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by Michael A Aquino


  Nietzsche defines the Will to Power as the inherent

  compulsion of any being to create and control its

  environment and interactions with other beings. Its

  ultimate expression in society is the creation of values by

  which other beings will live and be governed.

  Nietzsche attacks the Hegelian view of rational

  history, asserting that it is full of “blindness, madness,

  and injustice”. By attacking “history as God”, of course,

  Nietzsche attacks any demonstrations of God which are

  justified by a “rational, logical” historical dialectic.

  Past events, says Nietzsche, are valuable to the extent

  that they serve as monumental models of past greatness,

  antiquarian mementos of tradition, and objects for

  critical analysis leading to the destruction of erroneous

  values in favor of the construction of better ones. Abuse

  of the first leads to the mistaken idea that the past can or

  will come again; abuse of the second leads to detachment

  from the present; abuse of the third leads to a pessimism

  wherein one sees only the failures of things,

  unconsciously neglecting their positive legacy.

  Nietzsche interprets Hegel as saying that history had

  now reached its perfection in the contemporary German

  state system. Nietzsche sees danger in this because it

  would lead to lassitude on the part of modern man, who

  would feel “there is nothing more to be done”. [Compare

  the “last days” sects of early, medieval, and modern

  Christianity, as well as the “ecological doomsday”

  ideologies of the late 20th/early 21st centuries.]

  Man differs from other animals, says Nietzsche, in

  that he has the power to “create horizons” - to

  construct visions, ideas, and ultimately philosophical

  systems. These horizons are meaningful to him unless he

  perceives them as artificial constructs. In that case he

  either destroys them in favor of newer, larger horizons or

  degrades himself by an artificial, hypocritical self-

  limitation to a horizon he knows is false.

  - 120 -

  Plato is wrong, says Nietzsche, in assuming there to be

  absolute values (the Theory of the Forms). It is rather the

  case that all truths are situational and relative. Hence the

  great virtues are supra-rational. They cannot be

  explained by logic, as Nietzsche accuses Socrates of trying

  to do. [Nietzsche is wrong; the Platonic Dialogues provide

  for nœtic apprehension of the Forms, not logical

  construction or analysis of them. Moreover a Form is not

  a static concept.]

  Nietzsche’s attack on Hegel and Plato leaves his man

  in a very “naked” and self-dependent position. He has no

  gods, no values, no progressive history - nothing external

  to help him. Thus disillusioned, he is strongly tempted to

  abandon all aspirations and live only for self-gratification

  and comfort. This is Nietzsche’s “last man”. He seeks

  neither power nor social inequalities; he wants society

  “leveled” - everyone the same. “‘We have invented

  happiness,’ say the last men, and they blink.” [Nietzsche

  considered Marx to be the prophet of the “last man”

  ideology.] Nietzsche lashes out at the states of his time

  because he feels that they are tending towards the “last

  man” condition. This is also his essential objection to

  Christianity and democracy: They destroy man’s creative

  powers and opportunities to distinguish himself in

  society.

  As the democratic world becomes more cynical of

  governments and disillusioned by religion, it will

  gradually polarize into the haves (bourgeoisie) and have-

  nots (socialists). There is no justification for the

  acquisitions and possessions of the bourgeoisie; they

  result from petty self-gratification. What the bourgeoisie

  actually fear from socialist movements is that they will

  take the acquisitions and possessions. Nietzsche has

  comparable contempt for the socialists/radical left

  because they insist on ignoring “the actual inequality of

  - 121 -

  man”. Hence the ideal socialist state is simply a tyranny

  of the most inferior and the most stupid.

  Since all ideals, all horizons have been shown to be

  false, the creative individual reacts against this

  intolerable movement towards the “last man” with an

  impulse of nihilism. Nihilism as Nietzsche conceives it

  is a psychological sickness, a tendency towards self-

  destruction born of resentment of one’s perceived

  impotence in the face of a terrible, degenerate, yet

  seemingly inevitable future.

  This nihilism, continues Nietzsche, is false and

  unnecessary. It is caused by moral training [in particular

  Christianity] which suggests that we must be forgiven for

  existing, that life is a burden, that self-love is sinful. One

  must wrench oneself free of this “Spirit of Gravity” and

  unleash one’s creative capability: the Will to Power. He

  who successfully accomplishes this is Nietzsche’s

  “superman”. The superman is not necessarily a political

  leader or despot, though he will be the architect of values

  by which society lives. He is a “horizon maker”, a

  supremely creative artist. He is not the product of any

  particular country or race, but rather of a purely mental

  evolution.

  Nietzsche considers war to be an energizing,

  revitalizing influence in politics, deterring the otherwise

  sluggish descent towards the “last man”. “For the present,

  wars provide the greatest agitation of the imagination

  after all Christian raptures and horrors have grown stale.”

  But Nietzsche does not love war for its destructiveness.

  He says: “And perhaps a great day will come when a

  people, distinguished through war and victories,

  voluntarily proclaims: ‘We break the sword.’ Disarming

  oneself, from an intensity of feeling, while one is the best

  armed: That is the means to real peace.”

  Yet Nietzsche does not hold out much hope for a

  rescue of humanity by his supermen. Around him he sees

  - 122 -

  only the march towards the “last man”, leading to a

  “succession of several martial centuries that have no

  equal in history … We have entered the classical age of

  war on the largest scale, the age of scientific war with

  popular national support.” Looking ahead he sees “Signs

  of the next (20th) century: The entrance of Russia into

  culture. A grandiose goal. The proximity of barbarism.

  Awakening of the arts, magnanimity of youth, and

  fantastic madness.”

  4. Dialectic Materialism

  The European industrial revolution, which created the

  conditions conducive to the onslaught of modern

  capitalist/labor/socialist developments, began in England

  at the start of the 19th century. The move towards

  industrialization spread to Belgium as a consequence of

  English investments in that country, and
France and

  Germany experienced their major industrial booms

  between 1830 and 1870. Sweden, Denmark, and the low

  countries followed during the period 1871-1914, as did

  Austria, Bohemia, and Russia. By the period just prior to

  World War I, the principal countries which were still

  essentially pre-industrial were Hungary, Italy, and Spain.

  During the 1870s a gradual transition could be seen

  from individual entrepreneurship to various forms of

  industrial combination and conglomeration. Government

  aid to such industrial enterprises was also a new

  development, consisting of a gradual liberalizing of

  corporate law and the instituting of protective tariffs in

  order to help protect budding national industries against

  competition from further-developed foreign ones. By the

  1890s England, Belgium, and Holland were the only

  countries still observing a free-trade policy.

  The consolidation and organization of business

  encouraged (by example) the organization of labor. Labor

  - 123 -

  unions first began to experience general legal toleration

  in France in the period 1864-1884, in England in

  1871-1875, and in Austria in the early 1870s. The first

  international labor organization, the International

  Workingmen’s Association (the “First International”) was

  founded in London in 1864 and existed until 1876, when

  it dissolved due to a split between the anarchist faction of

  Bakunin and the socialist/Marxist factions. In 1889 the

  Second International came into existence, but it did not

  survive World War I.

  Marxism, sometimes called dialectic materialism

  to distinguish it from the dialectic idealism of Hegel, is a

  theory and practice of socialism including the labor

  theory of value, dialectic materialism, economic

  determination of human actions and institutions, the

  class struggle as the fundamental force in history, and a

  belief that increasing concentration of industrial control

  in the capitalist class and the consequent intensification

  of class antagonisms and of misery among the workers

  will lead to a revolutionary seizure of power by and the

  dictatorship of the proletariat and to the establishment of

  a classless society.

  Karl Marx (1818-1883) was strongly influenced by

  Hegel, but believed that Hegel had made a fundamental

  mistake in using nations as the basis for his dialectic and

  in relating it to a divine manifestation or purpose. Marx

  considered the dialectic to be a function of economic

  struggle between social classes, and he denied the

  existence of any supernatural intelligence, calling all

  religion “the opiate of the masses”.

  According to Marx, one cannot choose one’s social

  class. Rather one is placed into a particular class by the

  forces of economics, particularly the means of

  production.

  As more and more economic power becomes

  concentrated in the hands of the upper class (the

  - 124 -

  bourgeoisie), the middle class will disappear, leaving

  only a large, impoverished working class (the

  proletariat) opposed to the bourgeoisie. Eventually the

  strain between these two classes will lead to revolution,

  resulting in a classless, utopian society. [“From each

  according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”]

  Marx called this end result socialism, but it was

  ultimately called communism. As a general rule,

  “socialism” means ownership of the means of production

  by the state, while “communism” means ownership

  collectively by the proletariat.

  Essential to Marxism are the concepts labor theory

  of value and theory of surplus value.

  The labor theory of value suggests that the value of an

  item results from “the quantity of labor necessary for its

  production in a given state of society, under certain social

  average conditions of production, with a given social

  average intensity, and average skill of the labor

  employed”. Members of the proletariat “sell” their labor-

  power (the ability to labor for a specific period) to

  employers from the capitalist bourgeoisie, but they are

  not paid the entire value of their labor. The part that is

  not paid to the laborer is called the surplus value. The

  capitalist keeps this surplus value as his profit.

  As smaller competitors are driven out of business, the

  capitalist faces increasing pressure from large

  competitors. Since the cost of producing similar goods is

  more or less the same, trying to undersell competitors is

  not effective in the long run. The only way the capitalist

  can increase his profit is to pay the workers less and less.

  As the worker realizes that he is being exploited, he will

  develop class consciousness and ultimately revolt.

  As economic forces and not ethical values determine

  relationships in a capitalist society, Marx charges that

  capitalism dehumanizes mankind, causing insecurity,

  fear, and self-alienation. Unable to find value in other

  - 125 -

  humans, victims of self-alienation find it in produced

  goods - a phenomenon which Marx calls fetishism (love

  of possessions).

  Marxism began the transition into what is called

  Marxism-Leninism at the turn of the 20th century.

  Vladimir Lenin’s “What Is To Be Done?” pamphlet was

  published in 1902. Lenin’s form of communism argued

  for a speeding-up of the Marxist process via a

  “dictatorship of the proletariat”, as well as for

  establishment of a revolutionary socialist state prior to

  the utopian state of pure communism.

  Marx’ utopian society would require perfection in its

  citizens. This contrasts with most other political

  ideologies, which are geared to deal with enduring

  imperfections in human relationships (hatred, greed,

  selfishness, sloth, power-lust, etc.).

  Marx, like Hegel, based his ideas on a necessary,

  inevitable force of history. Thus communism would

  eventually come no matter what capitalism tries to do to

  stop it. The other side of this coin is that there is nothing

  would-be communists can do to speed it up; their society

  must first evolve to the “last stages” of capitalism. The

  first country to embrace communism, Russia, was not in

  an advanced state of capitalism - nor have been the other

  countries which have become communist. Lenin modified

  Marx (“Marxism-Leninism”) with the concept of the

  state-embodied dictatorship of the proletariat: the

  running of the country by a communist party elite until

  its economic systems could be advanced to full

  communism. The state apparat would then “wither

  away”. It is noteworthy that power is addictive, and no

  “temporary” communist governments have shown any

  signs of withering away.

  Marx conceived communism as supranational,

  assuming the nation-state system to be a devic
e for

  economic and class inequality and exploitation. In their

  - 126 -

  effort to justify their continued control, however, modern

  communist governments have strengthened their

  nationalism.

  Marxism has been corrupted by its use as an

  ideological slogan in many countries and systems which

  were completely foreign to Marx’ original analysis. This

  leads us to a certain contempt for “Marxists” today, since

  they seem to be emotionally, not rationally motivated.

  This should not necessarily reflect upon Marx himself. A

  precise Marxist would say that the economic polarization

  forces which Marx identified have been delayed by deficit

  financing, compromises with the pre-revolutionary

  p r o l e t a r i a t ( u n i o n s , b e n e f i t s , u n e m p l o y m e n t

  compensation, etc.), but that these are all merely

  postponements of a final reckoning.

  5. “Mind Control” and MindWar

  The most recent, and sinister, concept of determinism

  resulted from medical and scientific discoveries

  concerning the physiological functioning of the human

  brain and its influence upon, if not complete control over

  the individual’s sensory perceptions and emotions.

  Fictional illustrations, such as the book/film The

  Manchurian Candidate, portray human subjects

  becoming mindless robots through psychological and

  physiological “brainwashing”.

  “Classic” determinism as surveyed above does not

  involve manipulation of humans’ physiology. Rather it

  proposes different scenarios of external, natural forces

  which influence human behavior. All humanity can do is

  identify and attempt to live with such forces.

  “Mind control” thus not only introduces intentional

  artificiality into the human equation, but indeed attempts

  to do it so pervasively and powerfully as to overcome any

  and all other behavioral influences.

  - 127 -

  As of this writing, fortunately, all such “mind control”

  experiments and programs have failed, the principal

  reason for this being the conductors’ complete and

  continuing failure to understand the actual construction

  and functioning of human brain architecture. My

  companion book MindWar explains this architecture,

  and why it [again fortunately] renders Manchurian

  Candidate ambitions quite impossible.

  MindWar also explains what psychological and

  physiological influence of humans is possible and

 

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