To build on the last article...
I have defined the 'will to power' as the 'will to free choice'.
If I choose to be 'assertive' at a particular time in a particular context, then that is the way that I have chosen to exercise my will to power.
If I choose to be 'passive' at the same point in time, in the same context, then this too would reflect the way that I have chosen to exercise my particular 'will to power' at that particular moment in time.
Now it could easily be argued that if I have chosen to be 'passive' in a particular context, at a particular point in time, then I have in effect chosen not to exercise my 'will to power'. This would be a different and more specific definition of the 'will to power'.
However, I think of Gandhi in jail going on a hunger strike, and would anyone argue with me that Gandhi was not only using his own particular style of 'will to power' in that particular time and context, but also that he was using his own unique will to power to impose his power -- i.e., to deliver a very powerful political message.
The same goes for Martin Luther King in his own particular way. He could have chosen a different way, a different style of delivering his own 'will to power'. He could have advocated 'violence'. He could have chosen to take a more militant route. But he didn't. He continued to rhetorically advocate and trumpet democracy and non-violence. And in this regard, he was one of the most effective social activists who ever lived.
The 'will to power' is not always about delivering an 'effective social or political message'.
Nor is the 'will to power' always about choosing a type of behavior that is 'healthy' and/or 'productive'.
Nor is the 'will to power' necessarily about 'imposing one's power over other people'.
The 'will to power' can be about all of these. And it can be about none of these.
In the end, I am defining the 'will to power' as 'freedom of choice' -- even if that choice turns out to be 'non-productive', 'destructive', and/or 'self-destructive'.
If a particular person's 'will to power' is always about 'submission to the perceived power of other people', then this is still the direction that the person has chosen to exercise his own unique brand of 'self-power' or 'will to power'. It may be self-destructive. It may even be self-annihilating. But still it is the person's own choice of the way that he or she is exercising his or her own 'will to power'.
The concept -- the way I have defined it here -- is almost, if not, identical to the way that Adler defined his concept of 'superiority striving'. Or -- in the case of more 'serial behavior patterns' -- his or her own particular 'lifestyle choice'. If we introduce my own particular brand of DGB post-Freudian humanistic-existential theory here, then we could talk about a person's 'transference choices' -- heavily influenced and/or determined by childhood events, particularly traumacies, but still 'choices', none the less. And as such 'will to power' choices.
Now, if we want to talk about a person's 'will to assert his or her power', then that is a different kettle of fish.
As soon as I commit my fingers to the keyboard I am typing on -- in the process of writing a new essay -- I am seeking to 'impose my will to power' in the sense of 'rhetorically persuading' my readers to follow my own line of thinking. This, you may, or may not, choose to do. But I am putting forth my best rhetorical argument with this goal in mind -- or at least with the goal of 'stimulating new directions and dimensions of integrative thinking, feeling, and action'.
Every essay in Hegel's Hotel written by me is written with this intent. As such, each essay is not only a reflection of my own unique brand of 'will to power' -- but also my own unique style of 'attempting to impose' (as in rhetorically attempting to persuade you, in a democratic manner, to follow my own particular line of thinking) the unique content of my will to power on the current and future evolution of philosophy and psychology as well as the potential direction of your own thinking, feeling, and action in a way that is different than if you had not written the particular essay you are reading.
Thus, to conclude, DGB Philosophy makes the following distinction between a person's own unique brand of 'will to power' (as in freedom of choice and direction of movement in his or her thoughts, feelings, wishes, and actions) on the one hand, and a person's wish and effort to 'socially and/or politically impose his or her own will to power on the person or people he or she wishes to influence'. This latter form of the will to power we might label as a person's 'social and/or political will to power' -- as in an effort made in the direction of 'social and/or political persuasion'.
Stated differently, my own particular usage of the 'will to power' is all inclusive of all 'freedom of choice' whereas 'the social and/or political will to power' more particularly specifies any and/or all righteous, democratic, rhetorical, narcissistic, persuasive, coercive, and/or manipulative attempts at imposing one's will in a social and/or political setting......both well-intended and/or evil-intended ).
One more concept distinction in this regard is 'the will to self-empowerment'. This is designed to be an always 'healthy form of the will to power' even though it may include elements of both the other two. 1. It involves 'free choice'; 2. it involves 'social assertion of one's will to power'; and 3. it involves 'self-actualization' of our innermost capabilities, skills, and talents...
I hope that brings greater clarity to my usage of -- and my intended meaning for -- the concept of 'the will to power'.
-- dgb, April 8th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
