Civilizing the Will To Power

Turning away from the following deeply politically incorrect statement by Nietzsche from “The Will To Power” doesn’t make it go away: “Any species of men seems to be doomed as soon as it becomes tolerant, grants equal rights and no longer desires to be master.” Nietzsche downplays or rejects altruism and prefers the individual (at least the superior individual) to the group. This seems to miss the fact that altruism is usually the best way to advance individuals, even though group-selection remains the main unit of selection, as his statement suggests. Sociobiology has recently affirmed that human nature in fact is kin-centered, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, among other things,with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

Some groups respond to this “predicament” of human nature by trying to create imperialism and the dominance of one people over all others. But imperialism never lasts for long because all people, all ethnic groups, contend against their own demise, whether this natural will to power is hidden in the words of religion, political correctness, or not.

It seems that the rational and emotional way to deal with the politically incorrect nature of human nature is with some sort of ethnopluralism, allowing small states or virtual ethnostates to flourish, usually within a protecting federalism. Then cooperative competition seems to be the most civilizing value system to follow, given real human nature, rather than trying to completely uproot real human nature by conjuring up more lies about people being all the same, with no legitimate group-selection instincts. It needs to be seen more clearly that those who preach the loudest about all people being exactly the same and demanding equality are usually advancing their own group above others in the hypocritical process.

Beyond this, the sacred mission---and a sacred mission has upheld all successful civilizations---needs to point toward evolving to Godhood in the cosmos, all of us, in our own ways, and sharing knowledge as we evolve. If this goal seems like a dream, an ideal, a faith, it is at least grounded in nature itself and real human nature.