Nietzsche’s Core Concepts: Will to Power and Eternal Recurrence
The Will to Power: A Dual Interpretation
The riddle of the Will to Power has two possible readings: a worldview beyond good and evil as a struggle of chaotic and unequal forces, and an interpretation of the individual as an eternal conflict of passions.
The World as Chaos of Forces
In the first case, against the science that sees the world as a cosmos, an ordered whole and balanced forces, Nietzsche asserts that the entire universe is a chaos of forces in perpetual struggle. Is this chaos good or bad? For Schopenhauer and Christianity, it is evil, condemning human beings to self-denial. However, Nietzsche believes that the Will to Power is not an object to be valued, but the subject itself: it is not tried, it is she who judges; it is not chosen, but she who chooses.
The Individual as Micro-Chaos
As for the individual taken as Will to Power, Nietzsche clearly states: “You also are will to power.” The individual is a micro-chaos which reflects the chaos of forces in the world. This bears a reasonable resemblance to Freud’s theory of the unconscious.
Distinction from Spinoza and Schopenhauer
Against Spinoza and Schopenhauer, authors who conceived of man as will, Nietzsche marks their differences. Nietzsche always emphasizes two key points:
- The will is in no way satisfied with just wanting to be or being kept (this is Spinoza’s theory), but aims to dominate, to intensify, and to grow.
- (Here only against Schopenhauer) The Will to Power is not seeking just the simple suspension of pain but also wants the pain, deriving its joy from something beyond the pleasure-pain contrast.
Eternal Recurrence: The Maximum Demand of Life
Earlier, during the height of Christianity, it was believed that God poured time and was returning to it: time was secured for eternity. The immanent, the sensitive, the perishable, was only a way station toward the true reality of eternity. The Enlightened critique of the Godhead did not end this duality, but continued it on another level. It is understood that the present does not exist except in the light of a bright future of peace and harmony. It is the myth of progress which requires sacrificing the present in terms of the future. This is the meaning of history in Kant, Hegel, Marx, Comte.
Nihilism and the Condemnation of Life
Schopenhauer took a step beyond the death of God by claiming that the will moving the world is nothing but destruction and pain, and that the individual cannot aspire to anything higher than to give up being. The Kantian hope for a happy ending to history earned him nothing but sarcasm.
In short, Christianity, the Enlightenment, and Schopenhauer, each in its own way, are only examples of nihilism—a condemnation of life. In condemnation of this situation, Nietzsche’s bet is to raise a puzzle that defeats the devaluation of the immanence of life and expresses the full affirmation of the latter, embracing both the pleasing and joyous aspects, as well as those that frighten or tear us painfully.
The Absolute Moment
The idea of eternal recurrence can be understood as the expression of the maximum demands of life: life is fleeting—birth, life, and death—there is nothing in it permanently. But we can recover the notion of permanence if we make the very moment last forever, not because it never runs out, but because it is repeated endlessly. In a way, and although it may seem paradoxical, Nietzsche achieved with this thesis making life Absolute.
However, it is not easy to affirm the infinite repetition of this chaotic world ruled by the Will to Power. We are assailed by the doubt: do we love existence enough to want to repeat endlessly the Jewish Holocaust, Hiroshima, and all suffering? That is why Nietzsche called the realization of the eternal return “the heaviest burden.”
Once past the disgust and horror produced by the eternal recurrence, laughter emerges that says yes to all existence—the awareness that the world is neither good nor bad, just pure innocence of becoming, pure game. Thus, Nietzsche returns to Heraclitus.