Nietzsche and Power
What does Nietzsche mean by a "will to power," or "life affirmation?"
"The world itself is the will to power -- and nothing else. And you, yourself are the will to power, and nothing else!" F. Nietzsche
Much of Nietzsche's thought seems to be about the concept of human beings, not individuals, but the species, overcoming mediocrity and becoming "better." Certainly, his ideas are sometimes translated out to mean "nothing matters," but his basic views do not seem to fit that idea. Nietzsche's advice is somewhat of an argument -- man is the immature being, and there is an ongoing process that must happen for humans to actualize. Nietzsche is not saying that he is this ubermensch, this person who has all the power; nor is he arguing knowing that people cannot rise to the occasion. Instead, he is asking humans to rise above the mundane, to become more than they are, and in a sense, to do what Marx and Engels complained that capitalism prevented one from doing -- self-actualize -- or take the "will to power" and "affirm life."
For Nietzsche, The great majority lacks...
Nietzsche seems to be looking around at society and finding a real duality in the nature of humans. This duality appears again and again; as good/evil, selfish/magnanimous, spiritual/pagan, etc. He does see humans as being creatures that are unwilling to ask the hard questions, to move beyond a sense of routine and comfort into an area where it is difficult to reconcile certain things. Nietzsche is simply asking us to go beyond that stage -- and think. The "will to power" is to take responsibility for one's actions and do something with one's life that will contribute to the greater good of human society:
But there is nothing outside the whole! -- This only is the grand emancipation: that no one be made responsible any longer, that the mode of being be not traced back to a causa prima, that the world be not regarded as a unity, either as sensorium or as "spirit;" -- it is only thereby that the innocence of becoming is again restored… (Twilight, p. 36)
Part 2 -- Analysis -- People that give up their power, to Nietzsche at least, give it up because they either…
