The Definition of Power and how we should live

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Freudian Monkey
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The Definition of Power and how we should live

Post by Freudian Monkey »

Hello everyone,

I would like to discuss the concept of power and it's relation to how we should live.

A simple and yet still pretty accurate definition in my opinion is "The ability to cause or prevent change." What do you think about this definition?

However, I would like to go a bit further and propose that power is a pretty profound concept that is closely tied to the meaning of life. I will now proceed to express some ideas I have developed about the nature of power and how it's tied to a meaningful life.

To me the meaning of life is development. We should constantly develop ourselves, learn more, acquire more resources, so that we can influence your surroundings and gain control of your own mind and desires. Either a man determines his own fate or others will determine his fate for him. You have to have desire for life. In my view, this is exactly what Nietzsche calls POWER. Power is simply a being's ability to influence it's internal and external reality. Every living being has power since life itself is power - plants reach out to sun and drain water from the soil because they too have will to live, they too have will to power. They want to spread and fill the earth, just like we do. As long as your heart beats, you have the potential to influence the world, you have power, but when you draw your last breath, you no longer can affect your surroundings. Therefore life itself is power.

All relationships are based on power. There is no unconditional love. A mother loves her children because the child satisfies a need that is based on power. Acts of self-sacrifice and self-denial are not really selfless, because they're motivated by moral values or evolutionary motives that are also manifestations of power.

Once you understand the real nature of power and realize that it's a fundamental and unchanging force of nature, you will immediately understand how you should live:

1) You cannot be indifferent towards life. You either take control or your will be at the mercy of others more powerful than you. Or you will be corrupted and spoiled by desires that you cannot control.

2) You need to gain control of your inner reality. Transform your habits and your routines so that you're not wasting time but that your routines make you into a better person, step by step. Transform your thinking, gain control of your thoughts - don't be a slave of your thoughts, they're not who you really are. Step outside your thoughts and look at them critically. Then take control. Decide who you want to be and start thinking like the person who you want to become. Your thoughts will slowly transform you into this person. If you have bad habits, get rid of them. Otherwise they will always drag your down and prevent you from reaching your true potential.

3) You need to take control of your external reality. Train your body so that it will not fail you. Become more attentive and loving towards your loved ones, since your friendships and family ties are among your greatest sources of power. Develop good social skills and always try to find things that you have in common with other people and forget all the hundreds of things that separate you from one another. Learn to do your job better than anybody else. Become the person everybody relies on when they need something done - to do this, learn skills that people appreciate and require. Become involved in various social projects so that you develop strong social networks. Keep setting new goals for yourself and make sure you keep track of how far you've come for reaching them.

Power gives you everything you want in life. Other people like you more when you are powerful, since your social skills and ability to make people like you are also power - they're your ability to make changes to your external reality. You can be charitable and helpful since you have power to influence other people's lives. Knowledge is power, so you should always pursue knowledge and also to use the power of your knowledge to cause change you desire. When you have resources, you can make your dreams become reality. When you have control of your internal reality, you're not a slave to your desires, addictions and other weaknesses of the mind.


So what do you think about all this? Is this philosophy too heartless or too calculative? Is power not everything we all are after? If not, then what is?
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

Post by Maxcady10001 »

I wouldn't want to make this a discusson of free will, but controlling your inner reality does not seem realistic. A person cannot control the thoughts they have. Also, why do you say your thoughts are not who you really are? They seem to be exactly who you are. It would also not be wise to tell people to control their desires. Our bodies do not work that way. Also, why does your theory of power not have the limits of power? Meaning there is a heirarchy, certain people can only be so powerful. Your theory assumes equal potential, why is this, when there is clearly not equal potential? And when you say forget everything that separates you from another person, you contradict yourself. Why does power matter, if there are no differences between people? Differences should be at the forefront of the mind of the most powerful. They must always recognize the strengths and weaknesses of others, to assess their own power.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

Post by Freudian Monkey »

Thank you for your reply! I'm so happy that someone found the post interesting enough to write a cohesive and calculated reply. :) I will do my best to try to clarify my thoughts further and I'm happy to continue our discussion further from there.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 7th, 2017, 6:53 pm I wouldn't want to make this a discusson of free will, but controlling your inner reality does not seem realistic. A person cannot control the thoughts they have.
By taking control of your inner reality I mean merely the act of becoming aware of your thoughts and desires. You can certainly inspect your thoughts in a critical fashion, correct? It's not difficult to take a critical look at what's going on inside your own mind. Of course we cannot know everything, but we know enough to know what our major strengths and weaknesses are. We might lack persistence or self-discipline that would allow us to achieve our full potential. So we need to build more persistence and self-discipline by exercising self-denial and learning to postpone gratification, among other similar exercises. Also, I believe one can control one's thoughts by choosing an environment that enforces desired thinking habits. For instance, if you go to study in a university, your way of thinking will be different compared to if you merely work at a grocery store and spent your evenings watching TV.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 7th, 2017, 6:53 pmAlso, why do you say your thoughts are not who you really are? They seem to be exactly who you are.
I borrow this idea from Echart Tolle's book The Power of Now. It's central thesis is that our consciousness does not have anything to do with our thoughts. In other words,You are not your mind. Our minds are merely something created by our egos - the artificial character we create to ourselves in our ignorance. Ego is like a disease - it tries to take over our existence by taking over our existence by filling our heads with thoughts about work, school, relationships, injustices we have encountered and so on. However, according to Tolle, these thoughts are not who you really are.

Instead, you are the silent watcher who perceives your thoughts.

To me, this is a profound realization. My crude description here doesn't really do it justice. If you're not familiar with this concept, I recommend you read or listen to first 2-3 chapters of The Power of Now. The later chapters are not that great, but the first chapters are nothing short of brilliant.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 7th, 2017, 6:53 pmIt would also not be wise to tell people to control their desires. Our bodies do not work that way.
I don't refer only to sexual desires here. I refer to all desires - gluttony, hatred, impulses to hurt or gamble, impulses to humiliate or degrade, impulse to betray your spouse with a younger woman etc. We all have countless desires that we suppress all the time. Our society demands us to suppress countless impulses - we cannot cut lines, walk naked on the street, randomly kill people we don't like etc. Controlling our impulses is not only something we do every day, but it's also extremely healthy and good for our well-being. Of course it shouldn't be taken too far. Occasionally we need sexual relief, for instance. However, if you don't control your sexual impulse at all, you will either watch porn all day long or end up in prison for sexually assaulting someone on the street. To me it's self-explanatory that sexual and other desires need to be controlled.

The point that I was trying to make was that if we desire power above everything else (as we should), we have to gain control of our desires. Otherwise they will control us. A drug addict is someone who cannot control his/her desires. Do you consider a drug addict to be someone who is in charge - who is powerful?
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 7th, 2017, 6:53 pmAlso, why does your theory of power not have the limits of power? Meaning there is a heirarchy, certain people can only be so powerful. Your theory assumes equal potential, why is this, when there is clearly not equal potential?
I don't recall stating that my concept of power assumes equal potential for power. On the contrary, power is very unevenly available to people.

In my view power is of course limited, but at the same time it's almost infinite. Would you say that the universe has limits? It certainly does, but we will never be able to comprehend those limits. It's the same way with power. There are always new ways of either increasing or decreasing one's power. You might say an inconsidered word to someone and make him like you less as a result - a decrease of power. You might forget to close lights in your toilet before you go to bed, wasting precious electricity - a decrease of power. Etc etc. Everything we do every moment of our lives is connected to our use of power. I write to you to convey my thoughts using an artificial system of symbols that I have used years to learn, which suggests that I'm using massive amount of power from different sources to make these changes happen in my external reality.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 7th, 2017, 6:53 pmAnd when you say forget everything that separates you from another person, you contradict yourself. Why does power matter, if there are no differences between people? Differences should be at the forefront of the mind of the most powerful. They must always recognize the strengths and weaknesses of others, to assess their own power.
This is merely a strategy to becoming more powerful socially. Our social relationships are among our greatest sources of power, since we alone have very limited resources, but together we can accomplish much greater things. Our ability to convince others to cooperate with us is crucial for our survival and our ability to thrive and become more powerful.

By focusing on the things that we have in common with people instead of focusing on the things that separate us from them is the foundation of making friends. If you can find even one thing that you and your bitter enemy have in common, you might be able to use that one thing to make peace with him instead of waging a wasteful war.

Of course there will always be differences between people. Power is not equal and has no conscience. It's a force of nature, much like gravity. Your job is not to get crushed by it, but to use it to your advantage.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

Post by Maxcady10001 »

I don't believe Freud would agree with your assessment of the ego, but maybe that is irrelevant here. Despite what Freud's opinion of what the ego is , It seems to me as though the ego is necessary for power. How can a person know how powerful they are if they do not possess an ego? It is precisely the ego that gives you confidence, and relays your standing in the social hierarchy. And, no natural human feeling can be deemed a disease. An ego is possessed by every healthy individual, and certainly all powerful men. Did Julius Caesar not have an ego?
Fair enough, on your stance on desires, though one can only control his desires to the extent of his genetics.
You did not state it, but you did not say it didn't. If you are to have a theory of power, you have to include the limits of power(in people). Also, you have confused power with energy, with the lights analogy. You mention Nietzsche in the OP, did you read his book Will To Power? If so, why have excluded his thoughts?
In your theory of power, how would you structure a hierarchy of power, and where do you fit?
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

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Maxcady10001 wrote: December 8th, 2017, 12:53 amI don't believe Freud would agree with your assessment of the ego, but maybe that is irrelevant here. Despite what Freud's opinion of what the ego is , It seems to me as though the ego is necessary for power. How can a person know how powerful they are if they do not possess an ego? It is precisely the ego that gives you confidence, and relays your standing in the social hierarchy. And, no natural human feeling can be deemed a disease. An ego is possessed by every healthy individual, and certainly all powerful men. Did Julius Caesar not have an ego?
This is a fair point. If I were to write a theory of power, I wouldn't certainly include Tolle's concepts of consciousness and ego in it. His concept of the ego is indeed different from Freud's, I forgot to mention that.

But the questions you raise here are very interesting to me, since I would like to think that power is not driven by Id (since that's more close to what Tolle refers to as Ego). Of course it would seem at first that you have to be selfish and driven by desires to want to become powerful. (This is what you are referring to, correct?) However let's return to my first post. I mentioned there that a mother's love to her children is also driven by a desire for power, however a mother is rarely aware that her love is in any way connected to power - it's not her motive for raising a child. Her motive is very sincere, and in a way, it's very unselfish. However, intentions do not matter when we inspect whether a person's actions are driven by a "will to power" (let's not get too focused on Nietzsche's definition here, I merely refer to a person's desire to control his internal and external reality here).

You could argue that a mother's love for her children is driven by an evolutionary urge to reproduce and to pass on her genes. It's a very powerful instinct. Having children is something most women state makes their lives meaningful. She wants to show love and care to the child - without it her life will be empty and meaningless. The act of showing love and caring for someone is also an act of power - you do something to influence your external reality. It gives one great satisfaction to see that our love and caring has made a difference in someone's life. There's no better object for using our power than our own children.

You could argue that a mother sacrifices more power than she gains by raising a child. She could end up sacrificing her career and other pursuits to raise the child. Is the trade worth it? Or is the mother driven by desires that are similar to drug addiction - something that prevent her from becoming more powerful? At this stage I tend to believe that the trade a mother makes when she sacrifices her ambitions to raise a child is worth it in terms of power.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 8th, 2017, 12:53 amAnd, no natural human feeling can be deemed a disease.
I was using the term "disease" metaphorically, just like Tolle.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 8th, 2017, 12:53 amFair enough, on your stance on desires, though one can only control his desires to the extent of his genetics.
I agree. Our genes are one of our primary source of power. For instance if we are born with no legs, it will severely restrict our ability to influence our external reality. So there are definitely limits to individual's abilities to obtain power. Physics, genetics and a whole bunch of other things restrict our ability to obtain power.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 8th, 2017, 12:53 amAlso, you have confused power with energy, with the lights analogy.
I was referring to the fact that by wasting electricity you will have a higher electricity bill and that will drain your money reserves, which is one of your sources of power.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 8th, 2017, 12:53 amYou mention Nietzsche in the OP, did you read his book Will To Power? If so, why have excluded his thoughts?
I watched a rather long lecture series about Nietzsche's Will to Power. However I'm not sure how my definition of power compares to Nietzsche's definition - maybe you can clarify the differences to me if you're more well-versed with Nietzsche's thinking. I don't really want to make the discussion too abstract since I want to keep the concept of power grounded in practical reality - something that everyone can understand and that anyone can use to change their lives for the better.
Maxcady10001 wrote: December 8th, 2017, 12:53 amIn your theory of power, how would you structure a hierarchy of power, and where do you fit?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this question. What hierarchy of power? Power is like gravity. It's everywhere. Some people have more capacity to make changes happen in their internal and external reality, others have less capabilities. Maybe you can clarify your question a bit more. I'm sorry if I can't understand a simple point you are trying to make. :)

Where do I fit? I'm also not sure how this is relevant to the discussion? I have power of sight, the ability to comprehend this system of symbols we use to communicate and I have the power to type letters to form sentences to convey thoughts to anyone who shares this system of symbols with me. That's really all that matter in the context of this discussion. I don't have any ideological agenda or anything like that, if that's what you mean.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

Post by Maxcady10001 »

You're right, where do you fit is an irrelevant question. As for the hierarchy, I meant what kind of people would you label the most powerful or most capable of affecting the most internal and external change, but I guess a label like that would be useless.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

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Maxcady10001 wrote: December 11th, 2017, 8:44 pm You're right, where do you fit is an irrelevant question. As for the hierarchy, I meant what kind of people would you label the most powerful or most capable of affecting the most internal and external change, but I guess a label like that would be useless.
I mentioned some ways to increase one's power in OP. Self-discipline, persistence and willingness to improve oneself are really the keys to becoming powerful. These personality traits can also be trained, so they should be the main focus of anyone who wants to become more powerful. You cannot be too shy or scared of change either, since the acquisition of power often requires the ability to adapt to new environments and taking advantage of new opportunities.

I'm really amazed that this kind of concept of power is not talked about anywhere. I think this stuff should be taught in schools. Every child should write a personal power acquisition plan as a part of their yearly school orientation.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

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The problem with children writing power acquisition plans, would be the assumption of all of a child's limitations. Because in order to write such a plan knowledge of an individuals limitations is necessary,.and such knowledge is impossible at an early age. Unless you consider the usual ten things you want to accomplish in a year or 5 years, sufficient as a power acquisition plan, in which case children already do this.
Somehow, the concept of hierarchy becomes relevant again, because if you're telling children their limitations, their goals will fit in with such limitations, and certain children will be raised above others. Their needs will be recognized as more important than others because of the level of power they can possibly attain.
Although I think you meant this comment more towards the ten goals to accomplish in however many years right?
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

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I don't see any problem starting out with simple self-improvement plan at a young age and proceeding to a more comprehensive power acquisition plan in secondary and high school. School is a school for self-development anyway - a school for power acquisition. National education's focus just needs to be changed - it has to become more aware of the scope of what it needs to teach to the children.

Nowadays it's becoming more common for children to study entrepreneurship and business in primary schools - these subjects are also all about competition, seeking advantage over others and becoming aware of one's strengths and weaknesses. So I don't think it's a problem for children to learn to evaluate their skills and aiming to improve themselves at an early age. It's all about didactics and study materials used. Self-improvement has to be presented to children as a game that's fun. I would also argue that children by nature want to improve themselves. They just need encouragement.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

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That seems perfectly reasonable to me.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

Post by Freudian Monkey »

I guess I'm off to plan a Power Acquisition Curriculum to present in Finnish Ministry of Education. :) I'm actually a teacher student and I will start my teaching work next year. :)

I paste here a part of a conversion I had elsewhere about the same topic:
freaky wrote: I agree with your idea that power is dynamic. This means either you take action or are acted upon by others.

I've formed the idea from experience that being powerful means being able to disregard at at least some rules
with no worries for consequences.

Do you think it's true?

In what ways do you think the powerful can be challenged?
Power can be challenged in a multitude of ways, although they all are also manifestations of power. There is no such thing as "the powerless bringing down the powerful". It just doesn't happen. To be powerless is to be sick, blind, def, crippled or dead. Life itself is power. So in short, you need to be powerful to bring down the powerful. Often it's the combined effort of a large crowd of less powerful people that can bring down one immensely powerful individual.

It's certainly true that the powerful can disregard laws and other rules of societies, to a certain extent at least. However we have to take into consideration that all nations have different internal power structures. Western nations have a relatively broad division of power, which is one of the core requirements of democracy. Third world countries have very crude power structures where power is mainly concentrated in military and usually one oligarchic group of powerful people who basically control the whole nation. In third world countries, the powerful have basically no limits and they don't need to abide to any laws. In Western nations even the powerful have to step carefully so as to not cause a scandal that could harm their financial and other interests.

I notice that I ventured from individual forms of power to collective forms of power. But I honestly don't see any dramatic difference between the two. Even if power is communal, it still functions within the same framework. Communities can strife to make changes in their internal or external realities - depending on their power, and possible opposing powers, they can either succeed or fail. There's really nothing else to it, as far as I'm concerned.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

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I took some time to become more familiar with Schopenhauer's concepts of Will and Will-To-Live. Schopenhauer's concept is Will seems very similar to what we've been talking about on this thread: his concept of Will is a similar universal force that drives all life in the universe.

However there are also some key differences:

1) Schopenhauer sees our desires as the manifestation of Will. So he associates Freud's Id with Will. I firmly disagree. To me desires are distractions from our Will. He also believes that we are slaves to Will and therefore our life is restless struggle to manifest more and more Will. He has adopted the Eastern philosophical approach of "Life is suffering". This has lead him to believe that we need to get rid of our goals and desires, go live in a monastery and give ourselves thirty lashes every time we think of boobs. To me this approach only tries to deny the true state of affairs instead of trying to find a meaningful response to it. The world is still going to be out there even if you go to live in a monastery and try to ignore all the horrors that our collective Wills manifest.

2) Schopenhauer states that it's impossible for people to live meaningful lives by setting and accomplishing life goals. I could not disagree more. Everyone with a fraction of common sense understands that a person who has a happy family, a flourishing social life, a satisfying sexual life and an inspiring job lives a much more satisfying life than a homeless drunkard with syphilis. Will (or Power) brings happiness, since everything we could ever desire can be accomplished through power. A meaningful life derives from one's desire for life. One has to have passion for life, a passion to accomplish great things and to cause desirable change in one's internal and external reality. We will all die one day and therefore we will ultimately lose all our Power (or Will), but that doesn't mean that a life that celebrates life instead of denying it is a much more satisfying and meaningful one.

I personally think Schopenhauer was too limited by a religious discourse and framework of thinking. He sees everything so miserable and pointless because philosophy was undergoing a change to adapt to the more materialistic worldview brought by The Theory of Evolution and he simply was not ready to embrace a philosophy without the religious framework. He simply couldn't handle the inevitability of death. I, on the contrary, see death as nothing more than just another change in an endless chain of changes that we go through in our lives. It's nothing to be feared.

Death is not a tragedy - frankly, it's rather childish to think so.

I really hope I can find a better philosopher to satisfy my curiosity about the nature of Power.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

Post by Maxcady10001 »

I only know about Schopenhauer what you have just said, and I do not agree with his conclusion of a complete submission to the suffering of life instead of willing himself on, as his theory warrants he should do.
However, it can be argued that his will to life or will to power is the manifestation of desires. You've said in the above post, that all we desire can be accomplished through power, so it stands to reason that the internal and external change we are able to inflict is based on the strength of our desires. Of course, you mentioned earlier the need for the regulation of these desires, but it can be argued that the regulation of some desires is done by other stronger desires. For instance, I won't give in to the desire to party because the desire to advance my career is greater, so I will instead do work. Now you may say that is the will to power checking desires, but it can also be construed as the desire for more money, an easier lifestyle, public recognition, or more affection. So desires can be overcome by other stronger desires, and this will to life can be construed as manifestations of desires.
I also disagree about the impossibility of a meaningful life, because of how arbitrarily meaning is assigned and because life goals are occasionally accomplished.
I'm reading Nietzsche's Will to Power now and will post his views on the will to power tomorrow.
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

Post by Freudian Monkey »

Thank you for your valuable insight Max! Hopefully reading Will to Power will bring you some interesting views that you can share with us. I have never read it myself, but I watched a long lecture series about it and it had a profound influence on how I view Power.

You correctly pointed out that desires could be manifestations of power based on what I wrote above. In hindsight I used the word "desire" very ambiguously above and I'll try to clarify the confusion. To properly discuss "useful" and "degenerative" desires, we have to separate momentary desires (we could maybe call them impulses) from larger life goals. Impulses are something that are distractions and lessen our Power where as life goals are useful desires since they make us focused on becoming more powerful. Life goals can of course also be something that lessens our power, but the process of getting there still requires power acquisition and therefore the process is still "useful". For instance, we could desire to be able to live alone on a deserted island, without having to depend on anyone else. This is a live goals that would actually lessen one's Power, but the process of strifing to accomplish that goal requires a lot of power that one has to assemble before he can accomplish this goal. Hopefully that made sense.

Can you perhaps clarify your position on the impossibility of a meaningful life? Do you disagree with me or Schopenhauer?
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Re: The Definition of Power and how we should live

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I disagree with Schopenhauer, and your clarification on desires did make sense. I cannot believe the term impulse did not come to mind when I wrote the other post describing strong and weak desires.
In trying to provide a view of Nietzsche on The Will to Power, I found myself rereading a lot of pages because not a lot is clearly defined, but I guess that is understandable considering his book Will to Power was made from his journal entries. I jump around a lot.

To describe his views, I'd start with his idea of the herd and the higher man. He called the herd, the mediocre, the weak, sick (ironic, considering he spent most of his life sick), and unfortunate. The higher man is the opposite, what is healthy, and strong. But he divides the higher man into two types: the shepherd and the master. The shepherd works for the preservation of the herd and its values. However, the master uses the herd as a means to whatever his chosen end. To Nietzsche, any action commanded of the herd by the higher man was justified because he was the higher man. He believed this higher man (master type) should rule over the herd. A few quotes:

"Main consideration: not to see the task of the higher species leading the lower (as, e.g.,Comte does), but the lower as a base upon which higher species performs its own tasks--upon which alone it can stand." (The Will to Power, pg.479)

"On the sovereign types.-- The "shepherd" as opposed to the "master" (--the former a means of preserving the herd; the latter the end for which the herd exists)." (The Will to Power, pg.479)

Nietzsche would have his higher men (master types) rule, in an aristocracy, over the herd. He did not believe people were equal, and he loathed anything that meant otherwise. He loathed everything he called herd virtues, what he believed subjected the higher types to the lower herd, anything that reduces the distance between men. Namely morality, humility, chastity, poverty, obedience, and equality. Nietzsche especially despised morality. Nietzsche thought these were attempts to make everyone equal, which he thought was impossible. A quote on the golden rule:
"...here an equivalence of value between my actions and yours is presupposed; here the most personal value of an action is simply annulled (that which cannot be balanced or paid in any way--). "Reciprocity" is a piece of vulgarity; precisely that something I do may not and could not be done by another, that no balance is possible (--except in the most select sphere of "my equals," inter pares--), that in a deeper sense one never gives back, because one is something unique and does only unique things--this fundamental conviction contains the cause of aristocratic segregation from the masses, because the masses believe in "equality" and consequently in equivalence and "Reciprocity." "(The Will to Power, pg.489)
There, is the hatred of anything equalizing, such as the golden rule of do unto others as you would have dine to you. Later on he asserts that which we would not have done to ourselves, is exactly what we should do to others first, to prevent it from happening to ourselves.

Nietzsche believed in a new master race comprised of men of the higher type from different races. He believed in an aristocracy of higher men that would rule the masses of the world. Contrary to what many people have said, Nietzsche was not a nationalist, or at all for nationalism, he actually hated Germans, and believed they were the reason for the end of the renaissance period. Because of Martin Luther, the church was able to return to its traditional values, instead of continuing on its path during the enlightenment period. He also hated Kant, who was German, and any kind of idealism. I remember him calling Kant a theologian in disguise.

A quote on the master race he described:
"From now on there will be more favorable preconditions for more comprehensive forms of dominion, whose like has never yet existed. And even this is not the most important thing; the possibility has been established for the production of international racial unions whose task will be to rear a master race, the future "masters of the earth"; --a new, tremendous aristocracy, based on the severest legislation, in which the will of philosophical men and artist-tyrants will be made to endure for millenia-- a higher kind of man who, thanks to their superiority in will, knowledge, riches, and influence, employ democratic Europe as their most pliant and supple instrument for getting hold of the destinies of the Earth, so as to work as artists upon "man" himself. "(The Will to Power, pg. 504)

He wanted to subjugate all of Europe to this aristocracy of the master race. He believed Europe to be the place of the most intelligent masses, and so the best to be subjugated to the will of these aristocrats. More on these higher types, he believed them to be incommunicable, nothing in common with the herd, always sees other people (in Nietzsche's eyes, lesser people) as tools upon which to exert his will. The higher type would have no desire for the approval of others, because of their distance.
"There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame, his own justice is beyond appeal." (The Will to Power, pg. 505)

Something Nietzsche says about Schopenhauer:
"Schopenhauer's interpretation of the "in-itself" as will was an essential step; but he did not understand how to deify this will: he remained entangled in the moral-christian ideal. Schopenhauer was still so much subject to the dominion of christian values that, as soon as the thing-in-itself was no longer "God" for him, he had to see it as bad, stupid, and absolutely reprehensible. He failed to grasp that there are an infinite variety of ways of being different, even of being god."(The Will to Power, pg. 521)
More on the Will to Power:
"that the will to power would is the primitive form of affect, that all other affects are only developments of it" (The Will to Power, pg.366)
"that all driving force is the will to power, that there is no other physical, dynamic or psychic force except this."(The Will to Power, pg.366)
"It can be shown most clearly that every living thing does everything it can not to preserve itself but to become more--"(The Will to Power, pg.367)
He goes on to cite the relationship between the total organic process and nature so far. For him, the will to power is a becoming, it is appropriating, and dominating. Every feeling of pleasure is the registering of growth in consciousness. He calls life the will to the accumulation of force. He says this on displeasure:
"The measure of failure and fatality must grow with the resistance a force seeks to master; and as a force can expend itself only on what resists it, there is necessarily an ingredient of displeasure in every action. But this displeasure acts as a lure of lufe and strengthens the will to power!"(The Will to Power, pg.369)
On life:
"Life is only a means to something;it is the expression of forms of the growth of power."(The Will to Power, pg.375)
He also mentions that eventually strength fades and comparison of former feelings of overcoming and growth weaken the present feelings and capacity for pleasure.
There is alot more that he deals with, i've omitted what he said in the book on artists and knowledge, which is an important part, but I will post another comment adding this to what I have here. So far, how close do you believe his theory is to yours?
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2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
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Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
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Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
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March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

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The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

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Killing Abel

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Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
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July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
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Artwords

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November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
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My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

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The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
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The Not So Great American Novel

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In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
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The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

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