What would you say to Nietzsche, regarding his will to power

I don't agree with Nietzsche. Anyone else?

BTW, I seem to have heard something about some scholars noting that what Nietzche mean by will to power could be the will to power over oneself?

Yes, Ray, I believe Nietzche also meant by power , the power over oneself. But, above all, he meant power over the others, the weaks, the sick people. He said that. Power to him is the freedom of the superior man regarding conventional morals - christian above all - and regarding concepts like solidarity or pity. Power is the free use of inferior people by the superior man in order to fulfil his wishes.
But I agree with you: I also don't like Nietzsche conception of power.

Nietzsche's concept of power is probably one of the most misunderstood concepts in philosophy. From an essay on Nietzsche and Sartre:

"Although Nietzsche's use of the word "power" invites misunderstanding, he clearly uses the term in a broad sense and has a sophisticated conception of power. Most certainly, he is not claiming that everyone really wants political power or dominion over other people. Nietzsche describes philosophy as "the most spiritual will to power," and regards the artist as a higher embodiment of the will to power than either the politician or the conqueror. Through his theory Nietzsche can account for a wide variety of human behaviour without being reductionist. Thus, a follower may subordinate himself to a leader or group to feel empowered, and even the perverse or negative behaviour of the ascetic priest or resentful moralist can be accounted for in terms of the will to power.

Nietzsche speaks of "power" in reaction to the 19th century moral theorists who insisted that men strive for utility or pleasure. The connotations of "power" are broader and richer, suggesting that a human being is more than a calculative "economic man" whose desires could be satisfied with the utopian comforts of a Brave New World. Nietzsche's meaning could also be brought out by speaking of a will to self-realization, (one of his favourite mottoes was "Become what you are!") or by thinking of "power" as a psychic energy or potentiality whose possession "empowers" us to aspire, strive, and create."

Enlightening cavfancier. I think nietche is the closest thing to a buddha in western philosophy. I hold him to be among the few real philosophers of our age...

It is my experience that power only can come from within. I also believe that people don't change. We just become more fully what we already are.

I believe that Nietzsche spent entirely too much time indoors, he needed to go out for a walk more often, feed the ducks, maybe rake some leaves and milk a cow.

neolouphis-

I'd tell him to go #@&% himself.And to take his time over it.

spendius

Spendius

He did. Got syphilis and died crazy in a mental clinic.

Cav, you chose an ideal citation. Was that from Walter Kaufmann? Yes, Nietszche was not the cold-blooded facist that people who have not really studied him presume him to be. His notion of "power" was very broad and included creativity, the need to expand and realize oneself by many means. We mustn't leave out the word "Will", which he took from Schopenhauer's the Will in nature. It refers, I think, to the life urge--perhaps similar to Freud's libido, which he probably took from Nietzsche without acknowledging the fact. Freud's bridge to Nietzsche was proabably his (Freud's) relationship with Lou Salome, a one-time "student" of Nietzsche.
I agree with your assessment, Cyracuz. Nietzsche was the most "enlightened" of Western philosophers. He took us right to the edge of rationality, but, unlike the mystic, he did not jump into the abyss of raw reality. Although his insanity may have been his own private way of doing so.

Maybe JL. And maybe his "insanity" was just how the world percieved the inexplicable ramblings of a genius.

Think about it, the world as we know it today would crumble if we were suddenly to take heed to the words of Jesus. Geniuses invariably fall to the judgement of lesser minds. It is their curse...

Interesting.

Hmm

"Man does not live for pleasure; only the Englishman does."

As a token Englishman I'm not sure what to make of this !

JLN,

Perhaps you might comment on cyracuz's comparison of Nietsche with Buddha above. It seems to me that they lie at opposite ends of the "self dimension".

I was hoping JL would comment. I always value his input. What do you mean by "the self dimension"?

cav:-

Don't you think that a definition of "wide variety of human behaviour" would be helpful.

spendius.

I very much doubt the idea Nietzsche went insane due to syphilis. Syphilis progresses slowly. This was a sudden mental breakdown. What follows is my idea of what happened.

Nietzsche, like all of us, began life with a highly selfish perspective, but whereas others usually give it up somewhere along the way, as they recognize the primacy of the community over themselves, Nietzsche invented a highly creative way of holding on to childish evaluations. (As did his admirer, Ayn Rand, later.) He separated himself from all others and erected an entire philosophy to wall out his growing sense that the community mattered more than he did. His attitude was "If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god. Therefore, there are no Gods." The attempt reaches a climax in his final complete book "The Antichrist", where he abandons all restraint in his criticism of a religion that identifies selfishness with evil:

After completing the Antichrist, Nietzsche worked on his autobiographical book "Ecce Homo". Here he reveals that he has been almost constantly in pain and that his thinking is clearest when he is in pain. This is the only indication he gives that a breakdown may be looming. The pain is due (I think) to an internal conflict between the part of his mind that he has organized to express his philosophy and a more mature part that has been incubating with him for years, trying to wrest control. As he reviews his life, the struggle to hold on against mature evaluation gets increasingly difficult for him. When he sees a man beating a horse, a simple illustration of where the personal will to power leads, that dam breaks. His defenses fall, as he rushes to protect the horse. The mature mind takes over, but it is too late. Nietzsche loses his ability to think and speak coherently. He is declared "insane", because he finally went sane. He never fully recovers. Nietzsche was where Peter Pan's refusal to grow up leads - Never-never land.

Nice twist I think Nietzsche was one of few who actually dared to go his own way all the way, to salvation or damnation. Maybe he was tempted to assume the dead mask of the masses, but he never did. I think that got to him in the end. The pressure of anticipation.
Also, imagine becoming more and more aware of your nature, and the nature of human beings, more and more finely tuned as life progresses. All the while you are surrounded by people who do the same mistakes day in, day out, and who are seemingly oblivious to their monstrous nature. Would you want to identify with such a crowd? Wouldn't the price just be too great?

I find Nietzsche to be overrated. Am I going to get flames for this?

Seriously I do think that.

I don't find myself in a position to rate anything...

Nietzsche is horribly misunderstood.

His arguments were brilliant, well ahead of his time, and extremely difficult to comprehend the real meaning behind.

Yet, because of his satirical prejudicial statements, against the English, the Germans and Women, people are too disgusted to even give him time.

What is often missed by most people, is that Nietzsche was extremely opposed to prejudicies. He showed how only the simplest of minds could ever succumb to them. In later chapters he purposefully throws out prejudicies that fly in the face of the common prejudicies held at the time. He argued that the germans were a mixture of many races, not the pure aryan race they are making them out to be. He argued that the jews are incredibly creative individuals that greatly contributed to any society into which they mixed. In doing so, he went against the times, either to try to reach lesser minds that do hold prejudicies to abandon them, or to just provide a satirical view showing how one could just as easily argue for prejudicies that aren't common and make them sound just as valid, thus demonstrating them to be inherently flawed.

Unfortunately, this is something that was missed by the nazis who came later, who skewed his work and greatly hurt his credibly.

Nietzche was not a nazi sympathizer. His sister is the one responsible for that connection. He hated them.

When it comes to prejudice I believe Nietzche thought it valuable until you can see through them, but to keep them longer than that is unnessecary and foolish. I heartily agree.