The “Will to Power”

I recently came across an interesting concept: the will to power.

Upheld by the highly misunderstood philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, the will to power states that the desire to grow one’s strength is the driving force in man (and even beyond just man).  Achievement, ambition, desire for the highest station in life are all manifestations of the will to power.

Here is a particularly powerful quote on the topic from Nietzsche:

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.

This concept has a very interesting relationship with the topics we’ve discussed here on the blog: specifically Spheres of Influence and Community-Driven Movements.

The ‘will to power’, specifically its representation in the above quote, has a lot meaning within it.  We seek our Sphere of Influence, the realm in which we matter, and we then eventually meet those that have their own realm.  And if one is not dominant over the other, and is sufficiently related, we move forward together.

There is a lot there–and not just concerning plots of world domination.

-Kevin
4.22.2010