Nietzsche defines the Will to Power as the inherent
compulsion of any being to create and control its
environment and interactions with other beings. Its
ultimate expression in society is the creation of values by
which other beings will live and be governed.
Nietzsche attacks the Hegelian view of rational
history, asserting that it is full of “blindness, madness,
and injustice”. By attacking “history as God”, of course,
Nietzsche attacks any demonstrations of God which are
justified by a “rational, logical” historical dialectic.
Past events, says Nietzsche, are valuable to the extent
that they serve as monumental models of past greatness,
antiquarian mementos of tradition, and objects for
critical analysis leading to the destruction of erroneous
values in favor of the construction of better ones. Abuse
of the first leads to the mistaken idea that the past can or
will come again; abuse of the second leads to detachment
from the present; abuse of the third leads to a pessimism
wherein one sees only the failures of things,
unconsciously neglecting their positive legacy.
Nietzsche interprets Hegel as saying that history had
now reached its perfection in the contemporary German
state system. Nietzsche sees danger in this because it
would lead to lassitude on the part of modern man, who
would feel “there is nothing more to be done”. [Compare
the “last days” sects of early, medieval, and modern
Christianity, as well as the “ecological doomsday”
ideologies of the late 20th/early 21st centuries.]
Man differs from other animals, says Nietzsche, in
that he has the power to “create horizons” - to
construct visions, ideas, and ultimately philosophical
systems. These horizons are meaningful to him unless he
perceives them as artificial constructs. In that case he
either destroys them in favor of newer, larger horizons or
degrades himself by an artificial, hypocritical self-
limitation to a horizon he knows is false.
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Plato is wrong, says Nietzsche, in assuming there to be
absolute values (the Theory of the Forms). It is rather the
case that all truths are situational and relative. Hence the
great virtues are supra-rational. They cannot be
explained by logic, as Nietzsche accuses Socrates of trying
to do. [Nietzsche is wrong; the Platonic Dialogues provide
for nœtic apprehension of the Forms, not logical
construction or analysis of them. Moreover a Form is not
a static concept.]
Nietzsche’s attack on Hegel and Plato leaves his man
in a very “naked” and self-dependent position. He has no
gods, no values, no progressive history - nothing external
to help him. Thus disillusioned, he is strongly tempted to
abandon all aspirations and live only for self-gratification
and comfort. This is Nietzsche’s “last man”. He seeks
neither power nor social inequalities; he wants society
“leveled” - everyone the same. “‘We have invented
happiness,’ say the last men, and they blink.” [Nietzsche
considered Marx to be the prophet of the “last man”
ideology.] Nietzsche lashes out at the states of his time
because he feels that they are tending towards the “last
man” condition. This is also his essential objection to
Christianity and democracy: They destroy man’s creative
powers and opportunities to distinguish himself in
society.
As the democratic world becomes more cynical of
governments and disillusioned by religion, it will
gradually polarize into the haves (bourgeoisie) and have-
nots (socialists). There is no justification for the
acquisitions and possessions of the bourgeoisie; they
result from petty self-gratification. What the bourgeoisie
actually fear from socialist movements is that they will
take the acquisitions and possessions. Nietzsche has
comparable contempt for the socialists/radical left
because they insist on ignoring “the actual inequality of
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man”. Hence the ideal socialist state is simply a tyranny
of the most inferior and the most stupid.
Since all ideals, all horizons have been shown to be
intolerable movement towards the “last man” with an
impulse of nihilism. Nihilism as Nietzsche conceives it
is a psychological sickness, a tendency towards self-
destruction born of resentment of one’s perceived
impotence in the face of a terrible, degenerate, yet
seemingly inevitable future.
This nihilism, continues Nietzsche, is false and
unnecessary. It is caused by moral training [in particular
Christianity] which suggests that we must be forgiven for
existing, that life is a burden, that self-love is sinful. One
must wrench oneself free of this “Spirit of Gravity” and
unleash one’s creative capability: the Will to Power. He
who successfully accomplishes this is Nietzsche’s
“superman”. The superman is not necessarily a political
leader or despot, though he will be the architect of values
by which society lives. He is a “horizon maker”, a
supremely creative artist. He is not the product of any
particular country or race, but rather of a purely mental
evolution.
Nietzsche considers war to be an energizing,
revitalizing influence in politics, deterring the otherwise
sluggish descent towards the “last man”. “For the present,
wars provide the greatest agitation of the imagination
after all Christian raptures and horrors have grown stale.”
But Nietzsche does not love war for its destructiveness.
He says: “And perhaps a great day will come when a
people, distinguished through war and victories,
voluntarily proclaims: ‘We break the sword.’ Disarming
oneself, from an intensity of feeling, while one is the best
armed: That is the means to real peace.”
Yet Nietzsche does not hold out much hope for a
rescue of humanity by his supermen. Around him he sees
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only the march towards the “last man”, leading to a
“succession of several martial centuries that have no
equal in history … We have entered the classical age of
war on the largest scale, the age of scientific war with
popular national support.” Looking ahead he sees “Signs
of the next (20th) century: The entrance of Russia into
culture. A grandiose goal. The proximity of barbarism.
Awakening of the arts, magnanimity of youth, and
fantastic madness.”
4. Dialectic Materialism
The European industrial revolution, which created the
conditions conducive to the onslaught of modern
capitalist/labor/socialist developments, began in England
at the start of the 19th century. The move towards
industrialization spread to Belgium as a consequence of
English investments in that country, and
France and
Germany experienced their major industrial booms
between 1830 and 1870. Sweden, Denmark, and the low
countries followed during the period 1871-1914, as did
Austria, Bohemia, and Russia. By the period just prior to
World War I, the principal countries which were still
essentially pre-industrial were Hungary, Italy, and Spain.
During the 1870s a gradual transition could be seen
from individual entrepreneurship to various forms of
industrial combination and conglomeration. Government
aid to such industrial enterprises was also a new
development, consisting of a gradual liberalizing of
corporate law and the instituting of protective tariffs in
order to help protect budding national industries against
competition from further-developed foreign ones. By the
1890s England, Belgium, and Holland were the only
countries still observing a free-trade policy.
The consolidation and organization of business
encouraged (by example) the organization of labor. Labor
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unions first began to experience general legal toleration
in France in the period 1864-1884, in England in
1871-1875, and in Austria in the early 1870s. The first
international labor organization, the International
Workingmen’s Association (the “First International”) was
founded in London in 1864 and existed until 1876, when
it dissolved due to a split between the anarchist faction of
Bakunin and the socialist/Marxist factions. In 1889 the
Second International came into existence, but it did not
survive World War I.
Marxism, sometimes called dialectic materialism
to distinguish it from the dialectic idealism of Hegel, is a
theory and practice of socialism including the labor
theory of value, dialectic materialism, economic
determination of human actions and institutions, the
class struggle as the fundamental force in history, and a
belief that increasing concentration of industrial control
in the capitalist class and the consequent intensification
of class antagonisms and of misery among the workers
will lead to a revolutionary seizure of power by and the
dictatorship of the proletariat and to the establishment of
a classless society.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was strongly influenced by
Hegel, but believed that Hegel had made a fundamental
mistake in using nations as the basis for his dialectic and
in relating it to a divine manifestation or purpose. Marx
considered the dialectic to be a function of economic
struggle between social classes, and he denied the
existence of any supernatural intelligence, calling all
religion “the opiate of the masses”.
According to Marx, one cannot choose one’s social
class. Rather one is placed into a particular class by the
forces of economics, particularly the means of
production.
As more and more economic power becomes
concentrated in the hands of the upper class (the
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bourgeoisie), the middle class will disappear, leaving
only a large, impoverished working class (the
proletariat) opposed to the bourgeoisie. Eventually the
strain between these two classes will lead to revolution,
resulting in a classless, utopian society. [“From each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”]
Marx called this end result socialism, but it was
ultimately called communism. As a general rule,
“socialism” means ownership of the means of production
by the state, while “communism” means ownership
collectively by the proletariat.
Essential to Marxism are the concepts labor theory
of value and theory of surplus value.
The labor theory of value suggests that the value of an
item results from “the quantity of labor necessary for its
production in a given state of society, under certain social
average conditions of production, with a given social
average intensity, and average skill of the labor
employed”. Members of the proletariat “sell” their labor-
power (the ability to labor for a specific period) to
employers from the capitalist bourgeoisie, but they are
not paid the entire value of their labor. The part that is
not paid to the laborer is called the surplus value. The
capitalist keeps this surplus value as his profit.
As smaller competitors are driven out of business, the
capitalist faces increasing pressure from large
competitors. Since the cost of producing similar goods is
more or less the same, trying to undersell competitors is
not effective in the long run. The only way the capitalist
can increase his profit is to pay the workers less and less.
As the worker realizes that he is being exploited, he will
develop class consciousness and ultimately revolt.
As economic forces and not ethical values determine
relationships in a capitalist society, Marx charges that
capitalism dehumanizes mankind, causing insecurity,
fear, and self-alienation. Unable to find value in other
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humans, victims of self-alienation find it in produced
goods - a phenomenon which Marx calls fetishism (love
of possessions).
Marxism began the transition into what is called
Marxism-Leninism at the turn of the 20th century.
Vladimir Lenin’s “What Is To Be Done?” pamphlet was
published in 1902. Lenin’s form of communism argued
for a speeding-up of the Marxist process via a
“dictatorship of the proletariat”, as well as for
establishment of a revolutionary socialist state prior to
the utopian state of pure communism.
Marx’ utopian society would require perfection in its
citizens. This contrasts with most other political
ideologies, which are geared to deal with enduring
imperfections in human relationships (hatred, greed,
selfishness, sloth, power-lust, etc.).
Marx, like Hegel, based his ideas on a necessary,
inevitable force of history. Thus communism would
eventually come no matter what capitalism tries to do to
stop it. The other side of this coin is that there is nothing
would-be communists can do to speed it up; their society
must first evolve to the “last stages” of capitalism. The
first country to embrace communism, Russia, was not in
an advanced state of capitalism - nor have been the other
countries which have become communist. Lenin modified
Marx (“Marxism-Leninism”) with the concept of the
state-embodied dictatorship of the proletariat: the
running of the country by a communist party elite until
its economic systems could be advanced to full
communism. The state apparat would then “wither
away”. It is noteworthy that power is addictive, and no
“temporary” communist governments have shown any
signs of withering away.
Marx conceived communism as supranational,
assuming the nation-state system to be a devic
e for
economic and class inequality and exploitation. In their
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effort to justify their continued control, however, modern
communist governments have strengthened their
nationalism.
Marxism has been corrupted by its use as an
ideological slogan in many countries and systems which
were completely foreign to Marx’ original analysis. This
leads us to a certain contempt for “Marxists” today, since
they seem to be emotionally, not rationally motivated.
This should not necessarily reflect upon Marx himself. A
precise Marxist would say that the economic polarization
forces which Marx identified have been delayed by deficit
financing, compromises with the pre-revolutionary
p r o l e t a r i a t ( u n i o n s , b e n e f i t s , u n e m p l o y m e n t
compensation, etc.), but that these are all merely
postponements of a final reckoning.
5. “Mind Control” and MindWar
The most recent, and sinister, concept of determinism
resulted from medical and scientific discoveries
concerning the physiological functioning of the human
brain and its influence upon, if not complete control over
the individual’s sensory perceptions and emotions.
Fictional illustrations, such as the book/film The
Manchurian Candidate, portray human subjects
becoming mindless robots through psychological and
physiological “brainwashing”.
“Classic” determinism as surveyed above does not
involve manipulation of humans’ physiology. Rather it
proposes different scenarios of external, natural forces
which influence human behavior. All humanity can do is
identify and attempt to live with such forces.
“Mind control” thus not only introduces intentional
artificiality into the human equation, but indeed attempts
to do it so pervasively and powerfully as to overcome any
and all other behavioral influences.
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As of this writing, fortunately, all such “mind control”
experiments and programs have failed, the principal
reason for this being the conductors’ complete and
continuing failure to understand the actual construction
and functioning of human brain architecture. My
companion book MindWar explains this architecture,
and why it [again fortunately] renders Manchurian
Candidate ambitions quite impossible.
MindWar also explains what psychological and
physiological influence of humans is possible and