Der Wille zur Macht

Been thinking more about "will to power".

Nietzche utterly rejected Schopenhauer's proposition of a "will to live" in deference to a basic "will to power". The will to live dictates that every creature has, as its primary drive, a will to sustain their own lives. The will to power insists that all creatures are driven by more than a drive to merely sustain their lives. The will to power states that creatures are driven by a need to wield and use power, to dominate others, and to make them weaker.

I like to assume the best of everyone. Not out of naivete but rather optimism. And as individuals are concerned, I tarry in my optimism. Institutions are another story. If ever the Nietzchian will to power was manifest, it is in the modern institution.

When corporations consider the inurement of shareholders [investors] at the expense of its stakeholders [employees];
When churches vilify one sin [adultery] and sanctify another [greed];
When a government pursues justice for one human-rights violation [Iraq] and turns a blind eye toward another [Sudan];

Well, I can't call that anything other than evil. In all cases, the institutions are protecting one group at the expense of another. How can we call ourselves humans when humanity is the very thing that we are destroying. The answer to accusations like this is, "We can't help everyone." The plaint will ring through history, echoing Oskar Schindler, "If I could have just done a little more..."

Speaking of Schindler, there is a line from the movie delivered by Ben Kingsley playing Itzhak Stern who says,

"This list... is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf."

I speak for myself when I say that I am weary of living in the gulf that surrounds that bleak little outpost called "Hope". I look onto it day by day not for a hope that my lot will be improved but that I may begin to see the downcast lifted, even a little.

I think I am becoming darker by the day...

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The will to power is a terrifying force of humankind. Oppression plays out in every culture as if it has been syndicated by the devil himself. And overwhelmingly, opression is perpetrated on the basis of class rather than ethnicity or religion. It is more difficult to oppress a cultural, religious, or ethnic group if they are united in their shared identity. However, if you fracture the unity of a people with poverty and if you can make them dependent upon institutions that are utterly foreign, oppression is a much simpler task. The abolition of the native American potlatch system by U.S. Indian reform laws effectively impoverished the native Americans of the Pacific Northwest by obliterating their economy. While the potlatch system had its own institutionalized power structures that could be perceived as oppressive, overall it promoted a shared economy based on the idea that if you're doing well, then I'm doing well. However, when that economy was outlawed and even the powerful were impoverished, everyone in the community became impoverished.

The will to power, that is, the single-focus of all of man's energies to gather power, is a self-perpetuating illness for which there is no vaccine. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in "Peace is Every Step":

"Every time a seed has an occasion to manifest itself, it produces new seeds of the same kind... That is why we have to be careful in selecting the kind of life we lead and the emotions we express."

When we plant the will to power, then the will to power perpetuates itself in the soil of our life. If, however, we plant humility, mercy, and love then those things are perpetuated in the soil of our life. It boils down to choice. Do we choose power or do we choose mercy? To we choose to oppress or do we choose to serve? Do we choose apathy or do we choose love? The choice is yours and the choice is mine.

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Ali

Just watched "Ali". I was struck by the sense of hopelessness that must have been felt in every corner of the civil rights movement as, one by one, its heroes were eliminated. Movies have the benefit of packing into two hours events that occurred over the course of many years. But to consider that in a few short years, the civil rights movement lost Martin, Malcolm, and saw most of the Black Power advocates incarcerated. In the movie, Malcolm X expresses his frustration that blacks are "fighting for a place at the white man's table." I have heard this before but now I hear it with new ears.

Why shouldn't African Americans have their own table on their own terms? There is an old spiritual called "I'm Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table" that goes as follows:

I'm gonna sit at the welcome table,
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days,
Hallelujah!
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table,
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days.

I'm gonna walk the streets of glory,
I'm gonna walk the streets of glory one of these days,
Hallelujah!
I'm gonna walk the streets of glory,
I'm gonna walk the streets of glory one of these days.

I'm gonna get my civil rights,
I'm gonna get my civil rights one of these days,
Hallelujah!
I'm gonna get my civil rights,
I'm gonna get my civil rights one of these days.

I'm gonna sit at the Woolworth counter,
I'm gonna sit at the Woolworth counter one of these days,
Hallelujah!
I'm gonna sit at the Woolworth counter,
I'm gonna sit at the Woolworth counter one of these days.



Have we [whites] set a place at the Welcome Table? Do we even have a welcome table anymore?

I don't feel all that welcome by other whites these days. Seems that the welcome table has been surrepititiously comandeered by the various institutions that still hold power and is being used as a bargaining table where the souls of the powerless are being bought and sold to the inurement of a select few. I feel like one of those powerless souls sometimes. Now, more than ever, larger portions of society should be looking to the struggles of the civil rights movement to see what can be learned about the structures of power that seek more power.

I fear that I may sometimes wish I could acquire more power and, embarrassingly, not to do good with it but to simply protect myself from power with power. Progress in the black community will be made when those in positions of power are content to let the power go from them to those who need it. I am reminded of the woman afflicted with twelve years of menstruation who was healed when "the power" left Jesus when she simply touched his robe. Are there powerful among us who would be so free to dispense power that they don't even know to whom it goes? Could I be that person with the little power I have? Hmmm, I'll need to sleep on that.

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