Will to Power and Bodily Dysfunction

introbert January 07, 2023 at 17:34 2525 views 12 comments
My relationship with canonical philosophical writers is one where I discover philosophical concepts through them, but don't become enamored with their exact way of thinking about it. Philosophical writing can give someone in a void of confusion, despair, oppression, and isolation ideas that that can help make sense of the world. This void is not a marginal occurrence, but the basic tabula rasa condition of any person in the world. Will to Power is a concept I was introduced to a long time ago, and my body struggled to make sense of it, especially in a way that related to the body. This is different from learning the idea by rote, and simply understanding in reference to the justifications provided by the writer. So in the case of Will to Power, it can immediately be subverted in the apprehension of any idea through slavish understanding, and you become a tool of external power with false power.

The oppressive void each of us is faced with is not completely empty, there are also oppressions faced there which the body exerts an irrational force against. The irrational force can take the from of argument, critical thought, analysis to rage and aggressive actions. If the body succeeds in the Will to Power they will create conflict or argument in the greater body of society which can be transformative. If the body fails in the Will to Power they become meaninglessly irrational and their oppression becomes even greater, and systems of oppression that subvert Will to Power into rational agents of 'the system' become stronger.

This understanding of Will to Power attempts to explain why historically marginalized groups have greater incidence of 'mental illness', criminality, and other deviances. Even if there is objectively mental dysfunction of the brain not caused by Will to Power, the instances that are so caused are dealt with in the same way by the agents of the oppressive modern colonial system. I have always been resistant to this system, but throughout my life have struggled to attain a meaningful understanding. I am still struggling, and the impetus created in the body by the argumentative nature of transcendent, critical, or dialectical knowledge is a difficult urge to deal with, as it either must be suppressed, actualized, or tediously and pointlessly directed into further reading and thinking.

Comments (12)

introbert January 09, 2023 at 12:45 #770761
I have further thoughts on this conception of Will to Power that relate to my anti-schizophrenic thesis. If 'schizophrenia' is an extension of the irrational bodily force known as Will to Power, Descartes moves from the absurd premise of a demon to an antithetical rationalist philosophy opposed to the Will to Power. As such all proceeding modern institutions subvert and oppress this Will. Modernity is inherently productive of certain kinds of conflict that cause constant institutional change based on the antagonism of this Will. Modern social phenomenon with schizo essences are a function of this ironic aspect of the Will and modernity. But even in the premodern, Socrates exhibits an irrational Will to Power that becomes rational through a complex process. Divergent conceptions of this Will occur throughout the premodern with the ancient greeks likening it divinity and the later western cultures after christ likening it to demonic possession.
Joshs January 09, 2023 at 17:44 #770839
Reply to introbert

Quoting introbert

If the body fails in the Will to Power they become meaninglessly irrational and their oppression becomes even greater, and systems of oppression that subvert Will to Power into rational agents of 'the system' become stronger….
Descartes moves from the absurd premise of a demon to an antithetical rationalist philosophy opposed to the Will to Power..
Socrates exhibits an irrational Will to Power that becomes rational through a complex process


Can you give me an example of how the irrational becomes rational?Nietzsche would say that the rationality is one of the forms that Will to Power takes (the will to knowledge), not its opposite.

“I do not believe that a “drive for knowledge” is the father of philosophy, but rather that another drive, here as elsewhere, used knowledge (and mis-knowledge!) merely as a tool.”( Beyond Good and Evil)


introbert January 09, 2023 at 20:02 #770871
Yes mis/knowledge is a tool by the irrational force of the will. If you take a leap and conceptualize the Will as shizophrenia which is a withdrawn solipsistic introverted state, the nature of the misknowledge by this misdirected Will is against social codes. So one simple way irrationality becomes rationality is through the creation of codes or rules or norms through conflict with another person/ mind. That is only one type of rationality, but it can 'evolve', for lack of better word, from there as the irrational Will comes into conflict with itself, for example in an internal dialogue learned from contact with other minds, where the struggle for power against oppressions inherent in social interaction leads to rational methods that can overcome those oppressions.
Banno January 09, 2023 at 20:14 #770874
If the will to power were more than a fairy story, it would have a prominent place in psychology. As things stand, it's a footnote.
introbert January 09, 2023 at 21:49 #770914
Reply to Banno I understand that, and I don't expect something I wrote in five minutes to change anything about that. However I do believe this very action is motivated by the Will, the creation of argument, though sublimated into rational discourse is an irrational drive. I feel as if psychology/ psychiatry has objectified the objects of the Will as mind and through the way it is studied and rationalized further supplanted it with its objectified and rationalized interpretations. This Will can be conceptualized as a bodily force and any objects it produces as externalized things, but not the mind. This argument stems from an irrational Will and whether it
Is true/false, knowledge or misknowledge is secondary to whether it overcomes the oppressive rationality that currently prevails and becomes code.
Joshs January 10, 2023 at 00:17 #770954
Reply to Banno Quoting Banno
If the will to power were more than a fairy story, it would have a prominent place in psychology. As things stand, it's a footnote.


To be fair, you would need to include those approaches within psychotherapy and general psychology which have borrowed from , or have much in common with, Nietzsche’s Will to Power concept but talk about it using their own vocabulary. This would include Freudian psychodynamics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, social constructionism and existential psychotherapy, among others.
Banno January 10, 2023 at 00:19 #770955
Reply to Joshs Yeah, I chose "psychology", not "psychiatry". The proper stuff... :wink:
introbert January 10, 2023 at 17:07 #771141
Just to leave a post script to this one-off idea, it is a result of speculation to fill in the gaps in the complex of premodern- irony-modernity-orange-rationalization-capitalism-postmodernism-schizophrenia...

The essences of what in this writing is attributed to will to power and schizophrenia, were different at the time of Rene Descartes and the contemporary modern conception of it is an extension of his philosophy. How these essences continue to be associated with evil/demonic is a function of their opposition to a rationalized modern order.
introbert January 11, 2023 at 13:12 #771469
As a general thesis, that modern rationalism oppresses the irrational is fairly easy to accept. That all proceeding modern psychology does so, is challenging to argue in specificity. That Descartes' philosophy is against the demon is fairly easy to accept. That the demon is the same as schizophrenia is on the surface easy to accept, but accepting it outright fails to acknowledge the conceptions of this demon have changed as well as likely the human focus of its persecution. You may say medical science, has profiled this demon precisely and the persecution/ treatment is exacted with similar precision, but I contend the medical scientific rationalism, if based on a denial of the basic irrational will, oppresses in everyone by virtue of creating dually a discrepancy between self and understanding-of-self, a rationalized suppression of this nature-akin-to-schizophrenia, and implication of madness for challenging what would have been moral order for the souls, but is now modern scientific rational order for the health of the body.
introbert January 11, 2023 at 18:56 #771532
Of course the pursuit of this demon by Cartesian dissection of the new dually parted mind and body and a refined scientific perspective for the study of both led to an explosion of irrationalities, some which have lasted as ever updated diagnostic categories, and others which led to the horrific treatment of now normalized groups which have been swept under the rug only for the irrational opposed to the good sense and reason of psychiatry to remember in advocacy of their sickness. However, irrationality is a complex beast, and oppressive rationality can take subtle forms and underly all social action. Due to these oppressions irrationality will always surface here and there and is thus an indomitable beast. The Will of people in marginalized groups is antagonized by a modern rational order that creates conflict with the known order of their heritage forming a diathesis that is persecuted as mental disease by modern agents. Resistance to the modern rational order of nationalistic patriotism, work ethic, and health also forms a resistance amongst the people contributing to opposing irrational behaviors in self destructive acts, as no easy path for their inward focussed aggression can be taken against their oppressors. This dialectic conflict, although manifest as disease amongst the oppressed, seems advantageous to the prevailing rational ethos. However, consciousness arises from material conditions and the nature of the oppression is resisted little by little, reforming the institutions formed by the ethos. Whether a synthesis takes place, something entirely unrelated and new emerges, or one unlikely as it is triumphs over the other is for nature to decide.
introbert January 11, 2023 at 19:58 #771550
The superimposition of the evil genius interpretation over the demon in Descartes work is an object of possible speculation. I am satisfied right now that it is to represent a mind that creates a 'rationality' opposed to Cartesian rationality. Any opposing schizo delusion espoused by the 'evil genius' must be resisted by anyone who adheres to Cartesian rationality. This superimposition is possibly an effective way of oppressing anyone who dares argue an opposing rationality. No-one needs to be a genius to produce an opposing argument, even dare I say to the great Descartes, and evil should not have survived the rationalization of morality. However, it is possibly effective in the persecution of someone stigmatized by mental diagnosis, stigmatized being an absurd word to use in this context, who is talking irrational gibberish like this to an agent.
introbert January 11, 2023 at 21:05 #771581
The countervailing power of irony against rationalism is interesting. Irony has a quasi-rational form but it ultimately undermines rationality. Everyone, even rationalists can appreciate irony, in some of its forms. But certain types are resisted if the person 'fails to see the irony'. This is usually if the irony is argumentative against their rational code. However, irony in one form or another, or nuances of the same platonic form, can be used argumentatively, juvenalian-ly, or sarcastically etc. by anyone to any end rational or irrational. However the use of irony acknowledges the fundamental irrationality of human perception, action, and expectation, so it is an irrationalism. The tie in to bodily dysfunction here is that the imperfect ability to expect, expect wrong then realize actuality, or to act against expectation is a dysfunctional aspect of indirect realism which is our bodies producing an inadequate simulation of the world.