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The Positive Assertions
This post will criticize the mystical “will to power” concept propagated by glorified lunatic Friedrich Nietzsche. In this section it will exposit the truth about human will, and the driving force behind human behavior. This section will also provide some unrelated opinions that are of religious importance.
A purpose is a desire. A “will” is a desire. Desires are cognitive and hormonal activities of certain organisms, which affix a “wishful” or “determined” emotion to a particular idea. All biological qualities are established by reproduction or mutation under natural selection. The driving force behind human “will”, therefore, must be the same. This does not mean that the human will necessarily is reproduction, although it often is, but that any given desire results from the mechanism of life, even if it is not the “will to live”. This is why humans are capable of desiring certain things, like drugs and other such unnatural things, that are counterproductive to life. These things hijack the natural reward system, and provide positive emotions for that which is actually harmful. Although, the will to begin using such substances in the first place is selected against, which is why most people do not immediately begin consuming heroin for maximum “hedons”.
There are a number of “new” hijack-objects. Video games, and birth control, both provide certain pleasures that are neutral or counterproductive to life, at least relative to the pleasures obtained. Although, the former can have certain benefits that relate to learning through play, and sex via the latter can have certain benefits that relate to social networking and prestige.
Whether these activities must be ceased depends on one’s own will. If one has the will to cease them, out of a desire to optimize survival, or for any other reason, then they will cease. If one only has the desire to maximize “hedons”, or some other desire that compels them, they will not cease. The former type will persist, and become more common, while the latter will die, and be outcompeted. Templists, because they subscribe to a philosophy that affirms the will to live, must always be of the former type. Anything that hijacks the desire mechanism of life is called, in Ethical Suggestions, an illusion, at least to the extent that it does provide such false pleasure. Though, it can also be genuinely beneficial in certain ways. For the most part, what is beneficial and what is harmful requires no special biological knowledge, as ordinary human valuation, bred by natural selection as it is, is sufficient. We all know that wasting time in virtual worlds becomes harmful after a certain point, that using deadly addictive drugs whatsoever is harmful, that having unproductive casual sex becomes risky after a certain point and harmful to society in general, etc. We all know, unless we are addicts who lie to ourselves, that ceasing habitual illusion-following behavior altogether would greatly enhance performance at life.
An organism is a group of atoms that form into a particular shape, and replicate the same shape, and the behaviors thereof, through reproduction stemming from the body. There are additional parts of the definition of “organism” known to students of basic biology, but this is the primary thing, and it even contains many of the other requirements, such as “maintaining homeostasis”, within itself if you look closely. Barring the initial creation of life, the mechanism of life is reproduction, and nature selects which qualities can and cannot be passed down. As it relates to Templism, virtues are a subset of “shapes and the behaviors thereof” that a given individual personally likes, and wishes to see procreated, because they engender a feeling of affinity. This feeling is causally explained by the similarity between the given shape, and the shape possessed by the person feeling the affinity. Therefore the person feeling the affinity has a biological stake in the person to whom the affinity is felt. These are the “virtues of opinion”, those that pertain to in-group preference. This feeling is also causally explained by the fitness value imparted by the shape upon the organism, making it valuable to the given gene pool in which the affinity-feeling person exists. These are the “legal virtues”. Both of these are “causal” explanations because they relate to the mechanism of nature. That is, the affinity comes about as part of the process of natural selection, notwithstanding if a person also consciously understands and desires the propagation of their own kind. A person does not, in fact, “desire the propagation of their own kind” as such, but loves their kind, and as a consequence wishes to propagate it. This is why virtue is the highest good, while survival is only the mechanism behind virtue.
Humans and other animals, as well as some objects, possess immaterial souls that are affixed to their shapes. These immaterial souls provide “consciousness”, or a “point of view”. They have no interface with the material, and so do not affect human behavior, or provide a source for the “force of human action”. They exist within the biological entity, while all actions are ascribed to that entity.
Whether or not the life-utility of any given behavior is precisely known, it is undeniable that all qualities are created by genes in interaction with their environment, and that all genes are subject to reproduction under natural selection, as well as occasional mutation. If all qualities are the expressions of genes, it follows that what is said of genes, namely that they are subject to evolution by natural selection, can also be said of qualities. It may be asserted that some qualities result from the environment, which is true, but all qualities are based upon genes, which allow the organism to respond to the environment in a specific way or range of ways. To be cut with a knife, for example, and to have a scar, is environmental, but dependent upon the constitution of flesh. So it is no matter to the life-utility theory if some qualities are environmental, because they are also genetic. In fact, all qualities are equally both, and what is often called “environmental” actually means “a genetic quality that allows variable options, one being chosen by the environment”, the advent of which is no refutation to my arguments.
A version of the “god of the gaps” fallacy looks at a particular quality for which there is currently no reproductive explanation, and asserts therefore the existence of some kind of outlandish force of human behavior for which there is no evidence. To suppose that one must, or even can, have specific knowledge of the mechanism behind every single human behavior is ridiculous. It is enough to know that all behaviors are genetic, and that genetics does not operate by magic, or by metaphysical principles, but by biological mechanisms of selection, mutation, and reproduction.
The gods are part of the environment, which is why impious people always lead themselves into degeneracy and ruin, by failing to heed our advice or by displeasing us, and thus only exist for short periods of time like a temporary cancer that is swept away by the immune system. They are allowed to propagate in very special environmental scenarios, or because we allow them to for world-historical reasons, before those special scenarios return to normalcy or our allowance is revoked, at which point they begin to die and even kill themselves, with the remnants being persecuted by the dharmic. Contrary to popular belief, religion waxes and wanes, even when it is not formally renounced. Romans of late antiquity were not pious, Englishmen of the 17th century were not pious, 16th century Catholics were not pious, Athenians during the time of the Peloponnesian war furnish at least more examples than usual of impiety, and all of them fell into degeneracy and were destroyed by pious populations. The manner in which we destroy the impious is not always out of anger, but sometimes of opportunism, as Wotan led the Mediterraneans to their ignominious fate for the benefit of his Germanic folk, using the impiety of the former as an opportunity for his Germanic Arians to rule. “But the Romans were Christian by the time they ruled!”, yes, I know, but their ruling was enabled by Christianity, which was enabled by Roman pagan impiety.
Wotan says: “my Germanic populations are the most pious, the most sensitive to the goal of survival itself. They therefore lie in waiting for sub-Germanics to enter their petty phases of liberal illusion and wastefulness, so that my Arians, Puritans, Protestants, Spartans, Prussians, etc (all of these being Germanic, or more Germanic than the countrymen they ruled over), can attack, steal from, and rule them. It comes, perhaps, from their acclimation to the cold, where small measures have large consequences for survival, rendering them conservative even in good times. More southernly populations are perhaps, I say, happy to cut corners when things seem to be good, being essentially wasteful in nature rather than practical. This wastefulness, morally and materially, is characteristic of all impious degenerate populations. They waste time, money, semen, thought, cloth, moral opportunities for collective gain, in their grandiose expansionary phases, which would be all well and good, if not for my staid conquerors lying in wait. Prey could very well saunter around languidly forever, maintaining no group cohesion by moral behavior, making enemies of their own kind for personal gain, playing around for no higher purpose, if there were no predators ready to eat them at the first sign of their own weakness, and the dispersal of their herd. Biologically speaking, Germanians always act as if to assume this is going to happen to them, while southernly populations come in and out of morality, of social cohesion, depending upon the circumstances, which they are ill-suited to predict with any great accuracy. Hence they are culled, repeatedly. Perhaps their rapaciousness has its own logic, as those who get culled are usually the worst and the first-best yet most rapacious, while those who live are the second-best and less rapacious, while my people nonetheless are pious militants. Germanians, and other northern populations, may be called the ‘predators of mankind’, and the lesser kinds renew themselves only to be eaten again, as we are a part of their own life cycle, without which they would amass into a giant cancer that would burn the world into selfish libertine consumption. Such a cancer currently reigns, owing to an alliance of various sub-northern ethnic groups in America, which has the power to extend its influence globally. Hence there is a great worldwide opportunity for Templists to seize. It is always the predators who advance history, invent new things, colonize land and the stars, while the rest are a self-renewing meal along for the ride, that can be periodically consumed and commanded for higher purposes, because its strength is cyclical rather than constant. During their periods of rapacious self-serving disunity, there is always my remnant ready to take control for their own benefit. History has been nothing more than the steady progression of the Celtic and Germanic races. The story of the Romano-Britons, degenerate and disunited by selfishness and sin as recorded by Bede, exploited and conquered by the Saxons, repeats again and again. The ethnicity of the conqueror is always the same, because my race is forever conscientious of survival.”
The Will to Power
Nietzsche posits the “Will to Power” as the driving force behind all life. Some assert that he meant nothing metaphysical by this, but was rather describing the psychological desire of man for power, compatible with our biological understanding. This is true of his earlier writings. In the period of 1877 to 1881, he wrote vague things about “power” like:
“The main element of ambition is to come to the feeling of one's power. The joy of power does not come from the joy of being admired in the opinion of others. Praise and blame, love and hate are the same for the ambitious man who wants power.”
“People hardly dare to talk about the will to power anymore: unlike Athens!”
“Don't say that they are plagued by boredom: they don't want to bite into anything because their will to power doesn't know how to satiate it - everything else is nothing compared to that.”
But later it was not. It developed into something more strange, starting with the publication of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He wrote:
“Where I found the living, there I found the will to power; and even in the will of those who serve, I found the will to be master… [and] only where there is life is there also will: not will to life but—thus I teach you—will to power” - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“Reducing the generation to the will to power (it must therefore also be present in the appropriated inorganic matter): the separation of the protoplasm in the event that a form is formed in which the center of gravity is equally distributed in two places. A contracting, constricting force occurs from every point: the intermediate mass tears apart. So: equality of power is the origin of the generation. Perhaps all further development is tied to such emerging power equivalences.”
“True philosophers reach for the future with a creative hand and everything that is and was becomes a means, a tool, a hammer for them. Their ‘knowing’ is creating, their creating is a legislating, their will to truth is – will to power” - Beyond Good and Evil
“It will have to be the embodiment of will to power, it will want to grow, spread, grab, win dominance, – not out of any morality or immorality, but because it is alive, and because life is precisely will to power.” - Beyond Good and Evil
“Unpleasure is a feeling when there is an inhibition … then pain is a necessary ingredient of all activity (all activity is directed against something that is to be overcome). The will to power therefore strives for resistance, for pain. There is a will to suffer in basically all organic life (against ‘happiness’ as the ‘goal’)”
“The will to ignorance, the will to uncertainty, the will to untruth, the will to power, the will to suffer, the will to cruelty, the will to destruction, the will to injustice, the will to be ugly, the will to excess.”
“Our values determine what things we accept and how we accept them. But these values are inspired and regulated by our will to power.”
“Reason of sight and touch, we may consider it [the will to power] as a regulative hypothesis for the world of sight! — that in order for this will to power to express itself, it must perceive the things that it draws, that it must feel when something approaches it that it can assimilate.”
“The greater the urge for unity, the more one can assume weakness; the more the urge for variety, difference, internal disintegration, the more power there is.”
“The will to power derives all its [an animal’s] drives and all functions of organic life from this one source [presumably the will to power, previously mentioned ‘the insatiable desire to demonstrate power’].”
“This world is the will to power — and nothing else! And you yourself are this will to power - and nothing more!”
“that [Christianity] knows how to poison the noblest instincts and to infect them with disease, until their strength, their will to power, turns inwards, against themselves—until the strong perish through their excessive self-contempt and self-immolation” - Will to Power
“Our intellect, our will, as well as our feelings are dependent on our values: these correspond to our drives and their conditions of existence. Our drives can be reduced to the will to power. The will to power is the final fact to which we come down.”
And the rest of Nietzsche’s notes and fragments, which are littered with such statements as “reduction of all basic organic functions to the will to power”.
For reference, see the work Der „Wille zur Macht“ kein Buch von Friedrich Nietzsche in German, which provides every reference to “power” ever made by Nietzsche. Many of the quotes above that are not cited from well known published works are fragments from that text.
Since Nietzsche is not a philosopher, it is necessary to piece together the fragments of his madness into an intelligible position. That position is, all life, let us leave out “the world” for argument’s sake, is an expression of the will to power. The definition of “power” is a bit opaque, but it seems that he uses it in a general way, as one would use it in the ordinary understanding to refer to “a powerful person” in any capacity. For example, he mentions it with regard to the force exerted by a cell, the overcoming of tribulations, lying to obtain control of people, and the relationship between master and servant. Basically, “exerting influence over things”. One can contrive a more particular definition only by affording more weight to one of his statements over the others, which there is no good reason to do. Anyone who claims to be an “expert in the interpretation of Nietzsche” is not an expert, rather only someone who has set his mind on a certain view of the Rorschach test. This is why there are so many “experts” with differing views on his work. There are not, by contrast, any differing interpretations of David Hume’s work, because he wrote intelligibly. Hence I will provide refutations to a couple of possible interpretations, since there is no definite interpretation.
There is no evidence to support the idea that the end of all human behavior is to exert influence over things. One must first, of course, define “end”, which would be the same as defining “will”. A will, as I have said, is a desire. Do humans desire power? Yes, very much. Is power their ultimate desire? No, it appears that it is not. For, an individual will readily die, suffer defeat, starve himself, kill himself, or be imprisoned, for the sake of his people or his family, which is to say, for virtue as Templists define it. Nor do humans engage in dangerous, ill-advised behaviors for the sake of exercising power, as they would if the exercise of power were their final aim. Were the exercise of power their final aim, one would see human behavior that was utterly outlandish. Rulers would band together to drop nuclear bombs on their common civilians, armies would band together to slaughter their populations, scientists would devise projects to blow up the earth, or to hollow it out for no good reason, people would wish to see their tax money spent on the extermination of random species, men would be forced to hybridize with other primates so as to create new species, demonstrating the power of those who devised their creation, suicidal people would always elect to kill others before dying, societies would be organized around the endless construction of megaliths, etc. But in fact, humans array themselves in tribes and nations according to blood, and seem to do only that which they think is prudent to advance their own blood, whether of themselves, their families, or greater groups.
One can always say, “but, all such behaviors are counterproductive to life. While life is not the highest desire, it is necessary to live in order to exercise power for a long period of time, and even the ability to advance one’s own kindred, makes their power an extension of oneself, because they are of a similar identity.” This objection places “will to power” as a coward behind “will to life”, dodging criticism. To address it, it is necessary to think of an example where the will to live is counterproductive to the will to power, but is chosen anyway. However, since the will to power can be conceptualized as “the will to exert small amounts of power with great longevity” rather than “the will to exert a large amount of power in individual instances”, it can hide behind the true highest desire with great skill. Say, for example, I say that suicide without homicide is obviously detrimental to the will to power, since it precludes the killing of more than one individual, despite this exercise of power being possible. The Nietzschean will reply that “this advances the welfare of the population”, mimicking the “will to life” explanation, but tacking on “and therefore of biologically similar extensions of oneself, who can exercise power on one’s behalf”. I devise the following solution to this rhetorical faggotry: think of the emotions, which are what inform the will, of a man. Regardless of what happens, can we devise an example in which a man would feel that a given instance of incredible power exertion is less than a given instance of virtue-enhancement? Yes we can, there are many such instances. Ask a person, in the abstract, to choose between “nuking a random city” and “making an intermediate amount of money”, and it is clear which he will choose. Ask a person, hypothetically, to choose between “anonymously building an ugly megalith” and “obtaining a beautiful wife”, and it is clear which he will choose. Ask a Western man to choose between the tyranny over some shithole country, and the survival of his children, and it is clear that he will generally choose the latter. While, in reality, each actual decision of a man can be hidden underneath by the Nietzschean rhetorician, and said to be “ultimately for the sake of power”, a man’s intentions become far clearer when he opines on how he feels, and what he prefers, between two hypothetical choices, all else being equal. These hypotheticals deprive the Nietzschean of the “ultimately” part of his contrived explanation, because they force the participant to make an immediate choice between one thing, and another. The examples could go on, but it should be obvious that there are an astounding number of them.
There is also the “causal” criticism. That is, it is clear from what has been said in the previous section that there is a causal mechanism by which qualities, and desires, come to serve life. But there is no known mechanism by which “power” could do this. This is the simplest and most obvious refutation.
Another possible interpretation is that Nietzsche believes the will to life and the will to power are the same, or that the former is merely a manifestation of the latter, yet not subordinate to it. This is indicated by such statements as:
“‘Exploitation’ does not belong to a corrupted or imperfect, primitive society: it belongs to the essence of being alive as a fundamental organic function; it is a result of genuine will to power, which is just the will of life.” - Beyond Good and Evil
“On the contrary! There is nothing on earth which can have any value, if it have not a modicum of power—granted, of course, that life itself is the Will to Power” - Will to Power
The immediate problem is that this, literally interpreted, is clearly ridiculous. “Life itself”, as in clumps of self replicating matter, is clearly not “will to power”. No, life “itself” is itself, that is, self replicating clumps of matter. But perhaps he means to say something more like, “will to power is integral to life”. That is, that will to power is part of the nature of life, and/or the causal mechanism for it, irrespective of the individual desires of people. There seems to be no particular reason why this view should be supposed. Since Nietzsche is not a philosopher, he doesn’t make any arguments, but only vague assertions, and it is our job to think of what evidence there might be for them, if only because we are trying to convince stooges who do not have the perspicacity to throw his books away at first glance. What evidence could there be for the assertion that the will to power is integral to life? How about that all life exhibits some form of power? This is probably true, but all life exhibits a number of other qualities ancillary to life. For example, all life exhibits color, and all life exhibits the ability to move in some capacity. Is “life itself” therefore “will to color” and “will to move”? As Nietzsche would say, IS LIFE ITSELF, THE FAUSTIAN WANDERINGS OF A BLOOMING SKY? No, that does not follow. How about, that all life requires power in order to exist? This is true also. Does it mean that POWER IS THEREFORE HIGHER THAN EXISTENCE!!! Don’t think like such a jumpy faggot. That which is required by something, does not thereby make itself higher than that thing, nor does it make itself integral to that thing, except in the capacity that it is required. So, in this example, power may be required to, say, advance cellular respiration, but it does not follow that power is therefore striven for by the organism in any other capacity. A further supposition, that “life requires power as part of its definition”, as opposed to its causal existence as in the previous case, has the same answer. It only means that power is involved to that particular extent. Thus we may say, “all life involves the power that drives cellular respiration, and all activities of life are activities of the power of cellular respiration”, from which nothing else about the influence of power would follow.
The Author, consulting his Nietzschean Twitter follower for a learned definition of “will to power” for the purpose of this post, was afforded yet another interpretation. His follower said: think of “will to power” as “will to space”, or “will to control space”. This, his follower says, encompasses all things that Nietzsche mentions in the context of “power”, such as the movement of cells, the power obtained over other people by lying to them, and it also explains his focus in certain fragments on “absorption” as a description of power. There is evidence for this interpretation:
“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” - Will to Power
Nietzsche says this while opining on physics, so it is not clear if he is defining Will to Power, or if he is only giving his idea with respect to physics. It can be charitably assumed that, after all that mumbling, he chose in this specific instance to provide a definition of his claim. This definition, however, is no definition. Invoking the idea of space is trivial, since everything occupies absolute space. It would be the same to invoke the idea of “existence”, or whatever. It does not tell us what he means by “mastery”, or “force”, which is the same as power, the latter he even equates directly to power. So we are brought to the same, intuitive definition aforementioned, that “force” or “power” is defined in a colloquial way. To say that it applies to “absolute space” is the same as saying that it applies to “things”, because everything occupies absolute space and all absolute space is occupied by something, and it is impossible to gain control of absolute space per se, but only to gain control of something within it. Although, it is possible that Nietzsche means to suggest that control over absolute space per se is possible. This would be false, because absolute space is not really a thing itself, but a uniform property of other things all which exhibit spatial properties (see footnote). At any rate, it certainly cannot be isolated from other things. So this supposedly bold and interesting claim, which evokes such a “cool vibe” as “expanse”, can really only say that “things want to influence things”, or be false. It is about as meaningful as to say that “forms want to influence other forms” or “being wants to influence being”. Everything has a form, being, absolute space, and these qualities are inextricable from “things”, thus extremely general and not insightful characterizations, nor can there be evidence that things strive for any of those three generalities apart from what they are inextricably bound to, because these cannot be isolated as variables. A very charitable revision is to say that “each thing wishes more of absolute space to consist of itself rather than other things”, but this cannot be Nietzsche’s position, because identity (“selfness”) is one thing, and power (or “influence”) is another. Lest anyone should claim it, the quoted view is by the way not our view, though it may seem like a “metaphysical” framing of it, it isn’t. The fact is that organisms strive to survive, not to multiply for the sake of multiplying, and the love of one’s own identity that is present in many organisms is only a tool that goes as far as survival requires. There’s nothing metaphysical about it, nor teleological, the properties of organisms are dictated by how their atoms smash together according to the laws of physics.
What is more important; there is no evidence, provided by Nietzsche or existing in reality, for his claim. Idiots and pseudo-intellectuals believe things that are “merely plausible”, it is very common. But truth means that a claim corresponds to reality, and claims do not correspond to reality just because they seem like they could, or just because they are internally consistent, or because they make for a good story, but because they do and thus can be observed to do so. For example, Christianity is observed in the grand scheme of history to consistently benefit the Germanic folk, as in the migration period, the Arian heresy, the fall of Rome, the schism, the fourth crusade, the thirty years war, Puritanism, the English civil war, etc, yet this observable reality is “too strange of a story” for non-Templists. Thus the same story-based disposition can lead reality to be denied just as it can lead reality to be falsified. Nietzsche’s stories and other’s stories are worth nothing, stories are for kids.
One can come up with endless possible arguments for Nietzsche’s non-arguments, but there is no plausible way to justify his assertions, without changing their meaning.
Footnote: It may be suggested that empty space is absolute space itself, but this is proven false by the fact that atoms possess absolute space, yet they are not empty. To be pedantic, matter could be called “matter space” just as emptiness is “empty space”, as both occupy absolute space, but they are distinguished by being material or empty, which is a qualitatively different thing from being spatial. Anyway, Nietzsche is not saying that objects wish to control empty space alone, so it doesn’t matter.
Mind-Poison
Nietzsche, for the most part, and regarding will to power in particular, is one of the many mind-poisons that can cause a person to behave foolishly. He is especially an affliction of pagans, which is why it is necessary for Templists to contrast themselves to him. There are droves of pagans who believe that selfishness is good, that various immoral acts like rape are good, that killing for the fun of it could be laudable, that elites ought to oppress their people for their own benefit, and so on, as a consequence of the ill-considered ravings of a lunatic. His ideas are not simply interesting thoughts, but actually pernicious, because any view built upon a falsehood is liable to be also a falsehood, and there is not a shred of intellectual rigor in any of his writings. His notes are published, but even his published works are notes, which he did not have the capacity to argue in a manner consistent with philosophical rigor. So he makes bold assertions, lists of them, and impressionable fools get excited by them, and mistake their excitement for knowledge.
The truth is that many Nietzscheans, as it concerns will to power, are excited and empowered by the concept of power, and Nietzsche’s vague assertion concerning the primacy of power acts to increase the emotions they feel with respect to power, because the emotion of excitement is correlated to the idea of importance. In the emotive world of fools, Nietzsche’s philosophy is a psychological command, which says “you feel power is important, perhaps divine, and you are allowed to pursue it”. Being thus addicted to this particular “vibe”, they defend the excessive assertion that gives it to them. It is the same with the idea of the ubermensch, and all of the various writings concerning the higher and lower types of man. Of course you are the higher type of man, and this makes you feel like you are special, and therefore the muddled idea of whatever man-type proposed is defended by you, the Nietzschean. But to the, yes, let’s say, the STOIC MAN, such statements evoke no emotions, and so they are seen as they are, i.e vague, not supported by rigorous arguments, and not greatly worthy of consideration. Likewise does the interpretation of Nietzsche which asserts that will to power is “mastery over space” evoke the emotion of awe via the grandiosity of expanse. Every supposed “thought” of such fools is really a proxy for an emotion.
To be clear, some of his ideas are used in this writing. For example, the eternal recurrence is utilized in Physics, Cosmology, & The Fifth Afterlife. Passing reference is also made to something called "the will to power” in Humanity & Politics, but it really refers to the simple desire for power, and uses the same terminology only to pique the interest of fools who start out reading the Canon from such an inferior framework. That section currently contains a short refutation of Nietzsche’s will to power, and a rather poignant example at the very end.
Those who are morally upright, who Wotan says always play a conscientious and militaristic life-strategy, always display a peculiar set of qualities, and one of those qualities is the will to attack and persecute people who flap their fucking gums without any clarity or honesty.
The Nietzsche Test
“The Nietzsche test” is something that can be used to reveal the disingenuous nature of Nietzschean philosophy. It is intended to be used by those who are Nietzscheans themselves, as a form of self-refutation. It can also be used by non-Nietzscheans as a form of entertainment. In this “test”, one finds a particular proponent of Nietzschean philosophy, and proceeds to provide an argument in favor of that philosophy using language that is very vague, confounding, emotive, mystical, superficial, and so on. Basically, you intentionally act the way that opponents of Nietzsche accuse him of acting. When the subject proceeds to agree with your ridiculous argument, you will become skeptical. In reality, your argument was probably as plausible as many of the other arguments provided in earnest by Nietzscheans, or by the writer himself. This tells you that the apparent positive feedback you receive for being a Nietzschean is not worth very much, and it also tells you that the mindset of Nietzscheans is askew. Until you have admitted to yourself that Nietzsche might be nonsense, there is nothing to shake you from his grip, because you were already of such a disposition to believe nonsense uncritically in the first place, and any challenge to nonsense can be explained away by your inferior brain with more nonsense, unless you become aware of the fact that your entire disposition, and the disposition of those like you, may be such as to assert and believe nonsense. If you do become aware of this, and you are young, you can potentially reform yourself. If you are old, you can still try, but otherwise ought to submit yourself to a proper authority. That is, someone with a better disposition. To choose someone to listen to, as a nonsense-believer, should not be an intellectual task, as you have proven to yourself that you cannot meet that task, but rather a social task. That is, test whether the person you might listen to will themselves listen to nonsense, generated by you as in this test, and follow them only if they will not.
Nietzsche should have listened to his colleagues at the University of Basel, who were not impressed with his more speculative and philosophical works. When his physical weakness, his adharma, his niþ to use an Old English term, prevented him from teaching at that school any longer, his nonsensical mind was given free reign from his more critical and intelligent peers, and he proceeded to publish the utterly meaningless monstrosity that is Zarathustra. It could be said that the world would have been better had he been killed, but for that he is probably an intellectual influence that influenced some of the distant influences of Templism. He served, therefore, his purpose, and now he can be cast aside.
One can also conduct the test with other writers. For example, there is a “Spengler test”, an “Evola test”, a “Yockey test”, a “Savitri Devi test”, a “Hegel test”, a “Marx test”, a “Heidegger test”, and so on.
Schopenhauer!
A later critic of this post pointed out that Nietzsche, when he uses the word will, does not mean it in the usual way, but rather means it in the way that Schopenhauer intended, as an abstract force behind all reality.
Schopenhauer first introduced this concept in the context of the human body. This was the initial example through which he established his claims. In particular: when one wills, say, the movement of the arm, one does not perceive the will per se, but only the movement of the arm. This he says makes the movement the manifest phenomenon of the will, and he proceeds to generalize this, so that all objects have this will, which they use to maintain their existing shapes and rotations etc, such that they are all manifest phenomena of a much larger will. Let those with the North Sea Mindset spoken of in Advanced Philosophy, who alone among the human species can see things clearly and distinguish concepts logically, note that THE SUBJECT is ORDINARY VOLITION as may be involved in willing the body to move.
Some excerpts from The World As Will:
“Lastly, the knowledge which I have of my will, though it is immediate, cannot be separated from that which I have of my body. I know my will, not as a whole, not as a unity, not completely, according to its nature, but I know it only in its particular acts, and therefore in time, which is the form of the phenomenal aspect of my body, as of every object. Therefore the body is a condition of the knowledge of my will.”
"The identity of the body and the will shows itself further, among other ways, in the circumstance that every vehement and excessive movement of the will, i.e., every emotion, agitates the body and its inner constitution directly, and disturbs the course of its vital functions."
Only after this initial example is established is it reasoned that “Will” is a fundamental force of reality. Let the North Sea men see that “fundamental force” is THE PREDICATE, said about the will, which is THE SUBJECT. Then, “fundamental force of reality” becomes more often its definition, with even human volition seen as a manifestation of it. What happened, North Sea men? Why was THE SUBJECT attached to a PREDICATE, and then forgotten, such that the PREDICATE became the NEW SUBJECT upon which the ORIGINAL SUBJECT was PREDICATED? Furthermore, how can “the fundamental force” become a subject of a philosophical discourse at all? Philosophers wish to identify what the fundamental force is, or at the very least to say that it is “just force”, or else what are they talking about? What would I be talking about if I wrote an entire treatise on the assertion “it is blue”? “It is fundamental”? What is? Volition? No, it is even fundamental to volition? What is it? An empty term.
Even if Nietzsche did mean to use will as an empty term, it would not be fruitful to allow that definition, since it at once repudiates everything that he says about it. Therefore I must helpfully remind him of THE SUBJECT, and analyze his views according to that definition. Besides, these people usually cannot help but instinctively revert to the intuitive definition of their supposedly specialized terms anyway, since after all they are talking about nothing.
Schopenhauer, though, being Prussian, had perhaps some of the North Sea phenomenological blood within him, and he produced a few good works. The Art of Controversy comes recommended. At the very least he wrote actual treatises, using an attempt at reasoning, rather than a list of nonsense brainstorm ideas.
September 10, 2023
I'm not a Nietzschean, but I would like to point out the ways in which this post misses the mark in terms of Nietzschean philosophy.
>A “will” is a desire. Desires are cognitive and hormonal activities of certain organisms, which affix a “wishful” or “determined” emotion to a particular idea
Nietzsche's conception of the "Will to Power" is distinct from the psychological "will" that most of us are acquainted with. Nietzsche based his concept of the "Will to Power" on Schopenhauer's idea of the the (capital-W) "Will". Schopenhauer believed that a single, universal will was anterior to "being" itself, and that the apparent separateness of reality was illusion an obscuring the fact that all of reality is a unified "Will". An expression of this universal "Will" is the "Will to Live", or the desire of every organism to keep itself alive. Nietzsche broke from Schopenhauer by asserting that this universal "Will" was in fact divided into multiple different "wills" all struggling against each other. The "will to power" is, in this sense, the struggle of each individual will against every other individual will.
> Does it mean that POWER IS THEREFORE HIGHER THAN EXISTENCE!!! Don’t think like such a jumpy faggot
> Since Nietzsche is not a philosopher, he doesn’t make any arguments, but only vague assertions,
Nietzsche assumes that the reader is familiar with Schopenhauer's arguments that justify the claim that the universal "Will" is the Kantian "thing-in-itself". Kant's philosophy held that everything was a representation of one of more "things-in-themselves", beings that exist independently of experience. Power being "higher" that existence means that existence itself is the "representation" of different powers struggling against each other
>Every supposed “thought” of such fools is really a proxy for an emotion.
Aren't all thoughts proxies for emotion? Nietzsche himself believed so. All base mental phenomena (sensation, emotion) are subject to the will. When a sensation or emotion is subjected to the will and encoded in relevant symbols (language, causal relations etc.), a thought is produced. Thus, emotion is anterior to thought
do you think about your beliefs at all or simply vomit them onto the page