"The World is a will to power, and nothing besides."
-Nietzsche
In order to understand where our hope lies, we have to truly understand this reality. We have to understand that if truth, love, harmony and peace are our guides, hope in this world (but not necessarily hope for all those within) is irredeemably lost. Lost from the beginning, lost by design.
Friedrich Nietzsche was the poet laureate of the Will to Power. Many people do not like to read him and see in him a symbol of evil, but this is mostly because he tells them a terrible truth (about this world anyway) that they do not want to hear. While Nietzsche thought of the will to truth as a variety of the will to power, in fact those who are the most interested in power hate the truth because it undermines their power. With this in mind, lets hear a few more words from him:
Every living thing, in other words, strives to be God. Not to follow, love or obey God, but to be itself God. This process is by no means limited to human beings, but is implicit in every living thing. The first woodpecker with a beak suitable for drilling wood, its beak gave it a power over the grubs living in the wood and so it prospered over its neighbors that were without that power. The first bacterium that was able to eat its neighbor, extended its power over that neighbor and assimilated its material for itself. Human beings developed tools, to do what their weak bodies could not do. Because part of their success depended on cooperation and because of the advent of language, human beings became much more subtle in their methods of obtaining power, and power became much more dangerous. They used and twisted language to gain power over others. Their knowledge gave them power over the atom, allowed them to mitigate space and time, made them lords over all other living beings. The Will to Power didn't start with them, they simply took it to its logical conclusion.
But like Sauron's One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, power corrupts all, even those who say they want to use it for good. The nuclear power plants that we build to supply us with bountiful power in electrical form, are subject to disaster and poison the land and sea. Political power leads to war and destruction. Power over the ecology leads to ecological disaster. Power over men destroys mens lives and the souls of the ones who wields that power. Physically, power gives life: spiritually, power destroys life. And in the end, this massive all-encompassing Will to Power, is a plan destined to fail. Even if humans become immune to old age, extend their power over the stars themselves, become like gods, their end is unavoidable. Eventually the stars will grow dim and cold. Eventually the Universe and Power itself will die.
And yet to live here and now is to compromise with power, even to get what we need to keep surviving is part of that all-embracing Will to Power. To eat is power, even to breathe is power. Life itself in this world is a will to power. This is part of our nature, our original sin. The best thing we can do is to know this will to power for what it really is, to use it only when we must, to shed the light of God on the darkened world and in our own minds, to uproot the lies of power. In this, perhaps in this alone, Nietzsche was less than honest: his religious upbringing led to his thirst for truth (such as it was). The will to power only allows that truth that extends its power: shedding light on power itself undermines power. Human power hates the light, and lives in the darkness of lies and half-truths where it can work its evil will undetected.
Our bodies are slaves to power by birth. I believe our souls need not be.
-Nietzsche
In order to understand where our hope lies, we have to truly understand this reality. We have to understand that if truth, love, harmony and peace are our guides, hope in this world (but not necessarily hope for all those within) is irredeemably lost. Lost from the beginning, lost by design.
Friedrich Nietzsche was the poet laureate of the Will to Power. Many people do not like to read him and see in him a symbol of evil, but this is mostly because he tells them a terrible truth (about this world anyway) that they do not want to hear. While Nietzsche thought of the will to truth as a variety of the will to power, in fact those who are the most interested in power hate the truth because it undermines their power. With this in mind, lets hear a few more words from him:
"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. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on"
-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §636
Every living thing, in other words, strives to be God. Not to follow, love or obey God, but to be itself God. This process is by no means limited to human beings, but is implicit in every living thing. The first woodpecker with a beak suitable for drilling wood, its beak gave it a power over the grubs living in the wood and so it prospered over its neighbors that were without that power. The first bacterium that was able to eat its neighbor, extended its power over that neighbor and assimilated its material for itself. Human beings developed tools, to do what their weak bodies could not do. Because part of their success depended on cooperation and because of the advent of language, human beings became much more subtle in their methods of obtaining power, and power became much more dangerous. They used and twisted language to gain power over others. Their knowledge gave them power over the atom, allowed them to mitigate space and time, made them lords over all other living beings. The Will to Power didn't start with them, they simply took it to its logical conclusion.
But like Sauron's One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, power corrupts all, even those who say they want to use it for good. The nuclear power plants that we build to supply us with bountiful power in electrical form, are subject to disaster and poison the land and sea. Political power leads to war and destruction. Power over the ecology leads to ecological disaster. Power over men destroys mens lives and the souls of the ones who wields that power. Physically, power gives life: spiritually, power destroys life. And in the end, this massive all-encompassing Will to Power, is a plan destined to fail. Even if humans become immune to old age, extend their power over the stars themselves, become like gods, their end is unavoidable. Eventually the stars will grow dim and cold. Eventually the Universe and Power itself will die.
And yet to live here and now is to compromise with power, even to get what we need to keep surviving is part of that all-embracing Will to Power. To eat is power, even to breathe is power. Life itself in this world is a will to power. This is part of our nature, our original sin. The best thing we can do is to know this will to power for what it really is, to use it only when we must, to shed the light of God on the darkened world and in our own minds, to uproot the lies of power. In this, perhaps in this alone, Nietzsche was less than honest: his religious upbringing led to his thirst for truth (such as it was). The will to power only allows that truth that extends its power: shedding light on power itself undermines power. Human power hates the light, and lives in the darkness of lies and half-truths where it can work its evil will undetected.
Our bodies are slaves to power by birth. I believe our souls need not be.
We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the Law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
-Romans 7:14-20
