The Will to Power

“But among the forces cultivated by morality was truthfulness: this eventually turned against morality.”

Nietzsche offers an explanation as to why Christian morality has become untenable. It encouraged the virtues of honesty and truthfulness which, over time, were directed toward Christian morality itself, resulting in the questioning of God and Christian moral values.

“Morality guarded the underprivileged against nihilism by assigning to each an infinite value, a metaphysical value.”

Nietzsche discusses the type of meaning morality gives to people, especially the underprivileged and oppressed—a sense that one’s life has value as a moral soul in a unified moral order. Thus, our actions and even our thoughts matter in terms of their relation to this structure.

“Through the Reformation, too, the individual sought freedom; ‘everybody his own priest.’”

Nietzsche examines the historical forces contributing to nihilism. One of the main culprits is the Reformation, which encouraged, along with the Enlightenment, the rise of the individual by suggesting that faith was more important than the Church’s authority. Consequently, the Reformation undermined belief in traditional social structures.

“Still, this whole picture would remain ambiguous: it could be an ascending but also a descending movement of life.”

A concluding judgement on the effects of modernity in relation to nihilism. On the one hand, the rise of individualism along with mechanization may lead to the degeneration of human beings and an increasing descent into conformist mediocrity. On the other hand, the very challenge of such a hostile environment to meaning and philosophy may forge new and greater individuals.

“He has lavished gifts upon things so as to impoverish himself and make himself feel wretched.”

Nietzsche’s theory on the essence and origin of religion. Similar to Ludwig Feuerbach, Nietzsche claims that religion stems from a process of alienation. Human beings project their highest individual and collective values and achievements onto God or gods. In the process, they become detached and alienated from their creations and themselves.

“Christianity: a naïve beginning to a Buddhistic peace movement in the very seat of ressentiment.”

The origins of Christianity are explained. On the one hand, through the figure of Jesus, there was a religious movement similar to Buddhism, advocating love and the rejection of violence. However, Paul transformed this movement into a religion based on revenge and resentment to appeal to the underprivileged in Roman society.

“The ‘Christian ideal’ […] attempt to make the virtues through which happiness is possible for the lowliest into the standard ideal of all values.”

Nietzsche describes the essence and driving force of Christian values. They stem from the interests of the oppressed, weak, and mediocre, who wish to valorize their passivity and prevent any disturbance from higher types. Thus, they attempt to universalize the values which are advantageous to them and claim that they are objectively valid for all.

“Hitherto one has always attacked Christianity not merely in a modest way but in the wrong way.”

Here Nietzsche refers to the traditional lines of attack against Christianity. These have tended to focus on the truth of God’s existence or the historical truth of Jesus’s life. However, Nietzsche considers such criticisms secondary to the more important, and overlooked, task of critiquing Christian values.

“Moral values reveal themselves to be conditions of the existence of society.”

There is an ambiguity in the role played by moral values in general. On the one hand, they led to repression and internalization of the instincts, which has caused much psychological sickness. Yet, Nietzsche also recognizes that this process was necessary for humans to live in organized societies, and therefore for the advancement of the species.

“The philosophers of antiquity combat everything that intoxicates.”

Nietzsche comments on the general attitudes of ancient Greek philosophers. Epitomized by Plato in “The Republic,” they set up rationality, sobriety, and consciousness as the highest values. Thus, they opposed the intoxication associated with art, the body, and sexuality. This is a conflict Nietzsche will return to in his later discussion of art and artistic creation.

“General insight: the highest values hitherto are a special case of the will to power.”

The conclusion to Book 2 of “The Will to Power.” Having examined religion, morality, and philosophy at length, he observes that they are not, as has been imagined, independent or divinely sanctioned sources of value. Rather, they are the products of a network of drives and interests, albeit ones that operate in atypical or perverse ways. This fact about their origins is typically suppressed by conventional religion, morality, and philosophy.

“Consciousness is present only to the extent that consciousness is useful.” 

Nietzsche extends his theory of the will to power and the drives to the question of consciousness. He argues that what we are conscious of, and how we are conscious of it, is a result of what serves the flourishing and survival of our drives. In this way, consciousness is not a passive reflection of reality but an active creator of its world.

“Mechanistic theory as a theory of motion is already a translation into the sense language of man.”

The opposing theory to Nietzsche’s will to power. On the mechanistic theory, there are self-contained atoms that are then subject to forces that set them in motion. Nietzsche claims though that this is an illegitimate projection onto the material world of the human rule of grammar that there must be a subject for every action.

“My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (—its will to power:) and to thrust back all that resists its extension.”

Nietzsche gives his most succinct definition of the will to power. Organic life does not seek its survival or preservation. Instead, it pursues the greatest extension and expression of its power and distinctiveness. It achieves this in overcoming, destroying, and appropriating resistance.

“It is notably enlightening to posit power in place of individual ‘happiness.’”

The theory of the will to power is now applied to human psychology. Nietzsche argues that human beings do not primarily pursue happiness and pleasure, as Mill and others have claimed. Rather they pursue the greatest expression of their power and vitality in overcoming challenges, and happiness or pleasure is a by-product of this process.

“Linguistic means of expression are useless for expressing ‘becoming.’”

Nietzsche explores the problem of language. He suggests that ordinary language, which works in terms of an ontology of “being,” of present objects and subjects, cannot capture the concept of something being a relation between two points. Thus, as the will to power is, ultimately, this force of constant becoming, language fails to properly articulate its meaning.

“The sober, the weary, the exhausted, the dried-up (e.g., scholars) can receive absolutely nothing from art… whoever cannot give, also receives nothing.”

Nietzsche argues that to appreciate art one must be in touch with what it means to create art. This involves a process of intoxication whereby one is moved by and open to the fundamental creative drives of life. Conversely, it follows that those who no longer possess this vital procreative drive or are closed to it, and therefore cannot create, cannot properly enjoy art.

“In this case, intoxication has done with reality.”

Nietzsche likens the process of artistic creation to the intoxication one experiences when in love. This is a process whereby we seem to lose touch with our ordinary sense of reality and self, and the world is colored in a new and vibrant way. However, for Nietzsche, this does not mean that we are necessarily any less in tune with the fundamental truth of existence. On the contrary, this state may reveal deeper truths about the world that are invisible within our ordinary “sober” sense of reality.

“To appraise the value of a man according to how useful he is to men, or how much he costs… that is as much—or as little—as to appraise a work of art according to the effects it produces.”

The higher type or “overman” is here being discussed. It is a mistake, Nietzsche argues, to judge the worth of such individuals by a utilitarian calculus of harm and benefit. Such a calculus depends on a common standard of value, whereas such types are enigmatic to the majority, and their value is incommunicable and incommensurable.

“Sickness for years perhaps, that demands the most extreme strength of will and self-sufficiency; or a sudden calamity affecting also one’s wife and child.”

The hard schooling which Nietzsche sees as necessary for nascent higher types. Ordinary education and life are insufficient to forge these characters. Instead, personal hardship and catastrophe are needed to alienate them from conventional values and teach them true strength of will.

“I also want to make asceticism natural again.”

Asceticism has gotten a bad name due to religious asceticism which saw self-denial as an end in itself. However, Nietzsche views asceticism as a useful tool in the training of higher types. This is because it can be used to teach mastery over one’s desires.

“The ability for otium, the unconditional conviction that although a craft in any sense does not dishonor, it certainly takes away nobility.”

The capacity for otium or true leisure is a feature of the noble character. Here otium means existing in a state of being and contemplation without worrying about any specific goal or purpose. This is not something non-noble types are capable of. Instead, for them, everything must serve an instrumental function, including what they call “leisure time.”

“We shall be poor at looking for those like us. We shall live alone and probably suffer the torments of all seven solitudes.”

Nietzsche describes another burden of the higher life. Not only will higher types be cut off from ordinary people, but they will for the most part be isolated even from the few others like them. This is because free spirits will conceal their true nature from others and be difficult to find.