nietzsche and self-overcoming nietzsche thought that the universe was the manifestation of an underlying force which he called the will to power this world is the will to power and nothing besides he proclaimed nietzsche characterized the will to power the basic underlying essence of the universe as an insatiable desire to manifest power in this lecture we will discuss what this means in an ethical context or in other words in the context of how one should live their life to do this we will first take a look at nietzsche's views regarding darwinian evolution and we will see
that it was his understanding of evolution or shall we say misunderstanding which provided him with part of his motivation for formulating his doctrine of the will to power in the year 1859 charles darwin published his famous work on the origin of species and it was in this work that he elaborated his theory of evolution by natural selection the basis of darwin's theory is relatively simple first of all darwin posted that individuals within a species differ in some degree from all other individuals most of these differences are insignificant but some are significant enough to provide the
individual organism with advantages or disadvantages in their struggle for existence those individuals with traits that are advantageous to their survival are ones more likely to reproduce and hence pass on these traits to their offspring while those with traits that are disadvantageous typically won't live long enough to pass on their traits this is darwin's famous principle which he called natural selection darwin understood that natural selection was an unplanned and undesigned process because of this an organism's fate often lay in the hands of chance a grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which
shall die which variety of species shall increase in number and which shall decrease or finally become extinct darwin posited natural selection as being an undesigned process however he was unsure of whether there might be an overarching goal or purpose to the process of evolution some ultimate end all life was moving toward and he never made any clear statement affirming or denying such an idea yet there were many supporters of darwin who were unshakable in their faith that there was a purpose implicit in the process of evolution herbert spencer was one such individual he was a
prominent advocate of evolution in the 19th century spencer coined the well-known phrase survival of the fittest and popularized the term evolution a term which darwin had used only sparingly in the words of the historian of biology peter bowder spencer advocated a system of cosmic progress which included a theory of the inevitable evolution of life toward higher forms spencer thought that implicit in evolution was a goal all life was moving towards this goal and upon its attainment human beings would become the perfect creature which he called the ideally moral man or in other words individuals who
are perfectly adapted to both their physical and social environment nietzsche agreed with the general idea of evolution but was not directly familiar with the work of darwin and rather gained most of his understanding of evolution through the works of spencer despite agreeing with the fundamental idea of evolution nietzsche was opposed to in particular two of spencer's ideas regarding the nature of evolution his first disagreement stemmed from spencer's belief that evolution resulted in the inevitable progress of life in his book the antichrist nietzsche revealed his dislike for such a few saying mankind surely does not represent
an evolution toward a better or stronger or higher level as progress is now understood this progress is merely a modern idea which is to say a false idea the european of today in his essential worth falls far below the european of the renaissance the process of evolution does not necessarily mean elevation enhancement strengthening the second idea of spencer's which nietzsche disagreed with was the idea that all organisms ultimately strive after self-preservation spencer believed that in the words of gregory moore the ultimate end of all conduct is the prolongation and increase of life in other words
the preservation of the individual organism and the species to which it belongs nietzsche falsely assumed darwin shared with spencer the idea that all of an organism's behaviors were aimed at self-preservation and it was this false assumption that led him to disagree with darwinian evolution in favor of his own view of evolution based on the will to power to clarify darwinian evolution instead of claiming that all an organism's behaviors are aimed at survival states that behaviors which are advantageous are ones which will be preserved via natural selection however it is important to note that according to
darwinian evolution an organism does not explicitly aim at survival this was spencer's interpretation of evolution not darwin's and this is where nietzsche misunderstood darwinian evolution the idea that all of an organism's behaviors and actions are aimed at survival has its roots and thinkers who lived before the theory of evolution became popular in the late 19th century arthur schopenhauer a philosopher born in the late 18th century and one who greatly influenced nietzsche thought all things in this universe were manifestations of an underlying essence which he called will as will all life forms are dominated by a
blind striving for existence without and or aim all living creatures including human beings schopenhauer thought are dominated by this irrational desire to remain alive he called this desire the will to live was vehemently opposed to the idea that a will to live or drive to survive was the fundamental drive within all organisms he thought the drive to remain alive was too cowardly a goal instead he claimed that as will to power the fundamental drive of all things is an insatiable desire to manifest power we will now examine exactly what such a statement means in his
book twilight of the idols nietzsche called himself an anti-darwin due to his rejection of the idea that organisms seek above all else the perpetuation and prolongation of their existence in beyond good and evil nietzsche pinpointed the problem he had with this view physiologists should think twice before positioning the drive for self-preservation as the cardinal drive of an organic being above all a living thing wants to discharge its strength life itself is will to power self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most infrequent consequences of this as will to power the ultimate end of all
living things is growth nietzsche expressed this idea in a number of passages it can be shown that every living thing does everything it can not to preserve itself but to become more in another passage he reiterates this idea to have and to want to have more growth in one word that is life itself to say that as will to power all things have an insatiable desire to manifest power is to say that they have an insatiable desire for unending growth with this idea in mind we will proceed to consider how nietzsche thought that we could
maximize our own growth as human beings and therefore synchronize ourselves with the essence of the universe in order to grow and expand and thus fulfill the fundamental desire of life itself nietzsche thought it was first necessary to desire something an individual who sits around without a care in the world is an individual who will remain stagnant one must need to be strong nietzsche tells us otherwise one will never become strong he therefore believed that an individual must set a lofty goal that they desire to attain above anything else as nietzsche put it that something is
a hundred times more important than the question of whether we feel well or not basic instinct of all strong natures in sum that we have a goal for which one does not hesitate to risk every danger to take upon oneself whatever is bad and worst the great passion when one sets a lofty goal and strives with all their might to attain this goal they inevitably encounter resistances these resistances nietzsche maintains are not painful annoyances but instead are necessary for growth to occur pain suffering and being thwarted in one's attempt to accomplish a goal are the
necessary preconditions for growth and hence an increase in one's power human beings do not seek pleasure and avoid displeasure nietzsche explained what human beings want whatever the smallest organism wants is an increase of power driven by that will they seek resistance they need something that opposes it displeasure as an obstacle to their will to power is therefore a normal fact human beings do not avoid it they are rather in continual need of it it is by overcoming the resistances which stand in the way of attaining a great passion that an individual fulfills the basic desire
of all life that being growth for this reason nietzsche characterizes growth as an act of self-overcoming as will to power all life in desiring growth of necessity must overcome itself he therefore claimed that self-overcoming is written into the fabric of the universe in thus spoke zarathustra nietzsche proclaims and life confided the secret to me behold it said i am that which must always overcome itself in conceiving the world as will to power nietzsche thought an individual could have access to a powerful motivating force in the end nietzsche thought all that matters in life is how
much one has grown and overcome their previous limitations as this determines how powerful one is and in turn determines one's worth as a human being all men are not equal thought nietzsche the powerful individual the one who is devoted to self-overcoming is the most valuable he said what determines your rank is the quanta of power you are the rest is cowardice it is important to note that nietzsche didn't think the ideally powerful individual was a physically strong individual or even an individual with power over others psychological and spiritual strength represents the ultimate power he thought
and it matters more that one has power over one's own self rather than power over others and in order to achieve power over one's own self nietzsche thought it necessary to set a lofty goal and strive with all one's might to achieve such a goal in doing so an individual will live a life of self-overcoming and thus fulfill one's purpose as a manifestation of the will to power
