Yet There Is Method In It

Nietzsche’s concept of the Will to Power is fundamental to his philosophy and yet often misunderstood. It is also constantly discussed by commentators but they seem to state the history of its interpretation rather than interpreting the idea itself. Indeed, Nietzsche warned against this view of ideas - of collecting and cataloging them:

Everything that philosophers handled over the past thousands of years turned into concept mummies; nothing real escaped their grasp alive. Whenever these venerable concept idolators revere something, they kill it and stuff it [...] (Twilight)

Another mistake of commentators is to say what the will to power isn’t - most typically in relation to the will to existence. I will try not to use this method and positively define the Will to Power. Most of the ideas are Nietzsche’s own but I am contemporized them in places.

1) The Will to Power is the force that determines good and evil. (Read in a footnote but I forget where.)

If I may assume for a moment that morality has an earthly origin, what else can we say of its source? The source by definition must be outside morality. Or more directly, the source of morality is immorality. For example if we say “it is always good to tell the truth”, we are in fact lying since we are just inventing a false objective truth.

My chief proposition: there are no moral phenomena, there is only a moral interpretation of these phenomena. This interpretation itself is of extra-moral origin. WtP 258

Personally, I am greatly influenced by the “it-ought” problem. I have not yet seen a satisfactory solution and I provisionally conclude there is no external source of ought statements. I do accept that “ought” statements are necessary. “Ought” statements provided by society may be tolerated but are not truth. I conclude that morality is completely discretionary. If course I would still suffer the consequences if I was caught breaking the law but there is no truth at work here.

Another theme in Nietzsche is the how much primitive superstition is loaded into language. Morality is not justified by language, rather language is shaped by moral judgments. A linguistic argument for morality is, by definition and by virtue of needing outside definition, not objective and therefore not truth. This foreshadows Wittgenstein’s concept of language games. The Will to Power’s voice is the language game.

Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself — he created only the significance of things, a human significance! Therefore, calleth he himself “man,” that is, the valuator. (Zarathustra, The Thousand and One Goals)

2) The Will to Power is the force that determines knowledge.

Truth is the kind of error without which a species could not survive. (WtP?)

All philosophers love to argue “logically”. Why logic? Why not rather illogical argument? That accusation we can put to all a-priori discussions. The reason for accepting logic is that it seems to be reflecting in the testimony of our senses (a posterior experience). For example, we generally don’t see things as simultaneously X and not X. Therefore any tendency to argue logically is, in fact, an acceptance of the natural world. To disprove naturalism by logic is self contradictory.

Inductive reasoning has the problem of potential over generalization. We may always discover a counter example to a given rule. As Shaw once said “The golden rule is that there are no golden rules”. But we still hold that concepts such as time, space, causality, substance, properties really exist. The ability to do this has no objective basis but we must impose a schema on sensory experience to understand it. To accept that these concepts are real, we must effectively ignore the problem with inductive reasoning - this is an exercise of the Will to Power. We assign value to sensory phenomena and call them arbitrary things: words, language, computer, screen, blog, etc. Note that none of these concepts have any reality except in our minds. But act as if they do - that is valuation.

Science cannot escape the flaw in inductive reasoning but it attempts to mitigate its effect. So called scientific “dogma” is all conditional knowledge and not objectively true - this is an acceptance of the limitation of induction. Also to use valuations of things but to be economical as possible with valuations is an interesting guideline (also known as Occam’s Razor). But since some valuation is necessary to do any science, objective truth via science is unachievable. But ignore the impossibility of the task and do it anyway - that is Will to Power. This economy of valuation causes science to find a description of reality rather than an explanation of reality. The “explanation” could only exist in our minds.

3) The Will to Power is the abstraction of all other drives e.g. Will to Existence, Will to Knowledge, Will to Virtue, Will to Wealth, Will to Political Influence, etc.

4) Will to Power is a discharge of gathered potential for action. The Will to Power is an abstraction of the source of happiness.

What is happiness? The feeling that power increases, that a resistance is overcome. (The Anti-Christ)

This means we should not seek to abolish resistance to our will since it is necessary for exercise of the will. It is therefore a freedom from ressentiment and slave morality (which states what harmful agents are “bad” and should be eliminated). (Note: happiness is not a proof of truth.)

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage; I do not account the evil and painful character of existence a reproach to it, but hope rather that it will one day be more evil and painful than hitherto— WtP 382 Emphasis mine.

5) Existentially, the Will to Power is a rejection of nihilism.

Ironically, Nihilism claims “life is meaningless” or more accurately “life should be meaningless”. That is itself a valuation of life and therefore a use of the Will to Power. The flaw in nihilism is it is a valuation of life that says there is no “true” valuation. There fore it is a self contradiction.
6) All life has the Will to Power. Throughout history, only a few individuals have ever exercised it on a grand scale.

People always get worried when there is mention of imposition of views from one charismatic leader. The comparison is always of a totalitarian leader and guilt by association. This is not logical. Let me state: “you may not impose ideas on others” is this not ITSELF an idea? And it is value imposed on modern society? This is a self contradiction!

All art and all creating is a value judgment “The world lacks X and should have X. I will create it.”

If I may talk for a moment beyond Good and Evil, we have to be more questioning of our ideals. And yes I am questioning of my tendency to be questioning!

Most influential sources of western culture: Equality (Christianity), The soul (Plato), Right to divorce (Henry VIII), Pursuit of branded goods (Marketing departments), Environmentalism (???)…

7) In some ways, the act of defining the Will to Power IS the Will to Power - since it is act of valuation.

As Brian was accused in the Life of Brian, I am also guilty: “He’s making it up as he goes along!” That is almost the point of The Will to Power. Also a bit like the Wizard of Oz himself: the will to lie to maintain so called “truth” as true. It also reminds me of the justification used by parents though the ages: “Why? Because I said so.”

The one who exercises the Will to Power is closely related to the concept of the superman.

Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self–rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea. (Zarathustra)

Anti Citizen One

PS I am half way though Nietzsche’s book called, confusingly, “The Will to Power”. I will explain why sometime later.

Friedrich Nietzsche begged us to look beyond the traditional dichotomy and prejudice of good and evil. Our traditional means of viewing the world involve arbitrary splits; creating them and us.

What we do in dreams we also do when we are awake: we invent and fabricate the person with whom we associate - and immediately forget we have done so. aphorism 138

Out of a desire for moral coherence and convenience we retrospectively and proactively justify our subjective truths my making them into universals.

Our vanity would have just that which we do best count as that which is hardest for us. The origin of many a morality. aphorism 143

In short, systems of morals are only a sign-language of the emotions. aphorism 187

And so he is led to say:

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. aphorism 153

The medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart similarly taught that the just man does just deeds, but the doing of just deeds does not make a just man.

Whoever loves justice remains so fully established in it that what he loves becomes his own essence. Justi vivent in aeturnum

The just man does not seek support elsewhere, he does not let his acts be determined by external precepts. When you conform with exterior laws, your acts are merely legal. The just man who acts out of intimate assimilation with Justice “is”.

The path, Meister Eckhart preaches, is detachment, or releasement from distinctions, names, oppositions.

Whatever bears a name can be juxtaposed or be compared with something that has another name.

Indeed, before there were creatures, God was not yet God, but he was what he was. But when creatures came to be and recieved their created being, then God was no longer God in himself, rather he was God in the creatures…

Thus we say that man must be so poor that he is not and has no place wherein God could act. Where man still preserves some place in himself, he preserves distinction. This iswhy I pray God to rid me of God, for my essential being is above God insofar as we comprehend God as the principle of creatures. Blessed are the Poor

Thus Eckhart asks us to live life without a why, to go beyond good and evil, beyond the distinctions of creator and created.

If you seek God for the sake of a foundation, Eckhart says, if you look for God even for the sake of God himself then ‘you behave as though you transformed God into a candle in order to find something with it; and when one has found what one looks for one throws away the candle’ Reiner Schurmann quoting Eckhart’s Omne datum Optimum.

So Nietzsche and Eckhart in terms of a moral discourse both point towards detachment or releasement, the living without a why, the going beyond good and evil, the loss of the prejudices of Binary Opposition.

Those who seek something with their works, those who act for a why, are serfs and mercenaries. Eckhart, Justus in perpetuam vivet.

It is interesting to note that this wisdom of letting-be is to be found across the continents and the ages, in the context of Nietzsche’s post-christian paradigm, Eckharts via negativa, and also in the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu’s book of the way. The second ideogram of the Tao is remerkable in its resemblance both to the teachings of the above masters and the analysis of Jacques Derrida and the Post-Structuralists.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and he lets them come; things disappear and he lets them go. He has but doesn’t posess, acts but doesn’t expect. When his work is done, he forgets it. That is why it lasts forever. Tao Te Ching ~ 2

Orpheus Emerged, written by Jack Kerouac in 1944/45 was only published posthumously in 2002 following the death of his wife. Friend, Poet and contemporary Robert Creeley wrote in his introduction that this was an momentous occasion, the rediscovery and publication of a lost classic by the ‘voice of a generation’ Beat author Jack Kerouac. Yet despite the positive reviews printed on the dust covers the book was near universally panned by the critics. Dull. Achingly Stiff. Pretentious. Immature. Pedantic. Critics clearly did not like it.

This was the second time I had read this novella, and for the second time I managed to finish it in a couple of hours. And for the second time I was left wondering what was it I had just read. I had my ideas, but I felt somehow cheated that I had read a book, somebody elses creation which was yet so ambigous that its value and meaning depended upon my interpretation of it, as though it were in fact my book. My greatest dissappointment though (first time round) was, like the critics, reserved for the fact that it just wasnt anywhere near as good as Kerouac’s seminal work ‘On The Road‘. Looking for some guidance, and some hint of what it all meant I ploughed the internet for literary criticisms. All I found, as you can see from the perjorative descriptions listed above, were equally confused and disappointed readers.

Orpheus Emerged is the story of a group of young bohemian intellectuals studying at university. It is a chronicle of their passions, conflicts and dreams, and ultimately is a record of their search for truth through art and philosophy.

Michael is the artist, desperately seeking happiness, and wallowing in his own artistic model of the aesthete. He is a bohemian whose poetry infers an experimentation with drugs, a dabbling with mystical religion, and sexual experimentation. Paul (whose relation to Michael is unknown, see later on for my theory) is an out of town bum, with little money, an intellectual who annoys everyone he touches, and yet with whom that cannot do without. He is not registered as a student, but he attends lectures anyway, and the professors politely ignore him until he speaks up and makes his contributions in a class on Nietszche. Arthur, Leo, Anthony and Julius are ensemble characters who weave through the story. Arthur is a budding poet who aspires to Michael’s aesthetic heights. Leo likewise is in awe of Michaels work, but is critically aware of deeper trains of thought. Julius is an observer, and a shrewd one at that, described by the others as a ’super-voyeur’ he alone guesses at the complex relationship between Michael and Paul. Arthur is an emotional wreck, an alcoholic and a wife beater, married to Marie, who being a more dominant character cares not about the violence, loves Anthony dearly, but seeks to explore her own sexuality in an affair with Michael. Finally Maureen is Michael’s mistress in her late twenties, seeking commintment and security from the young bohemian, she is mature, wise and singularly uninterested in the pretentious artsy world of Michael and his friends.

When you read the book, set over a couple of weeks, nothing much happens, and there is no coherent plot or exploration of character. Chance meetings are always just around the corner and everything seems so utterly contrived. They meet, they eat, they drink copiously, they hold a party, they attend lectures, they talk pretentious waffle about art and philosophy, often subconsciously aware that they dont know what they are talking about. They conduct affairs, they gossip, they suffer emotional crises, they seek oblivian in drink and plumb the depths of despair and talk of suicide.

It is easy considering all this, the shallowness of the characters, the pretentious rubbish that they spout, the numerous references to Nietszche, Rimbaud and other counter-cultural figures in literature, the meandering pace of the plot, to simply say ‘who cares?’

Then I had a revelation. Within the book was hidden a kernel of truth, within the very motif of the search for truth. Michael the poet is frustrated with the aesthetic life, Paul mocks him relentlessly as a failure. Michael is aware of the pretentiousness of much of his work, yet recognises the need to continue as a prophet for the sake of Arthur and Leo (at least). Michael is troubled by his amoral nature in conducting his affair (destroying his relationship with Maureen and near killing Anthony who drinks himself to oblivion), yet as Paul hints at, by being troubled he is clearly not amoral.

Throughout the novel there is one continous battle, between Michael the aesthete and Paul the iconoclast. Michael feels the need to touch God, and to impart in his long winded poetry an essence of the divine. Paul ridicules his work, calls him a failure, enrages him, goads him, steals his work and threatens to burn it. The two of them are constantly at daggers drawn. Michael attacks him with a lampstand, then later when blind drunk and contemplating suicide decides to murder Paul at the same time.

In the novel, which is set in no particular time or place (it could easily be here and now) Kerouac is himself searching for truth. He is looking to find his voice, the voice of a generation. This book is the beginning of the genesis of the beat movement. He wrote it at the end of the second world war, at columbia university shortly after he met Allan Ginsberg, Lucien Carr and the other artists who would become the leaders of the beat movement. It is an early postmodern work of art, it is an existential masterpiece of self-analysis. The movement that was to spawn rock and roll, the hippy movement, pacifism, the anti-war generation and free love, was born out of this novel, this chronicle of existential angst. Dissillusionment with the war and the world, the rejection of authority and conventional morality.

No wonder Orpheus Emerged reads so badly, it is unfinished, its merely a particle of the developing Kerouac. Too caught up in the real world who has been there to teach Kerouac how to write? Nobody has, he has had to develop all by himself, find his own voice, his own identity. As he says of Wagner in the novel, he has had to spend years sorting out his intellectual grounding before he can produce his art.

Who is Paul? My reading is that he is the alter-ego of Michael, his shadowself. He has a ghostly ethereal character to him. When Michael disappears for a week (conducting his affair) Paul leaves town and ’sleeps on the grass and eats fruit for breakfast’. When Michael reappears so does Paul. When one goads the other, the other always responds ready for a fight. When Michael falls ill with a fever (at the climax of the novel) so too does Paul. Michael never attends lectures, but Paul does. And the greatest hint, when Michael resolves to commit suicide he decides he can only do so after killing Paul. In the end, Michael storms to Pauls apartment, wherein is the mythical ‘Helen’ a character about whom we know nothing about, other than she is the love of both of them. Helen and Paul are seen catching the streetcar and leaving town. This scene witnessed by Arthur, Leo and Julius concludes the novel, and they like the reader are left uncertain who the man is, Michael or Paul? The shrew observer Julius, earlier concludes that Paul must be Michaels brother, so we can assume some physical resemblance between the two.

In conclusion I see that the book is much deeper than many critics give it credit for. Yes it is poor in comparison to his other works, but it is meant to be, it is an existential biography in which Kerouac embarks on a sincere quest to find his own voice.

Michael, the artist-man, wants to achieve literary perfection, Paul his shadowself mocks and scorns his efforts, such perfection cannot be achieved by affecting the habits and manners of great artists, it can only be found in self-discovery. The search for truth can only be resolved by being true to oneself. Michael and Paul are meant to be the same character, shadows of each other, Michael and Paul are Jack Kerouac. Their struggles are his struggles. This work is the chronicle of his existential journey. It is through this existential journey, through writing this book, that Kerouac can begin to find his true voice. Jack Kerouac is Orpheus Emerged, and once he has found himself the mature writer, the writer for whom the critics are full of praise, can finally emerge.

Taking no more than two hours, its an easy read. But (and it took me a long period of contemplation) you may feel as though you have witnessed nothing of any import. I cannot recommend this book on its own merit. But can recommend it as a source for contemplative guidance in the existential sense. Michael and Paul remind me very much of me at the same age.

In a recent announcement, the UK government are to increase the compulsory school leaving age to 18. This is another example of the state saying “we know best”. If it really was a good idea, people would want to do it without compulsion! (This is my new principle of light government.)

A while back, you asked:

“Do not all schools (as they are) represent a value system? This is what I had argued before. Whether that value system is expressed in a faith ethos, in its uniform rules, rules of discipline, are they not then defending a system of values?”
“In essence as all schools and indeed all institutions are arbiters and promoters and defenders of peculiar social values why dont we just do away with the lot of them?”

Yes education has an implied value system - one that is not wholly indoctrination and not wholly development of the individual - but something in between.

The possibility of abolishing universal education is an interesting one. It is one of my only concerns of libertarianism. If home or community funded and administered education could function, it would be an option to universal education. I would be interested in a massively decentralized but state funded education system - could it work?

I also have been thinking about existentialism and the state. Are they compatible or necessarily incompatible? Is it some version of libertarianism? A future project would be to list the requirements of an existential compatible government and then check if the requirements are not contradictory.

Anti Citizen One

On that note: there are already enough weird laws on the books!

I don’t normally post sports news but:

“NEW YORK—Struggling to find purpose in life after his realization that the Giants’ 13-12 victory over the Ravens Sunday night would have no bearing on the team’s standings, tight end Jeremy Shockey has been questioning whether preseason games have any purpose, meaning, or even reality in and of themselves.” Full Story at The Onion

The Unbearable Lightness of Being examines the lives of four Czech intellectuals around the time of 1968 and the soviet invasion. It explores existential themes of absurdity, lack of meaning or significance in life (what the book terms as “lightness“), misunderstandings of other people, kitsch in life and politics, abstraction and alienation. The book mainly deal in metaphor of plot or character but has occasional chapters discussing philosophy and unexpected transitions into dreams - this can be jarring when the character wakes up. If anyone likes the films of David Lynch, they probably will enjoy this book!

The theme of lightness - which is caused by lack of an afterlife and lack of an Eternal Return - caught my imagination the most. Considering that all life will probably die or be forgotten eventually, we can be assured our actions will have no huge impact in the big scheme of things (since there is no “big scheme”). And the realization that although things now stand as they are, “things might as well have been otherwise” - in other words, there is no fate.

In opposition to lightness is “weight”, for example the weight of Eternal Return:

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?” The Gay Science, Nietzsche

The book also quotes a motif from Beethoven as an example of weight: “Must it be so? Yes, it must be so, it must be so!”. The characters are often weighing up their actions in terms of their various interpretations and their particular lightness or weight.

Another recurring idea I enjoyed is of the character Sabina’s first adult painting. I can’t be bothered to look for quotes to this is for memory. Sorry! The painting was started when she accidentally dropped paint on a blank canvas and it evolved into an abstract artwork. The painting could easily have been different because of its accidental origin. The meaning of the painting is completely subjective - an “incomprehensible truth”. At the time, the political dogma was only realism in painting was acceptable so the work was lost under a realistic painting of a construction site. The technique she used emulated the result of photography and hid the brush strokes. The painting’s meaning, being a construction and imitation of the truth, is a comprehensible lie. I hardly need add that the painting is a metaphor for life - a comprehensible lie hiding an incomprehensible truth.

Anti Citizen One

PS “Art is the lie that helps us understand the truth.” -Pablo Picasso