“The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!" – Friedrich Nietzsche. All human societies are predicated on dominance and submission. A few rule, the many serve – there are no exceptions to this. The implication of this is that in every society most will find themselves in the position of slaves, tasked with maintaining a social order in, on or through which they exert no power. There is no arc of progress where equality is attainable. Furthermore, the ubiquity of status hierarchies, and of the attendant power struggles, shape all human social interaction. There is no fellowship that does not bear the stench of the will to power, and the drive to dominate is present in even the lowest thrall. Yet in a species as hierarchical as man, obsessed as he is with status, it would be mighty strange if millennia of status jockeying had not given to some the capacity to serve and to others the capacity to rule. In short, how do we reconcile the omnipresence of the will to power with the inborn propensity towards servitude which exists to some degree in most people?
Vicarious Cruelty and Social Cohesion
Vicarious Cruelty and Social Cohesion
Vicarious Cruelty and Social Cohesion
“The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!" – Friedrich Nietzsche. All human societies are predicated on dominance and submission. A few rule, the many serve – there are no exceptions to this. The implication of this is that in every society most will find themselves in the position of slaves, tasked with maintaining a social order in, on or through which they exert no power. There is no arc of progress where equality is attainable. Furthermore, the ubiquity of status hierarchies, and of the attendant power struggles, shape all human social interaction. There is no fellowship that does not bear the stench of the will to power, and the drive to dominate is present in even the lowest thrall. Yet in a species as hierarchical as man, obsessed as he is with status, it would be mighty strange if millennia of status jockeying had not given to some the capacity to serve and to others the capacity to rule. In short, how do we reconcile the omnipresence of the will to power with the inborn propensity towards servitude which exists to some degree in most people?