حال دگرگوني، جاودانه در حال سيلان معكوس، با سالهاي عظيم رجعت، با افت و خيز در صور آن؛ از ساده ترين صورت ها به جانب پيچيده ترين ها تلاش و تقلا مي كند، از آرامترين، صلب ترين و سردترين صورتها به جانب خروشان ترين، پرتناقض ترين و داغترين ها، و سپس از نوبه خانه بازمي گردد، از چندگانگي به سادگي، از بازي تناقضات به لذت هماهنگي، در حالي كه همچنان در اين نظم چرخه ها و سالها ابراز وجود مي كند، خود را متبرك مي سازد همچون صيروتي كه هيچ سيري، هيچ بيزاري، هيچ خستگي نمي شناسد: اين است دنياي ديونيزوسي من كه جاودانه خود-آفريننده، جاودانه خود-ويران كننده است، دنياي رمز و راز شادماني شهوتناك دو لايه، اين است آنچه من فراسوي نيك وبد مي خوانم، بي هدف، مگر اين كه لذت دوران خود یک هدف باشد؛ بدون اراده، مگر اين كه يك حلقه اين اراده ي نيك را داشته باشد كه تا ابد، در مدار خودش، گرد خويش بچرخد.
آيا براي اين جهان نامي مي خواهيد؟ پاسخي به همه ي معماهاي آن؟ نوري براي شما، نيز، براي شما پنهان ترين، نيرومندترين، بي پرواترين و مرموزترينِ مردمان؟ اين جهان اراده ي قدرت است - و ديگر هيچ! و شما نيز خود اراده ي قدرت ايد - و ديگر هيچ!
August 11, 2024
نیمه اول خوب پیش میره
نیچه همون نیچهایه که میشناسیم.
در ادامه نیچه تبدیل میشه به یه موجود غریب توهمی که هیچ سنخیتی با نیچهای که میشناسی نداره. یه خودشیفته که سبک خود شیفتگیش خیلی متفاوته از خودشیفتگی نیچه. خودشیفتگی نیچه برای من چیزی شبیه سلینه. من از بقیتون بهترم چون میدونم هیچ عنی نیستم. اما اینجا نیچه یه نویسندهی از خود راضیه که واقعا فک میکنه خیلی بهتره از بقیه:)؟؟؟
انقد عجیب بود که حس میکنم کتاب رو اشتباه فهمیدم
نیچه همون نیچهایه که میشناسیم.
در ادامه نیچه تبدیل میشه به یه موجود غریب توهمی که هیچ سنخیتی با نیچهای که میشناسی نداره. یه خودشیفته که سبک خود شیفتگیش خیلی متفاوته از خودشیفتگی نیچه. خودشیفتگی نیچه برای من چیزی شبیه سلینه. من از بقیتون بهترم چون میدونم هیچ عنی نیستم. اما اینجا نیچه یه نویسندهی از خود راضیه که واقعا فک میکنه خیلی بهتره از بقیه:)؟؟؟
انقد عجیب بود که حس میکنم کتاب رو اشتباه فهمیدم
February 11, 2018
I approached The Will to Power with some caution, knowing that it is not a refined and completed work but rather a collection of Nietzsche’s previously-unpublished writings, organized thematically. Readers are justified in wondering just how heavy an editorial hand was exercised upon this work by Friedrich’s tawdry, conniving bitch of a sister, who shared some of his mental instability but none of his intelligence.
That being said, there’s not much evidence that the actual content of the writings has been changed. The nervous electricity coursing through these aphorisms and the profound self-examination from which they issue forth are inimitably Nietzsche’s, and because they are halfway between notes and finalized material, they provide an intriguing window into Nietzsche’s creative process.
It is difficult to be comprehensive in reviewing the most idiosyncratic book of one of Europe’s most idiosyncratic thinkers, but I don’t think I’m remiss in saying that Nietzsche is largely concerned with how to live a fulfilling and meaningful existence in a world that has discarded its belief in absolute truth without succumbing to a life-denying nihilism.
Nietzsche objected to Christianity, Buddhism, and Platonic philosophy not so much because they provided moral imperatives or a framework of meaning, but because each of these moral systems laid a groundwork for nihilistic decadence. Each of them denied to some extent the “reality” of the phenomenal world, positing an absolute, transcendent world towards which our natural lives should be oriented. For Christians, this “other” world is called Heaven or the Kingdom of God; for Buddhists, Nirvana; for Platonists, the world of the forms. There is a belief in each of these systems that earnest pursuit of truth and knowledge will reveal the nature of this absolute, irreducible being.
The advent of (post)modernity has made it impossible for us to believe in any objective world at all, let alone an absolute, “supernatural” world through which the phenomenal world can be mediated, like C.G. Jung’s unus mundus. In place of objective truth, we now have an endless kaleidoscope of subjective interpretations. The modern world, according to Nietzsche, is now one in which the moral teachers continue to deny the reality of this life, while the “other” life—the ideal, “truthful” life—has become impossible to believe in. Their search for objective truth has led them into a realization that there is no objective truth; but still they carry the life-denying prohibitions of a dead faith. They believe neither in God nor in humanity, which, as Nietzsche would have it, is the essence of nihilism.
Collectivized nihilism is a dangerous thing; but for enterprising spirits, it can be a fruitful impetus for change; for liberation from a tottering regime of truth. For centuries, we’ve displaced our most vital instincts in our concept of God. We let God be powerful, wise, spirited, free, and alive, so that we don’t have to be. Let us have the courage to own our passions, to harness the power of our emotionality, to love the earth, to delight in life for its own sake, to embrace the aesthetic over the acetic. Let us eat at Cinnabon, crash a stranger’s quinceañera, bark at dogs, and have sex in public parks.
And as the police are leading you in handcuffs to the squad car because you got caught having sex in a public park, cry out for the crowd of bystanders to hear: “This world is the will to power — and nothing besides! And even you yourselves are this will to power — and nothing besides!”
That being said, there’s not much evidence that the actual content of the writings has been changed. The nervous electricity coursing through these aphorisms and the profound self-examination from which they issue forth are inimitably Nietzsche’s, and because they are halfway between notes and finalized material, they provide an intriguing window into Nietzsche’s creative process.
It is difficult to be comprehensive in reviewing the most idiosyncratic book of one of Europe’s most idiosyncratic thinkers, but I don’t think I’m remiss in saying that Nietzsche is largely concerned with how to live a fulfilling and meaningful existence in a world that has discarded its belief in absolute truth without succumbing to a life-denying nihilism.
Nietzsche objected to Christianity, Buddhism, and Platonic philosophy not so much because they provided moral imperatives or a framework of meaning, but because each of these moral systems laid a groundwork for nihilistic decadence. Each of them denied to some extent the “reality” of the phenomenal world, positing an absolute, transcendent world towards which our natural lives should be oriented. For Christians, this “other” world is called Heaven or the Kingdom of God; for Buddhists, Nirvana; for Platonists, the world of the forms. There is a belief in each of these systems that earnest pursuit of truth and knowledge will reveal the nature of this absolute, irreducible being.
The advent of (post)modernity has made it impossible for us to believe in any objective world at all, let alone an absolute, “supernatural” world through which the phenomenal world can be mediated, like C.G. Jung’s unus mundus. In place of objective truth, we now have an endless kaleidoscope of subjective interpretations. The modern world, according to Nietzsche, is now one in which the moral teachers continue to deny the reality of this life, while the “other” life—the ideal, “truthful” life—has become impossible to believe in. Their search for objective truth has led them into a realization that there is no objective truth; but still they carry the life-denying prohibitions of a dead faith. They believe neither in God nor in humanity, which, as Nietzsche would have it, is the essence of nihilism.
Collectivized nihilism is a dangerous thing; but for enterprising spirits, it can be a fruitful impetus for change; for liberation from a tottering regime of truth. For centuries, we’ve displaced our most vital instincts in our concept of God. We let God be powerful, wise, spirited, free, and alive, so that we don’t have to be. Let us have the courage to own our passions, to harness the power of our emotionality, to love the earth, to delight in life for its own sake, to embrace the aesthetic over the acetic. Let us eat at Cinnabon, crash a stranger’s quinceañera, bark at dogs, and have sex in public parks.
And as the police are leading you in handcuffs to the squad car because you got caught having sex in a public park, cry out for the crowd of bystanders to hear: “This world is the will to power — and nothing besides! And even you yourselves are this will to power — and nothing besides!”
September 18, 2015
Simply a fascinating look into the creative period of one of the most enigmatic and profound minds in German history, Nietzsche's "Will to Power" offers a unique look simply because in contradistiction to his polished published books, this is merely a collection of his most interesting notes arranged topically by editors and published after his death. What is most remarkable about this fact is how so many people could actually mistake this work for a supposed crowning systematic philosophy. Clearly the scattered notes and unpolished thoughts are nothing close to Nietzsche's masterfully written aphorisms and dithrymbs in his published works, but that doesn't make this work any less illuminating and interesting.
In the Will to Power we find Nietzsche's thoughts on morality, on Plato, Christianity, Islam, and, of course, Kant and Milll. Thoughts on Darwinism are especially illuminating, as well as his thoughts on the eternal recurrence of all things. Nietzsche's thoughts on statism, politics, socialism, race, etc., are very interesting as there is much that is not present in any of N's others works. Another high point is that, for once, we hear almost nothing of Wagner for a change.
This is a must read, but a must read AFTER one has read Nietzsche's canon in itself. I am glad I read this last, and having completed this, I have read Nietzsche in toto...at least what is translated to English.
Onwards and Upwards ye free spirits!
-b
In the Will to Power we find Nietzsche's thoughts on morality, on Plato, Christianity, Islam, and, of course, Kant and Milll. Thoughts on Darwinism are especially illuminating, as well as his thoughts on the eternal recurrence of all things. Nietzsche's thoughts on statism, politics, socialism, race, etc., are very interesting as there is much that is not present in any of N's others works. Another high point is that, for once, we hear almost nothing of Wagner for a change.
This is a must read, but a must read AFTER one has read Nietzsche's canon in itself. I am glad I read this last, and having completed this, I have read Nietzsche in toto...at least what is translated to English.
Onwards and Upwards ye free spirits!
-b
August 5, 2017
This is not a book, it is set of essays for Friedrich published after his death, which I consider it as a rich text of him. Very accurate and informative essays. It can be used as a reference for the writers.
Absolutely deserves five starts as well as the translation was excellent.
Absolutely deserves five starts as well as the translation was excellent.
May 11, 2020
Ίσως το πιο δύσκολο βιβλίο του Νίτσε, και αυτό λόγω του μεγάλου του όγκου. Όντας ένα από τα κύρια του έργα, αποτελεί το σκαρί του ζαρατούστρα, και όλα του ελάσσονα έργα του όπως: το λυκόφως των ειδώλων, ο αντίχριστος, ecce homo κλπ, είναι απλά αποκυήματα της μεγάλης ναυαρχίδας του Νίτσε, που δεν είναι άλλη από την συνειδητοποίηση πως το όν, και ως εκ τούτου το είναι, είναι θέληση για δύναμη. Ή βούληση για ισχύ, καλύτερα. Στο παρόν βιβλίο ο Νίτσε καταρρίπτει τους βεβιασμένους οπτιμιστές που ψάχνουν καταφύγιο στον θρίαμβο του Δαρβίνου, αποδεικνύοντας πως η πορεία του όντως δεν περιγράφεται από μια γεωμετρική πρόοδο, αλλά από μια σπείρα. Γυρίζουμε γύρω από το ίδιο σημείο ισορροπίας με μια μικρή άνοδο κάθε φορά. Ξεψαχνίζοντας την φυσιολογία του σώματος, αλλά και της ηθικής που είναι απόρροια της σχέσης του ανθρώπου με το σώμα του (με την ενθάδε ζωή), καταλήγει στο συμπέρασμα πως πρωταρχικές ανάγκες όπως πείνα, δίψα, νύστα κτλ, δεν είναι από μόνες τους κινητήριες δυνάμεις per se, αλλά απόρροιες, αίτια μιας ανικανοποίητης βούλησης για ισχύ. Τουτέστιν όλα ανάγονται σε μια βαθμίδα ισχύος, όπου ψυχολογικές καταστάσεις σαν την θλίψη και την ευδαιμονία είναι απλά αποτελέσματα μιας έκλυσης ενέργειας, που πέτυχε η απέτυχε αντίστοιχα να υπερκεράσει την προβαλλόμενη αντίσταση. Ως εκ τούτου, η δύναμη δεν είναι κάτι απτό και παρατηρήσιμο, αλλά αντίθετα παρατηρείται μόνο από τα ίχνη που αφήνει στον φυσικό κόσμο μετά την επαφή της με κάποιο φυσικό αντικείμενο. Έχοντας αυτό στον νού μας, μπορούμε να πάρουμε μια ιδέα από θεμελιώδη μηχανική του όντως κατά τον Νίτσε. Φυσικά δε λείπουν και τα καντήλια όπως πάντα, ιδεαλιστές, φυσιοδίφες, ασκητές, επιστήμονες περνάνε γενεές δεκατέσσερις, όπως πάντα δηλαδή. Καταλήγουμε πως η υπέρτατη βούληση για ισχύ, είναι η τέχνη, αλλά αυτό μας το είπε και ο heidegger στον δοκίμιο του σχετικά με αυτό το έργο του Νίτσε. Γενικά μου έβγαλε την πίστη, κουραστικός και επαναλαμβανόμενος....Αλλά δε θα ήταν Νίτσε αν δεν ήταν όλα αυτά. Παραμένει ο μεγάλος μύστης του 19ου αιώνα
April 17, 2015
إذا إردت أن تقرأ لنيتشه أو عن نيتشه فلابد لك من قراءة مصادره ، وخاصة هذا المصدر
كتاب إرادة القوة / وبالتحديد نص المجنون
https://ar-ar.facebook.com/philosophy...
بالتأكيد النص سيكون صادما لكثير من القراء ، بالتحديد غير الدارسين لفلسفة نيتشه
لكن هذا النص له تفسير فلسفي مختلف تماما عن ظاهره
فالمعني الباطن مختلف تماما
البعض يقول أن نيتشه تنبأ بجنونه في هذا النص قبل ان يفقد عقله بعد ذلك بالفعل
لذلك يقولون أن جنونه إرادي
مثل والدة شارلي شابلن
والكاتبة فيرجينيا وولف
ومي زيادة
كتاب إرادة القوة / وبالتحديد نص المجنون
https://ar-ar.facebook.com/philosophy...
بالتأكيد النص سيكون صادما لكثير من القراء ، بالتحديد غير الدارسين لفلسفة نيتشه
لكن هذا النص له تفسير فلسفي مختلف تماما عن ظاهره
فالمعني الباطن مختلف تماما
البعض يقول أن نيتشه تنبأ بجنونه في هذا النص قبل ان يفقد عقله بعد ذلك بالفعل
لذلك يقولون أن جنونه إرادي
مثل والدة شارلي شابلن
والكاتبة فيرجينيا وولف
ومي زيادة
March 17, 2018
إرادة القوة تتطلب الشك، الاعتراض، التمرد، الكذب، اختلاق حياة أخرى، الانحطاط، المعرفة. وكل بقدر مناسب في الوقت المناسب. نيتشه يشرح هذا في الكتاب.
August 5, 2021
Sartre > Nietzche @ me.
So I was unaware before I picked this up that this is, essentially, Nietzche’s Pensées; a series of disparate ideas and notes for other works collected from his journals that he was unable to ever really accumulate and organize before his death by syphilis. It’s also not meant to be read as his final thoughts on the stuff he’s reflecting on, although from what I know about Freddy many of these thoughts/ideas are relatively emblematic of his philosophy.
Soooooo yeah! I’ll just do a little bullet-pointed list of some thoughts I have on his thoughts/this book, in good disorganized manner:
—Many of Nietzche’s criticisms of the church and Christianity are super sound, I think? By no means all of them (I think he misunderstands the final goal of Christianity completely), but his insights that the church often functions to weaken individuals in mind, body, and soul, delude them, and otherwise indoctrinate a sense of victimhood-cloaked-as-martyrdom are things I’ve experienced firsthand and do not, as the kids say, vibe with. “The church is the barbarism of Christianity,” is a banger of a quote though, and his praise of the person of Jesus is surprising and refreshing to me—I think Nietzche would like St. Irenaeus’ idea that “The glory of God is man fully alive,” despite rejecting the existence of God.
—His claim that pretty much all human instincts and actions stem from a “Will to power” rubbed me the wrong way initially, but when you define power as “the ability to influence the world and expand yourself” rather than “subjugate people to your authority,” I think it makes a lot of sense and is a pretty nifty idea actually! I have some BEEF with this guy that I’ll get to soon, but his emphasis on self-development, dealing with the suffering in life with strength and resolution and constantly improving yourself into the best version of yourself, is v cool.
—His adoration/deifying of Art is really interesting too! If, like he says, truth, reasoning, morality, and God are all socially constructed myths, it’s neat to me that he’d put Art and Beauty on such a pedestal—he never really justifies why he does this systematically, but I’m assuming it has something to do with a vision of what man is capable of when their fully self-actualized or something, and that’s kinda cool.
—Now for negative stuff! This probably just comes with reading a collection of disorganized notes, but so much of this comes off as self-contradictory? Like in two notes he gives “Will” different, mutually exclusive definitions, and seems to flip-flop in his view of Truth, Beauty, and Morality (I.e. if all morality is a myth, then what in particular makes this Will to Power ~good~? Like why place meaning onto that, arbitrarily? Cuz the whole universe shows that impulse to power? Well who cares, if truth and morality don’t exist? Idk).
—Now for my big issue! This probably is a 4-or-5-star book as far as power of writing, influence of thought, and cultural relevance go, but this dude’s a literal eugenicist? His whole philosophy of the Will to power carries the implication that those who are weak/do not carry this will to power (which he assumes is innate, for some reason?) should be winnowed out from the strong, which, yikes. And then at one point he literally says that the state should have the right to castrate weak groups of the population, and I said, “No thanks!” I take issue with that on an instinctive, pre-cognitive level, but also rationally don’t think it makes a lick of sense? Like if no one ever did anything to strengthen a weak person and sacrifice a bit of their energy for the sake of someone else, then we’d all be dead before we could form memories because our mamas wouldn’t feed us 🤷♂️ I think I’d almost totally get down with Nietzche if he wasn’t so randomly individualistic? Like if he could translate this theory of the Will to Power onto a collective scale, where instead of winnowing off ~the weak~, we do all we can to strengthen all of mankind because we’re inherently interdependent (or care for others just because this strengthens another side of us that isn’t rooted in possession and greed), and do all we can to increase the collective strength of all people, that’d be so so sick! I think Simone de Beauvoir explores that idea actually, so I’m gonna have to read her now I guess!
Anyways, reading this concurrently with Elie Wiesel’s Night put a really bad taste in my mouth because the Holocaust is really a natural practice of some of the ideas present in this work, so to that, I say 🖕
So I was unaware before I picked this up that this is, essentially, Nietzche’s Pensées; a series of disparate ideas and notes for other works collected from his journals that he was unable to ever really accumulate and organize before his death by syphilis. It’s also not meant to be read as his final thoughts on the stuff he’s reflecting on, although from what I know about Freddy many of these thoughts/ideas are relatively emblematic of his philosophy.
Soooooo yeah! I’ll just do a little bullet-pointed list of some thoughts I have on his thoughts/this book, in good disorganized manner:
—Many of Nietzche’s criticisms of the church and Christianity are super sound, I think? By no means all of them (I think he misunderstands the final goal of Christianity completely), but his insights that the church often functions to weaken individuals in mind, body, and soul, delude them, and otherwise indoctrinate a sense of victimhood-cloaked-as-martyrdom are things I’ve experienced firsthand and do not, as the kids say, vibe with. “The church is the barbarism of Christianity,” is a banger of a quote though, and his praise of the person of Jesus is surprising and refreshing to me—I think Nietzche would like St. Irenaeus’ idea that “The glory of God is man fully alive,” despite rejecting the existence of God.
—His claim that pretty much all human instincts and actions stem from a “Will to power” rubbed me the wrong way initially, but when you define power as “the ability to influence the world and expand yourself” rather than “subjugate people to your authority,” I think it makes a lot of sense and is a pretty nifty idea actually! I have some BEEF with this guy that I’ll get to soon, but his emphasis on self-development, dealing with the suffering in life with strength and resolution and constantly improving yourself into the best version of yourself, is v cool.
—His adoration/deifying of Art is really interesting too! If, like he says, truth, reasoning, morality, and God are all socially constructed myths, it’s neat to me that he’d put Art and Beauty on such a pedestal—he never really justifies why he does this systematically, but I’m assuming it has something to do with a vision of what man is capable of when their fully self-actualized or something, and that’s kinda cool.
—Now for negative stuff! This probably just comes with reading a collection of disorganized notes, but so much of this comes off as self-contradictory? Like in two notes he gives “Will” different, mutually exclusive definitions, and seems to flip-flop in his view of Truth, Beauty, and Morality (I.e. if all morality is a myth, then what in particular makes this Will to Power ~good~? Like why place meaning onto that, arbitrarily? Cuz the whole universe shows that impulse to power? Well who cares, if truth and morality don’t exist? Idk).
—Now for my big issue! This probably is a 4-or-5-star book as far as power of writing, influence of thought, and cultural relevance go, but this dude’s a literal eugenicist? His whole philosophy of the Will to power carries the implication that those who are weak/do not carry this will to power (which he assumes is innate, for some reason?) should be winnowed out from the strong, which, yikes. And then at one point he literally says that the state should have the right to castrate weak groups of the population, and I said, “No thanks!” I take issue with that on an instinctive, pre-cognitive level, but also rationally don’t think it makes a lick of sense? Like if no one ever did anything to strengthen a weak person and sacrifice a bit of their energy for the sake of someone else, then we’d all be dead before we could form memories because our mamas wouldn’t feed us 🤷♂️ I think I’d almost totally get down with Nietzche if he wasn’t so randomly individualistic? Like if he could translate this theory of the Will to Power onto a collective scale, where instead of winnowing off ~the weak~, we do all we can to strengthen all of mankind because we’re inherently interdependent (or care for others just because this strengthens another side of us that isn’t rooted in possession and greed), and do all we can to increase the collective strength of all people, that’d be so so sick! I think Simone de Beauvoir explores that idea actually, so I’m gonna have to read her now I guess!
Anyways, reading this concurrently with Elie Wiesel’s Night put a really bad taste in my mouth because the Holocaust is really a natural practice of some of the ideas present in this work, so to that, I say 🖕
January 12, 2015
The Will to Power is an incomplete book. It was one that Nietzsche fully intended to complete but was never able to because he contracted syphilis and was unable to complete any more complete books.
Through the compilation of the notebooks we get a rough sketch of the ideas of will to power, eternal recurrence and some genuinely polished aphorisms. But if you want to delve deeply into the ideas of Nietzsche's philosophy please read any number of his other books. For example: The Genealogy of Morals, Gay Science, and Thus Spake Zarathustra.
The writing is polished in some places and rough in others. This make sense given that these are unpublished notebooks not a complete text. The translation is well done and easy to understand. Kaufmann is always the preferred translator of Nietzsche.
I would recommend The Will to Power to anyone who wants a good philosophic read. But recommend the published books of Nietzsche over this one because this one had to be rescued from the ringer of propaganda his sisters misguided distortion of his philosophy.
Through the compilation of the notebooks we get a rough sketch of the ideas of will to power, eternal recurrence and some genuinely polished aphorisms. But if you want to delve deeply into the ideas of Nietzsche's philosophy please read any number of his other books. For example: The Genealogy of Morals, Gay Science, and Thus Spake Zarathustra.
The writing is polished in some places and rough in others. This make sense given that these are unpublished notebooks not a complete text. The translation is well done and easy to understand. Kaufmann is always the preferred translator of Nietzsche.
I would recommend The Will to Power to anyone who wants a good philosophic read. But recommend the published books of Nietzsche over this one because this one had to be rescued from the ringer of propaganda his sisters misguided distortion of his philosophy.
November 27, 2012
The most purely philosophical and easily digestible summation of Nietzsche's ideas, written by Nietzsche himself. Whether you agree with him or not, well, of course, that's your choice. If you agree with all of his aphorisms, well, I think you should perhaps go on a some sort of inhibitor of some kind, or perhaps become a French postmodernist. I'm very glad Nietzsche's ideas exist and are discussed, even if I believe they are almost all reactionary and critical, rather than creating some solid framework of their own. This type of thinking always has its limitations and they should be kept in mind when reading such a flashy philosopher. Honestly, reading Nietzsche has a way of giving me a stomach-ache.
My favorite work of his will always be Ecce Homo; it gives madmen such a lively, lovely, (crazy,) poetic voice.
My favorite work of his will always be Ecce Homo; it gives madmen such a lively, lovely, (crazy,) poetic voice.
February 7, 2021
This is not a book by Nietzsche at all -- just a posthumous collection of passages from his notebooks and other unfinished works, ripped out of context and arbitrarily catalogued according to "topic" by his antisemitic sister and brother-in-law.
June 25, 2022
Collected from Nietzsche's notes and published posthumously, as well as edited in part by his sister (whom he had serious political disagreements with), it's not so easy to claim that this book is "by Nietzsche" -- a collection of notes, none of which were approved by the author for publication, cannot be presented as a book written by him, one might argue.
Some of the notes are clearly notes, meaning they are the beginnings of thoughts which Nietzsche probably meant to expand on at a later time, and some notes were most likely considered by Nietzsche to be unworthy of publication -- as is true with most personal notebooks.
These were my reasons for avoiding this book, which i did for many years, but now I regret it. Because even after all these caveats, there is no mistaking it: the ideas and words in this book are Nietzsche's, and some of them are among his most brilliant.
Perhaps Nietzsche was uncertain regarding the publication of some of his ideas (he originally meant to write a book titled 'the will to power', but later changed his mind and wrote two other books from the notes which were originally meant for it), as some of them deal with hard science (while Nietzsche's talents were always in psychology) and verge on the attempt of creating a metaphysical system -- which goes against Nietzsche's own beliefs about the world.
But as I said -- it is brilliant. Even the parts that are not fully formulated, and even the parts that are probably false.
Some of the ideas in this book:
The description of particles as centers of force, and the fact that they do not exist on their own but only when observed; a different theory of evolution, which credits adaptation not to random mutations but to a deliberate adaptation by the organism; an analysis of nihilism, its causes, and the cures for it; a brilliant critique of logic; a psychological theory of religion and morality, based in full on physiology; more critiques of nationalism, capitalism, socialism, feminism, anarchism, antisemitism (is it any wonder Nietzsche is disliked by ideologues on all sides? that is, when they aren't cherry-picking those of his arguments which can help them criticize their enemies.)
For those who conceive of Nietzsche as an elitist -- perhaps he his, but his views are nowhere nearly as simple as that. For example:
"The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling classes has been the cause of all the great disorders in history".
As for issues of race: If you wish to disagree with Nietzsche's views on race, you must first understand them. For Nietzsche, a race is the means by which a people select for certain qualities which can then, over time, become instincts -- the "ruling race" is no specific race which exists today, but a race to be created by promoting desirable characteristics (skin color is not one of them; there is even a passage in this book which advocates for race-mixing. Nietzsche is after the deeper qualities of mind and will). Nietzsche had a very low opinion of the Germans of his time, and he despised both nationalism and antisemitism. So while most of us will still disagree with his actual views on breeding and race (sterilization of the disabled, etc.), a comparison with Nazism is highly unjustified. As always, his opinions are extremely nuanced and must not be simplified for the sake of either demonizing or glorifying him, as tempting as that may be. And above all, Nietzsche's views put his ideal individual above any average person, of any race, and interpreting his views as focused on genetics or superficial visual differences is missing the point all together.
Some of the notes are clearly notes, meaning they are the beginnings of thoughts which Nietzsche probably meant to expand on at a later time, and some notes were most likely considered by Nietzsche to be unworthy of publication -- as is true with most personal notebooks.
These were my reasons for avoiding this book, which i did for many years, but now I regret it. Because even after all these caveats, there is no mistaking it: the ideas and words in this book are Nietzsche's, and some of them are among his most brilliant.
Perhaps Nietzsche was uncertain regarding the publication of some of his ideas (he originally meant to write a book titled 'the will to power', but later changed his mind and wrote two other books from the notes which were originally meant for it), as some of them deal with hard science (while Nietzsche's talents were always in psychology) and verge on the attempt of creating a metaphysical system -- which goes against Nietzsche's own beliefs about the world.
But as I said -- it is brilliant. Even the parts that are not fully formulated, and even the parts that are probably false.
Some of the ideas in this book:
The description of particles as centers of force, and the fact that they do not exist on their own but only when observed; a different theory of evolution, which credits adaptation not to random mutations but to a deliberate adaptation by the organism; an analysis of nihilism, its causes, and the cures for it; a brilliant critique of logic; a psychological theory of religion and morality, based in full on physiology; more critiques of nationalism, capitalism, socialism, feminism, anarchism, antisemitism (is it any wonder Nietzsche is disliked by ideologues on all sides? that is, when they aren't cherry-picking those of his arguments which can help them criticize their enemies.)
For those who conceive of Nietzsche as an elitist -- perhaps he his, but his views are nowhere nearly as simple as that. For example:
"The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling classes has been the cause of all the great disorders in history".
As for issues of race: If you wish to disagree with Nietzsche's views on race, you must first understand them. For Nietzsche, a race is the means by which a people select for certain qualities which can then, over time, become instincts -- the "ruling race" is no specific race which exists today, but a race to be created by promoting desirable characteristics (skin color is not one of them; there is even a passage in this book which advocates for race-mixing. Nietzsche is after the deeper qualities of mind and will). Nietzsche had a very low opinion of the Germans of his time, and he despised both nationalism and antisemitism. So while most of us will still disagree with his actual views on breeding and race (sterilization of the disabled, etc.), a comparison with Nazism is highly unjustified. As always, his opinions are extremely nuanced and must not be simplified for the sake of either demonizing or glorifying him, as tempting as that may be. And above all, Nietzsche's views put his ideal individual above any average person, of any race, and interpreting his views as focused on genetics or superficial visual differences is missing the point all together.
November 22, 2024
It took me a little over a year to fully finish.
Only read if you've read all Nietzsche's other work, as you'll need the context to make any sense of the later sections.
My favourite parts were the sections on epistemology.
Just going to post a few of the quotes I saved along the way.
"Self-contentment is as little a standard for that to which it relates as it's absence is an argument against the value of a thing."
"One must possess something in order to be something. " But this is the oldest and healthiest of all instincts: I should add, " one must want to have more than one has in order to become more." For this is the doctrine preached by life itself to all that has life: the morality of development. To have and to want to have more—growth, in one word -that is life itself."
"what were the advantages of the Christian moral hypothesis? 1. It granted man an absolute value, as opposed to his smallness and accidental occurrence in the flux of becoming and passing away.
2. It served The advocates of God insofar as it conceded to the world, in spite of suffering and evil, the character of perfection - including "freedom": evil appeared full of meaning.
3. It posited that man had a knowledge of absolute values and thus adequate knowledge precisely regarding what is most important.
4. It prevented man from despising himself as man, from taking sides against life; from despairing of knowledge: it was a means of preservation.
In sum: morality was the great antidote against practical and theoretical nihilism.
"But among the forces cultivated by morality was truthfulness: this eventually turned against morality discovered it's teleology, it's partial perspective - and now the recognition of this inveterate mendaciousness that one despair of shedding becomes a stimulant. Now we discover in ourselves needs implanted by centuries of moral interpretation - needs that now appear to us as needs for untruth; on the other hand, the value for which we endure life seems to hinge on these needs. This antagonism - not to esteem what we know, and not to be allowed any longer to esteem The lies we should like to tell ourselves - results in the process of dissolution."
"It is not a matter of going ahead (—for then one is at best a herdsmen, i.e., the herds chief requirement), but of being able to go it alone, of being able to be different."
"thought cannot be derived, anymore than sensations can be; but that does not mean that it's primordiality or "being-in itself" has been proved! All that is established is that we cannot get beyond it, because we have nothing but thought and sensation."
"Reason," evolved on a sensualistic basis, on the prejudices of the senses, i.e, In the belief in the truth of the judgments of the senses. —...
"Being—we have no idea of it apart from the idea of "living." — How can anything dead "be"?
Only read if you've read all Nietzsche's other work, as you'll need the context to make any sense of the later sections.
My favourite parts were the sections on epistemology.
Just going to post a few of the quotes I saved along the way.
"Self-contentment is as little a standard for that to which it relates as it's absence is an argument against the value of a thing."
"One must possess something in order to be something. " But this is the oldest and healthiest of all instincts: I should add, " one must want to have more than one has in order to become more." For this is the doctrine preached by life itself to all that has life: the morality of development. To have and to want to have more—growth, in one word -that is life itself."
"what were the advantages of the Christian moral hypothesis? 1. It granted man an absolute value, as opposed to his smallness and accidental occurrence in the flux of becoming and passing away.
2. It served The advocates of God insofar as it conceded to the world, in spite of suffering and evil, the character of perfection - including "freedom": evil appeared full of meaning.
3. It posited that man had a knowledge of absolute values and thus adequate knowledge precisely regarding what is most important.
4. It prevented man from despising himself as man, from taking sides against life; from despairing of knowledge: it was a means of preservation.
In sum: morality was the great antidote against practical and theoretical nihilism.
"But among the forces cultivated by morality was truthfulness: this eventually turned against morality discovered it's teleology, it's partial perspective - and now the recognition of this inveterate mendaciousness that one despair of shedding becomes a stimulant. Now we discover in ourselves needs implanted by centuries of moral interpretation - needs that now appear to us as needs for untruth; on the other hand, the value for which we endure life seems to hinge on these needs. This antagonism - not to esteem what we know, and not to be allowed any longer to esteem The lies we should like to tell ourselves - results in the process of dissolution."
"It is not a matter of going ahead (—for then one is at best a herdsmen, i.e., the herds chief requirement), but of being able to go it alone, of being able to be different."
"thought cannot be derived, anymore than sensations can be; but that does not mean that it's primordiality or "being-in itself" has been proved! All that is established is that we cannot get beyond it, because we have nothing but thought and sensation."
"Reason," evolved on a sensualistic basis, on the prejudices of the senses, i.e, In the belief in the truth of the judgments of the senses. —...
"Being—we have no idea of it apart from the idea of "living." — How can anything dead "be"?
October 18, 2021
Bila je borba ovo procitati do kraja.
Mnogo toga je Niče ovde napisao, mnogo toga stoji i dan-danas, mnogo toga jesu budalaštine ograničenog uma koje je vreme pregazilo pre 2-3 milenijuma i sama činjenica da ih ovde nudi kao revolucionarne i futurističke najpore govori o degeneraciji i propadanju, koji su tako njemu dragi opisi za sve što mu se ne sviđa.
Na površini, jako smeta njegovo ne razumevanje evolucije, doduše to mu se ne može zameriti - pomešano sa hegelijanstvom, dugo, čak i dan-danas među belim rasistima, se može čuti tumačenje evolucije kao napretka, što je naravno pogrešno i što se naučnika tiče davno prevaziđeno tumačenje.
Dublje, njegova ideja Volje za moć je približna, ako ne sasvim ista, prvoj prirodi Boga koju je opisao Jakob Beme, ili donekle je mozemo opisati kao titansku prirodu i to je sve, nešto što su Heleni u svom razumevanju sveta vrlo brzo prevazišli ili je srednjevekovni filozof, jedan od najvećih, opisao tek kao početak. Takođe, njegova imoralnost nije nikakva novost i dugo pre njega je ostajala gorka pilula za duhovnike diljem sveta - susret sa apsolutom nema nikakve veze sa moralom.
Niče je odraz degeneracije i propasti, a najpre tihog zaborava.
Mnogo toga je Niče ovde napisao, mnogo toga stoji i dan-danas, mnogo toga jesu budalaštine ograničenog uma koje je vreme pregazilo pre 2-3 milenijuma i sama činjenica da ih ovde nudi kao revolucionarne i futurističke najpore govori o degeneraciji i propadanju, koji su tako njemu dragi opisi za sve što mu se ne sviđa.
Na površini, jako smeta njegovo ne razumevanje evolucije, doduše to mu se ne može zameriti - pomešano sa hegelijanstvom, dugo, čak i dan-danas među belim rasistima, se može čuti tumačenje evolucije kao napretka, što je naravno pogrešno i što se naučnika tiče davno prevaziđeno tumačenje.
Dublje, njegova ideja Volje za moć je približna, ako ne sasvim ista, prvoj prirodi Boga koju je opisao Jakob Beme, ili donekle je mozemo opisati kao titansku prirodu i to je sve, nešto što su Heleni u svom razumevanju sveta vrlo brzo prevazišli ili je srednjevekovni filozof, jedan od najvećih, opisao tek kao početak. Takođe, njegova imoralnost nije nikakva novost i dugo pre njega je ostajala gorka pilula za duhovnike diljem sveta - susret sa apsolutom nema nikakve veze sa moralom.
Niče je odraz degeneracije i propasti, a najpre tihog zaborava.
May 19, 2021
I did not read this book in its entirety, though that is something that I definitely intend to do at some stage. But, for now, I only focused on the 150 pages or so that were concerned with Nietzsche’s ideas on European nihilism and the collapse of the Christian belief system. Depressingly insightful and fiercely demanding - a text ridden with genius in which every sentence and every word counts!
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