Philosophy Now Forum

Efficiency:

Intro:

There has lately, in America, been a major push by Democrats to increase the minimum wage. And while some of us can applaud the effort and see the short term benefits, and even support it in that capacity, we can’t help but look at the long term deficiencies. While it may well create demand in the short run, thereby, economic expansion, the inherent dynamic of our market economy will only over-ride the effects through inflation, via wage push and wage pull (and the greed of investors), until we’re right back where we started. We could easily see a day, for instance, when janitors are making six figure salaries but are no better off (if not worse) than they are now. This is because, as well intended as the Democrats and unions are in this matter, they’re merely perpetuating more of the same by failing to get outside of the expansionary model of producer/consumer Capitalism and, consequently, may be inadvertently contributing to an ever increasing appetite for consumption that could result in our self destruction through economically motivated wars, environmental destruction, and depletion of our natural resources.

Sooner or later, whether through choice or force of circumstance, we will have to step outside of the market paradigm that works strictly in terms of more and less. We can no longer rest on the old adage that workers want more compensation for less work, while their employers pose, against these demands, their own requirement for minimal investment at maximum return. It might seem common sense. But with a closer look, we might see that the two positions are not so deeply entrenched. If they were, the workplace would hardly be worth any amount of compensation, a perpetual battle with management while struggling to stay afoot in the mass competition toward better paying and easier jobs. And how can one be so happy at 10$ an hour and another so miserable at 20$? The janitor whistles, easily, while mopping his floor. He seems entranced, content, as if in meditation. Another man, sleek and muscular from hauling furniture, makes enough to go to the bar, nightly, and wakes each morning to sweat it off. At quitting time, the cycle repeats. And no random piss tests. Vagrants, drifters, and welfare recipients continue to scrimp through their hand to mouth lives. Meanwhile, a white collar manager slumps over their computer, grumbles often, and when they can, steals a moment on Monster.com. They're hardly afraid they'll get caught and, sometimes, even hopes.

And then there are the intellectually and creatively curious, strange creatures that, in their ass-backwardness, approach the hierarchy of needs from the top down. They neglect basic creature comforts while clinging, often self destructively, to the drug-like addiction of self actualization. And what are they working toward? That is when so many of their heroes, the successful and famous, live public lives of misery, and sometimes kill themselves.

Clearly, we need to break it down to individual needs, demands, and desires. We need to penetrate the multiplicity and interrogate the interactions. Furthermore, we need to recognize that it is primarily about expectations and their satisfaction, and that satisfaction only seems binary by virtue of a molar perspective on the issue. We need to consider the molecular multiplicity of efficiencies.

Origin:

Efficiency, a mechanical term used for equipment such as pumps, boilers, HVACs, etc., concerns the actual output of a system as compared to its theoretical rating and is a product of the differential between what the designer’s mathematics tell them (what something should be able to do) and what actually occurs in practice. But at a more fundamental level, it can also be the differential between the energy or resources put in to a thing (the input) and energy or resource gotten out (the output). And it is in both senses that we use the term. Only, for our purposes, we will define it in the more abstract sense of that which seeks to maximize itself by minimizing the differential between input and output or expectation and result.

We start in the boiler room. First of all, we need to understand that there can never be 100% efficiency. Along the way, there is always a loss (heat loss) that can never return to an active or potential form. As any plant-op knows, you can never expect a 100% return on condensate on any boiler system. And like perpetual motion, everywhere we look, we find it equally elusive. Secondly, we must remain mindful that energy can never be created or destroyed, only transformed, eventually ending in its always final form: heat. Therefore, any motion or energy must be taken from something else. The pump must be driven by electricity. The electricity must be created by the turbine that, in turn, derives its energy from steam. And steam is the product of heat (remember heat loss?) taken from coal, its BTUs, that sees its efficiency reduced to ash. And finally, it must be remembered that our boiler room is a complex and dynamic interaction of efficiencies, a coexistence in which any one efficiency making too large a demand can steal energy from other efficiencies, thereby minimizing them and causing a breakdown in the supra-efficiency of coexistence. Furthermore, sub-efficiencies can be supra-efficiencies to their own relevant sub-efficiencies while also being sub efficiency to their own supra efficiencies. The pump, an efficiency in itself, is the composite product of sub efficiencies (the windings, the armature, etc.). It, in turn, is a sub-efficiency to the supra-efficiency of the boiler room (the plant) that, in turn, serves the supra-efficiency of the building by either heating or cooling it, thereby maximizing the tenant’s sub-efficiency of being comfortable that, in turn, serves the supra-efficiency of the organization.

(And let's recognize the always supra efficiency of the co-existence of efficiencies: not above it all, but folded (both enfolded and enfolding) into all levels of the supra/sub relationships of Efficiency.)

And thus we leave the boiler room with new tools to analyze our initial questions. We now see why the janitor can whistle while he meditates on the movement of the mop: time passes quickly in thought, and he has managed to keep his life within his means. For him, it is not matter of more, but one of efficiency. Likewise, the furniture hauler maximizes the efficiencies of his desire to drink and smoke pot without interference from the efficiency of job security. Plus he likes the exercise. Even the vagrants, drifters, and welfare recipients make more sense. They’ve balanced their efficiencies by lowering their demands. Meanwhile, the white collar worker struggles daily with the minimized efficiencies of job security, a sense of meaning, and family life due to long hours at the office that do nothing to increase financial efficiency in his salaried position -that is while the demands and expectations that have built up in his personal life (his and those around him) strain those financial resources. We further see the minimization of the supra-efficiency of co-existence that can occur when either the workers or employers make higher demands, and maximize their efficiency by compromising others. If the employer demands higher profit, that efficiency can only be maximized, that is since energy and resources cannot be created out of nothing, by stealing from the efficiencies of the employees and their sub-efficiencies. And should the worker demand more, this can only take from the supra-efficiency of the company that will, in turn, compromise the economy by raising prices thereby lowering the supra-efficiency of the economy as a whole .

Consequently, we now see that the Occupy Wall Street movement may not be a demand for more, but a demand for efficiency. It’s not about hating wealth. Nor is it jealousy. It’s about resenting wealth at the expense of everyone else: the maximization of the large scale efficiencies of the few at the expense of others, and the unacceptable minimization of their efficiencies. We can also see, finally, how the artist/intellectual's desire for self actualization can interact with other sub-efficiencies, and how the minimization of those others can lead to misery, or even suicide. The applications seem infinite, and go beyond the issue of economics. The coexistence between the environment and civilization immediately comes to mind. But given our present focus, we might consider the possibility of a new ethical theory that says (complimenting the utilitarian) that those acts are good that maximize the supra-efficiency of coexistence. We might consider our happiest moments and ask: was it matter of having more? Or was it, rather, a matter of having all needs, demands, and desires, ours and those of others, come together in a state of harmonious co-existence: the coexistence of efficiencies?

The Anti-Oedipus and Lacan:

“It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the Id. Everywhere it is machines –real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other ones, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energy-source-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts. The breast is a machine that produces milk, and the mouth a machine coupled to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to whether it is an eating machine, a talking machine, or a breathing machine (asthma attacks). Hence we are all handymen: each with his little machines. For every organ-machine, an energy machine: all the time, flows and interruptions.” –Deleuze and Guattari, The Anti-Oedipus

Hopefully by now I have established the framework upon which Eficiency is built: a Brownian universe very similar to that described by Deleuze and Guattarri in the intro to The Anti-Oedipus. We can even hope that we have added another tool to the process of schizoanalyse by highlighting the forces at work within desiring production. In fact, the terms are virtually interchangeable in that every desiring machine and relevant act of desiring production can be thought of as an instant of efficiency or the related term: expectation. And social production being a manifestation of desiring production, we can apply the overlap in terms to that level as well. What we must also take from D & G's model is its multilayer character, the way it enfolds from within enfoldment, from desiring to social production, and the molecular to the molar back to the molecular, in a non-hierarchal manner in which any individual instance can be both (to put it in D & G's machinic terms) component and machine. Once again, we refer to the boiler room where a pump is both a machine to its various components while also being a component to the general system as well.

We should also consider here a concept and bring in the terminology brought up by Deleuze in his lecture on Spinoza: that of sad and joyful affects. Efficiency, down to its very core, is ultimately about power relationships or how power is exercised. (In fact, for my purposes, it is about undermining all excessive and abusive uses of power, to argue against the libertarian notion that any exercise of power is the only true expression of nature and, therefore, always for the general good.) Basically, they're both about the power relationship any instant of desiring production can have with the thing desired. In a sad affect, the desiring machine involved lacks the power (in other words: resources) to affect the object of desire -an instance of desiring production in itself. Conversely, a joyful affect is that of having the power and resources to affect. And it doesn't take much to get from the concept to the issue of happiness in terms of the social or harmony in terms of our relationship with our environment. We can now see in the sad affect the minimization of Efficiency and the maximization of it in the joyful affect.

We can further articulate on the back and forth that runs from desiring production by adopting the Lacanian terminology of needs, demands, and desires as they develop in the child and carry on into adulthood. The child starts with needs (food, shelter, water, healthcare, etc.) to which the motherer attends. However, as the child grows more cognitive, it begins to develop more sophisticated expectations that it may think of as needs, but is rather an endless series of demands. And while the demands themselves can be obtained (that is if the motherer submits), what cannot be satisfied is the true motive behind the series itself (often a need for attention). Therefore, no matter how many of the demands are obtained, the series will never end because it is never about the thing being demanded. Eventually, due to the frustration of the motherer, who pulls away their attentiveness to those demands, and that of the child as they see less and less of their demands being met, the hope is that the child will eventually turn to what it desires or that which can be obtained but requires an active effort of figuring out what it is. This could be any number of things like self respect, meaning, achievement, or self actualization.

And and these expectations can follow us into adulthood. No matter how old we get, we’ll always need food, water, shelter, and healthcare. And as much as we would like to think we outgrow our demands, they tend to plague us throughout all of our lives. For instance, what is a love relationship (and the underlying source of its volatility) but a long series of demands that two people make on each other? Like the child, we find ourselves demanding the full attention of the other while equally demanding our own space. And the sick (the body being a supra efficiency with its own sub efficiencies) will always demand to be better. The body, as well as the organ, demands it.

Finding our desire is what defines our maturity. We, the intellectually and creatively curious, for instance, define ourselves by what we come to know and create. However, we have to be wary of assuming that because we have found what we desire, we have found some way of keeping our demands forever at bay. Too many great minds have lived otherwise miserable lives to make that assumption. And we tend to romanticize that aspect of it. We start out with notions of the tragic artist carrying the burden of the world. But what we actually find is less profound: the constant distractions of the petty and mundane, the complex negotiation involved in sustaining ourselves for a higher purpose while neglecting our basic needs in order to focus our resources on that higher purpose is what ultimately drags us down. On top of that, there is the demand to be left alone and given time to practice our craft while demanding to be adored and respected, and once adored and respected, the demand to stay so.

And once we see these aspects of our makeup as different degrees of expectation given different levels of import that determine what level of energy we’re willing to invest in them, we can then translate them into the currency of efficiency and get a better sense of how this multiplicity might interact and emerge into the composite effect of the individual’s sad or joyful affects: the maximization (or minimization) of the always supra-efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies.

We should first note that basic needs are pretty much low investment efficiencies that, if we focus purely on them, are generally easy to maximize. We could, for instance, live in a shack and eat rice as many third world people and Zen monks do. However, man does not live by bread and water alone. Not all of us want to live like monks or third world citizens, and we get further from need and closer to demand as we go from a bowl of rice to prime rib. The prime rib may fulfill the need of sustenance, but the enjoyment of that sustenance ultimately constitutes a demand. Still, at most points in between a bowl of rice and a prime rib (say a hot dog), the need for sustenance is an efficiency that should be reasonably easy (especially in western industrialized nations) to sustain at a maximum level. The only reason it would seem otherwise is the intrusion of other instances of efficiency/expectation (usually demands such as greed or lust for power) that steal resources from the former.

Desire, or having reached one's desire, presupposes a maximization of the always supra coexistence of efficiencies. Take, for instance, creative flow. In this state, the individual always has their individual expectations in a state of coordination in which those that are of less import are absorbing less energy while the bulk of energy is being focused on what is most important thereby maximizing that particular efficiency by being able to meet the input resources required to achieve the desired effect. Take, for instance, Einstein's wardrobe. If Cronenberg's movie The Fly is accurate, had you of looked in Einstein's closet, you would have found a rack of exactly the same uniforms. The reason for this is that Einstein did not want to waste any more energy than he had to on deciding which outfit to wear so that he could focus all of it on complex mathematical and physics concepts. And it was for good reason that he set aside the demand of vanity. Demand, it seems, because it can never be truly satisfied, only obtained, is clearly the least efficient form of expectation. And in its more extreme forms it can act as an all consuming parasite sucking the energy from more efficient forms of expectation and thereby undermine (or minimize) the always supra efficiency of coexistence.

Still, let’s not commit to becoming Zen monks and completely discard demands and the value they contribute to the experience of our point A to point B. We can never be fully rid of them anyway. And those small pleasures (watching TV, having a beer and Jager while typing this and listening to my playlist, and name your desert) can add to the justification of a life. It’s a matter of degree and the extent to which they sap energy from other expectations and efficiencies. The important thing to keep in mind is that demands are not needs and always dispensable. Of course, it would seem that desires are equally dispensable. However, more so than with demands, desires are what justify our existence. And as the intellectually and creatively curious know: such a life without justification would be worse than no life at all.

Sidebars and Bullet Points:

We have, thus far, taken a rather serendipitous and often confusing path through the subject and, in the process, rendered the effort, in a cosmic expression of irony, remarkably inefficient. Therefore, it might serve us (and the cause of Efficiency) to review, expand, and articulate upon what we have covered so far in a series of bullet points:

- Once again, the individual, as supra efficiency of coexistence to their given sub efficiencies, is also a sub efficiency to their given social situation. They always have to interact with their family and social circles, their workplace, and their social and political environment. And these social structures, as well, must take their place in the folds (acting as both supra and sub efficiencies) that expand from social groups and workplaces to communities on to states and political structures up to the world and the earth it inhabits all of which must work under the always supra efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies. On top of that, these various levels of coexistence must establish efficiencies of coexistence with the various efficiencies (both supra and sub) of the natural environments in which they find themselves in.

- The previous description has been pretty much vague and abstract. And there is purpose behind that. For one, there is no concrete entity we can think of as an efficiency. There only expressions of them. And in many cases, there is no way of actually measuring the inputs or outputs, much less the differential between them. Consequently, many of our judgments concerning the level of efficiency will be subjective in nature and generally a matter of comparison between different degrees. Furthermore, we have to be careful about talking about the different levels of supra and sub efficiencies as if it were some kind of fixed hierarchy: that which fixates on a particular instance of coexistence (a grand narrative) and puts it above the various sub-efficiencies that constitute it. This is because to subordinate the individual to their various supra efficiencies, in matters of social and political discourse, could lead to extreme conclusions that verge on the fascistic and authoritarian. Furthermore, this is not science. Nor can it be expected to be a perfect fit to every possible situation. It is merely a model and tool that can be applied to reality to analyze the interactions of various systems and provide a different perspective along with a unique vocabulary to discuss what we find. And as abstract as it is, if we engage in a kind serious play with it, it can offer some very concrete understandings to very concrete situations and possibly solutions to the problems they present.

- Still, I have used the term energy in the engineer’s sense of “the ability to do work” as an all purpose designation to several things that can serve as inputs or outputs. On the input side, it can be effort and resources, while on output side it can be any type of effect whether positive or negative or purposely desired (such as monetary return) or left to chance (an unexpected move in a work of art) or somewhere in between.

- On the latter point concerning chance, we can see yet another connection to Deleuze in that his emphasis on desiring production without expectation (or it would more accurate to say: with minimal expectation) leans towards Efficiency in its impulse to let creativity flow where it will -much as water and electricity does.

-While a maximum efficiency of coexistence is basically a kind of strange attractor (generally what things seem to draw towards), there are coexistences that, in terms of the general symbolic order, can be considered darker expressions of it. This can be seen in the world of the chronic alcoholic or drug addict. First of all, let us admit that when it comes to alcohol or drugs, there is, in terms of pleasure, a minimal effort or input coupled with a maximum effect or output. And it is this maximized efficiency that draws the alcoholic or drug addict into addiction. However, as they focus more and more energy on this particular efficiency in their life, they begin to de-prioritize other efficiencies such as environment and appearance thereby achieving a maximized coexistence of efficiencies. And they achieve this maximization by drifting further and further away from the general symbolic order (another efficiency and expectation) and falling into the psychotic pitfall of the nihilistic perspective: that which, having no solid criteria by which to judge actions creates its own semiotic bubble of signs and values. And it would only be when the internal/external demands begin to show themselves, mainly that of securing more alcohol or drugs, that the coexistence of efficiencies would be disrupted. Ask yourself, for instance: if you took a drug addict, gave them shelter and food, and all the drugs they needed, would they ever sincerely recognize their addiction? I would argue no since that recognition would require a need, demand, or desire external to their addiction. In a sense, they would be in Tennyson’s Land of the Lotus Eaters. They would simply have no way of getting outside of the maximized efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies in which they were immersed. There would not be any external efficiencies to disrupt it.

-Now let’s apply the previous to the subject of why artists are so disposed to drug and alcohol addiction. Take, for instance, the writer. First of all, let’s agree that writing is a grueling and tedious venture. It is a process of enduring a lot of minimized efficiencies for the sake of a highly maximized supra efficiency involving the high expectation of greatness: of getting somewhere that no one else on the earth has. Plus that, the writer never has the advantage (the maximized efficiency) of seeing their finished work for the first time. Therefore, is it any wonder that they might mix the maximized efficiency (the immediate pleasure) of alcohol or drugs with the often minimized efficiency of the writing process? And doesn’t the artist, because of their position in relation to the general symbolic order, have to recede into a semiotic bubble similar to that of the addict? Van Gogh, for instance? And isn’t that, in a sense, what Einstein was doing with his wardrobe?

-Finally, while we can give privilege to the coexistence of efficiencies over individual instances of expectation/efficiency, what we cannot do is give privilege to any one coexistence since the always supra-efficiency of coexistence is always enfolding and enfolded within every level of coexistence -in other words: within every instance of efficiency/expectation. And an instance of efficiency/expectation (via a sad affect) can easily move from a need or desire to a demand that will gravitate towards Efficiency by stealing (forcefully if need be) from another instance of efficiency/expectation. This is why we have crime and revolutions. Violence is said to be anything that disrupts a standing order. Perhaps that disruption comes from a neglected instance of efficiency/expectation that wants to move from minimal to maximal efficiency through the least resistant path -much like water or electricity.

I've always thought of my work as glaring off into the distance while someone pats it on the head and says:


"How cute! It's want's to be a work of art!"

"Why is there being and not rather nothing?"

“I thought that was Leibniz: why all this rather than nothing?”

“That's right, originally it is Leibniz' sentence, but later Heidegger were also very intensively busy relating to that sentence. Heidegger meant, inter alia, that in situations of fear nothingness becomes apparent. “

That’s what I thought. Thanks man! I would also note, here, the paradox involved in knowing that we will all die, but can’t imagine ourselves as not existing. I would also note, not having gotten as far into Heidegger’s original text as you apparently have, a point imparted to me (via secondary text (concerning Anguish (perhaps Anxiety?) in his terms: that there is no solid foundation to anything we can assert: that what we assert ultimately narrows down to assumptions that ultimately float on thin air. In other words, it is an experience of ungroundedness. To bring your quote from Heidegger into the discourse:

"In the bright night of nothingness of anxiety the original openness of being as such only arises: that it is being - and not nothing. Only because the nothingness is apparently on grounds of the existence ('Dasein'), the full strangeness of being can come upon us and the fundamental question of metaphysics: Why is there being rather than nothing." - Martin Heidegger, "What is metaphysics?", 1929.

“Now imagine a perfect nothingness, in a metaphorical sense, needing to become something.
In that sense all perceiving things become the eyes and ears of God:
that which makes nothing something.”

“I think this is artificial, even though it is the substance of much if not most religion. The nothingness, as soon as there is a trying, does not exist - as soon as there is any verb, (no)(thing)(ness) becomes a word that can only relate to itself.
We can only say the word "nothingness" and either tautologically affirm it ("nothingness contains nothing") or just contemplate the term. But what we are doing is not related to nothing at all, it is relating to ourself.

So the real process here is something trying to become nothing by imagining nothing to become something - i.e. itself.”

On a second run-through, I realize how badly I had misread this (basically fucked it up –mainly based on the term “artificial” which I took as a slight to my point. The main point of the responder is that my point may be coming out of a fundamental fact of existing as a conscious being as compared to not being conscious. This is complicated by the fact that we can never look at nothingness directly which leaves us vulnerable to what we can say about it. Hence the term: artificial.

In order to understand this, we could step towards it via the thought of Chomsky who argued that language is the product of the physiological structures of the brain and how it interacts with its environment and Pinker who elaborates in The Stuff of Thought .

And in this sense, I think we might be able add to the discourse by considering the connection between Being and Nothingness (a metaphysical consideration) to Presence and Absence (a phenomenological one). That way we can move from the speculative to the very fact of conscious existence.

The thing about the boards is that it is kind of hard to go back to the old days when I was cranking out art, poetry, and fiction in my room with a boombox which I had to constantly to replace CDs and program in the songs I wanted to hear while engaged in an act of creativity that I had no way of knowing anyone else would see.

It was so isolating. It made me feel like a freak.

At the same time: it was that kind of isolation that created guys like Van Gogh and Nietzsche.

"New question:
Why speak and not rather not speak?
Out of excess. The language of the birds is the anger of the soul."

To partially answer your question: because the language of birds can be the joy of the soul as well. It's a matter of interpretation. And sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. But then I base this on the way my writing style has evolved via a common friend, Satyr, in that while writing I have sometimes felt like a sparrow twittering around on a branch and chirping while he watches from behind his blanket and scowls. In that sense, the chirping can be interpreted as a form of joyful hostility.

That said, to answer your question in a broader sense, and bring it back to the OP: it may well be that we speak to make ourselves and what we think more real to us. In fact, I'm not sure we could even think like we do without the technology of language. In this context, language (as well as speech( becomes an expression of the nothingness becoming something while containing the chaos that has characterized the process that started with the big bang and resulted in the very post before you now. It may well be this relationship between Nothingness, Being, and the chaos implied in the transition from Nothingness to Being that underlies Nietzsche's claim:

"One must still have inner chaos to give birth to a dancing star."

It may well be that we speak to give birth to that dancing star.

me(touch(time (space: u

gotta work to play
(but play to justify work.......


?: why shouldn't I love you...

“Do you really love Philosophy?”

“2 the point of self destruction: the neglect of the petty and mundane which sustains us all.”

“Would you mind explaining what you mean?”

That’s actually a bigger question than you might realize and overlaps into our cultural history as a whole –for instance, the arts. When we start our process as the creatively and intellectually curious, we start, based on our heroes (such as Van Gogh, Marx, Socrates, Jimi (both Hendrix and Morrison( etc.( with romantic notions of the tragic soul carrying the burden of the world. But what we ultimately find is that it is the petty and mundane matters that wear us down (and this is especially the case in America with its unconditional embrace of producer/consumer Capitalism and the tyranny of the functional –that which can be translated into dollar value: that constant struggle to devote our resources to pursuing our higher selves in an economic and social environment that in too many small ways demands our resources for its interests. And do not be fooled by the Randian myth that Capitalism is the only means by which we can find our higher selves. The greatness it champions must always stay within the perimeters of capital and what can be translated into profit: a formula for mediocrity if ever there was one.

(Note, for instance, the way that cable TV has gravitated towards the lowest common denominator through reality shows because they produce the same (if not more (profit for less investment than creating actual art.)

Every day that I spend on here, every day that I spend around an hour reading in preparation for this, feels like a violation of God and country in that I could be devoting that time to the numerous petty and mundane responsibilities imposed upon me by everyday life. And there would be any number of people who would argue that I clearly have my priorities wrong. I could, for instance, devote my intellect, creativity, and time pursuing more profitable disciplines. I did that for 5 years and it did work to extent that I have a decent job. But having abandoned my liberal and fine arts disposition to do so, it eventually began to feel like a carrot on a stick. I mean to what extent do you need to pad your resume before you actually achieve financial security? That is given that I am making reasonably good money while struggling as much as I ever have financially because of the petty and mundane little demands that have accumulated in my life –many of which were forced upon me because I happened to be the one with resources?

But as hard as this is, as hard as it feels to go on when the barbarians are always at the gates, it is for this very reason that I am always reminded that I must go on. As Camus argues:

“All arguments for beauty are ultimately arguments for freedom.”

I have to go on out of a stubborn rejection of the notion that the worth of my point A to point B must be based on how society and the market rewards it. While we believe in things like afterlives, higher powers, and higher principles (such as Capitalism (our point A to point B is all there is: consequences be damned.

This is why I would respectfully disagree with those who argue that you can’t love philosophy, but only like it. They sound like people who think of it as little more than a hobby (something they can just do in their spare time (as compared to a way of life –which is fine if that is all you want from it. And that way of life being one that goes against the general flow of things (the market, responsibility, and the tyranny of the functional (duty as the Buddhists would put it (you had better goddamn well love what you’re doing (to the point of self destruction if that’s what it takes (in the face of the opposition you will find yourself up against.

“Introduction to the Five Branches of Philosophy
Philosophy can be divided into five branches which address the following questions:

Metaphysics Study of Existence What's out there?
Epistemology Study of Knowledge How do I know about it?
Ethics Study of Action What should I do?
Politics Study of Force What actions are permissible?
Esthetics Study of Art What can life be like?


There is a hierarchical relationship between these branches as can be seen in the Concept Chart. At the root is Metaphysics, the study of existence and the nature of existence. Closely related is Epistemology, the study of knowledge and how we know about reality and existence. Dependent on Epistemology is Ethics, the study of how man should act. Ethics is dependent on Epistemology because it is impossible to make choices without knowledge. A subset of Ethics is Politics: the study of how men should interact in a proper society and what constitutes proper. Aesthetics, the study of art and sense of life is slightly separate, but depends on Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics. “

What you are describing here is what was introduced to me through Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy. This was the first philosophy book I ever read and one I picked up in a second hand store at a time when I was primarily focused on being a musician. (I thought it, at the time, my manifest destiny to be a rock star.)The idea was to see how Aristotle’s Categorical would influence my music –which goes to show how willy-nilly and naive my understanding of philosophy actually was at the time.

However, the order of the list went Metaphysics, Logic, Aesthetics, Ethics, and Politics, which I only point out because it goes to the hierarchical sense of it you have –something I will go into below.

But before I do, I want to cover another point you made:

“I don't really consider myself to be a philosopher per se in that I do not have the knowledge nor brain matter of many in this forum. I'm certainly no scholar or academic as some in here are. I'm not saying I'm stupid - I'm far from stupid. But I am really interested and have my own perspectives though I try to stay on the fence of skepticism but not deliberately so - I just can't help it. I am trying to question more - not to know it, especially when it comes down to metaphysics.”

First of all: welcome to the club. I like to think of myself as more of a writer who happens to enjoy writing about my experience with philosophy. I have no formal training either. Still, having been a musician, poet, writer of fiction, and artist, I find myself, in middle age, seeing philosophy as the poetry and art I am attracted to. And we can assume that the intellectual and creative curiosity that brought you here in the first place precludes you from being “stupid”, that is since most people go through their lives having no interest in philosophy whatsoever –in fact, will sometimes even resist and dismiss it as pointless or even dangerous. That is, of course, unless you vehemently disagree with something I am saying, in which case you would be a complete moron. On the other hand, I would expect the same to be the case from your perspective if the dynamic were reversed. So I think we can agree that the previous assumption has a little more credibility than the latter sentiment.

Okay! Now that we’re agreed on that, I’m not sure where you got your order, but I mainly have to work from the Durant order because that is the one I’m familiar with. First of all, I would deal with the issue of the hierarchy by pointing out that the term at the end, politics, is propped up by the terms before it: ethics which is propped up by aesthetics which is propped up by logic which is propped up by metaphysics. This, in turn, creates a hierarchy which runs:

Metaphysics<Logic<Aesthetics<Ethics<Politics

But there are problems here –outside of the fact that such a hierarchy tends to offend the contemporary sensibility. For one, many into philosophy would tend to see politics as a common matter and metaphysics as the highest use of our minds since metaphysics is what would establish the very foundation of how we should run society. In that case, the formula would be:

Metaphysics>Logic>Aesthetics>Ethics>Politics

But the problem with this is that we have, over time, realized that our metaphysical statements tend to be a little more influenced (founded upon (our political situation than we might realize, especially since we tend to establish a metaphysical foundation based on what will ultimately change our political situation. So now we have formula that reads in way that does not necessarily start with the first line here, but is rather an infinite regress that leads to:

Metaphysics>Logic>Aesthetics>Ethics>Politics
Politics>Ethics>Aesthetics>Logic>Metaphysics
And so on
And so on

Another problem is that a lot has changed since Durant published his book in 1929, mainly the developments of Phenomenology, Existentialism, and post structuralism and post modernism and the terminology that has come with it. So now we can revise and write the formula (in its basic sense(as:

Metaphysics/Ontology (since Ontology is a metaphysics with its feet on the ground of Being)>Logic/Epistemology (since both are about what we can know and are at the bottom of the analytic break from the continental)>Aesthetics/Ethics (since both are about value statements which, in turn, lead to how we organize>the social/political

And much as we did with the old school formula, we must reverse this into the same kind of infinite back and forth without beginning or end.

Of course, thanks to guys like Rorty and Deleuze (with and w/out Guattarri (we are no longer committed to such linear schemes. Now we are perfectly free to use whatever aspect (at any point in the process (is practical for the sake of discourse (Rorty) or bounce from the Metaphysical/Ontological to the Ethical/Aesthetic to the Logical/Epistemological to the Political/Social in any way that serves creative thought in the vast rhizomatic network of Deleuze and Guattarri: look at them as little more than tools in our philosopher’s toolbox.

“The radical Jew and Nazi want that only they are ultimately self-affirming. I want that all are self-affirming, and that the strongest, wisest, luckiest wins, and splits open into a new war.

Nature must war so that we can live.”
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Strange thing to say in a world that has a nuclear arsenal that could end the world as we know it, or that is facing man made climate change which will require a more cooperative approach to deal with –both of which are perpetuated and accelerated by the competitive nature of producer/consumer Capitalism.

Still, you have to appreciate the resonance and seduction of such an aphorism that plays to our fantasies about our abilities to thrive in such a world.
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Nature must war (compete (and cooperate (and cooperate so that it can compete (so that we can live.
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And isn’t survival (with the possibility of the point A to point B justified to the individual (the only thing at stake here? I think here of the Neo-Nietzscheian gospel of the fearlessly fanciful: the basement overmen who would sit in environmentally controlled spaces, their faces blazing in the dim glow of their computer screens, typing and, in between phrases, raising their fists: tight, trembling, and ready for action.
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“Aphorisms are more than just a "short" or "quick" form of writing and are quite distinct from poetry, although the use of metaphor and imagery is very effective in both. A poem properly evokes a feeling, while an aphorism properly evokes a vantage, a more comprehensive perspective (which of course will often involve our feelings as well). Aphorisms are a very careful and particular kind of concentration of experience, employing opposites, contradictions and various degrees of alternating clarity and vagueness in order to not just state a truth but to give a perspective upon it, most importantly to give something to which the reader is forced to respond, and rather he respond for or against is irrelevant. “

Perhaps a concentrated form of exposition as well? A poetic form that allows the philosopher to deal with the ambiguities they find themselves faced with?
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“And a talk of aphorisms cannot be complete without talking about the process of creating them. This process is very interesting, as it involves visualizing a complete 'idea' from all 'sides' at once and visualizing how it forms as an irreducible component-nature, that whole "irreducible complexity" thing that christians are always talking about. In the case of great ideation, this is an apt way of phrasing it. The aphorism must introduce a way into that kind of idea, to the reader otherwise unable to ascend that far up into the heights of truth. ”

I would say that the aphorism is more of a method than anything. And note here that the main inspiration behind Nietzsche’s aphorisms was the bible. He stole their methods of exposition for completely different ends. I would also note Wittgenstein’s use of them driven by his lack of faith in himself as a writer.
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I started as a musician, then moved on to poetry. Both were a process of accumulating things (riffs, lines of words, etc. (until those things spontaneously came together into a solid whole. Writing did not allow that to happen. It was more linear and a matter of exerting my will.

The aphorism (the way I can compose it in my head (is what makes the writing process worth it.
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The aphorism lies in that no-man’s land between poetry and the essay.

Now before anyone releases the Kraken on me, or feels the sting of betrayal:
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When it comes to the Neo-Nietzscheian gospel, that which centers on The Will to Power and turns what should be a denotative and descriptive concept into a prescriptive one, the person that wrote:

“The radical Jew and Nazi want that only they are ultimately self-affirming. I want that all are self-affirming, and that the strongest, wisest, luckiest wins, and splits open into a new war.

Nature must war so that we can live.”

:has, thus far, shown themselves to be far more reasonable and less of an a-hole than the realm of KTS has shown itself to be in its embrace of the sensibility. Hence the mocking tone (a residual effect of KTS( in one of my riffs (an aphorism if you will:

“I think here of the Neo-Nietzscheian gospel of the fearlessly fanciful: the basement overmen who would sit in environmentally controlled spaces, their faces blazing in the dim glow of their computer screens, typing and, in between phrases, raising their fists: tight, trembling, and ready for action.”

:a tone aimed more at the fanatical demagogues of KTS than the poster above. But then I think they would understand that being as familiar (if not more so (with the intellectual wasteland of KTS.
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Still, it is of that sensibility and warrants the same criticism that I can hopefully relay with a less mocking tone:

First of all, it does appeal to our fanciful nature in that it assumes that the individual is up to thriving in such a brutal environment. This, in turn, is based on the assumption that the Will to Power, if it is strong enough, can overcome the random nature of fate. But no matter how much popular culture might make it seem otherwise, whatever degree of will you might have, you will still be subject to the variables of your environment. You might be the most powerful warrior on the face of the earth. But if a satellite is aiming a bomb at you…. you’re gone, tough guy. The same goes in some post apocalyptic Mad Maxian world if you happen to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Of course, our culture, dominated by producer/consumer Capitalism, will stop at nothing to have you believe otherwise. I mean who wouldn’t want to be like the heroes we are saturated with? But note the discrepancy between the cocky heroics of the soldiers you see about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the large number of soldiers coming back with PTSD. You can’t make a war movie without romanticizing war. As the director of The Big Red One said: the only way to give a movie audience the true feel of war is to start shooting bullets over their heads. But to give you real sense of the way that producer/consumer Capitalism perpetuates the fancy of the Will to Power through popular culture, note the recent movie version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Ben Stiller:

Now when I first heard it was coming out, I was excited given the disappointment of the earlier musical version with Danny Kaye. But as I heard more about it, the excitement dissipated. And in order to understand why, you have to look at the original version written by Thurber in which the protagonist, Walter Mitty, starts as a weak henpecked individual who ends, victoriously, as a weak henpecked individual -that is through the compensation of fantasy. It left you with the same compassion for the main character that Thurber must have felt for him. And, in that sense, Mitty was the antithesis of the Randian hero: that which is also based on fancy but compromised through utter denial. Of course, producer/consumer Capitalism could not help but wind its spindly little fingers into it by changing the story to one in which Mitty went from being a weak henpecked individual to one that actually does something. Pure fancy compared to Thurber’s original intent.

Just put in mind here that if there is anything that Capitalism sells best (for example: reality shows like America’s Got Talent or Who Wants to be Millionaire (it is possibility. The embrace of a post apocalyptic wasteland is not that much different in that it still supports and surrenders to producer/consumer Capitalism.

We should note, as well, the rhizomatic possibilities of the aphorism: the way it allows us to bounce from one point to the other, a process underwritten by the subconscious forces at work in the stream of consciousness: free association. The aphorism, to put it in Deleuzian terms, is an effective tool by which we can write at the edge of what we know and work our way beyond our self.

It’s almost surprising that Deleuze (w/ and without Guattari (did not write in the form when it seems so suitable to his agenda. Even stranger is the almost aphoristic style of Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus papers.
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I believe it was Mencken who wrote: how would I know what I thought if I didn’t write? In this sense, the aphorism is the recording of thought in its purest.
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“It is very difficult to learn how to write a real aphorism. But it isn't so hard to write aphorisms are "ok". Most people can't tell the difference, anyway, including most philosophers.”

Yes! But as it is with writing poetry (or any other art form (one must write a lot of them that are just “ok” in order to write a real one.

As Tennyson wrote: a great poet is one who, having spent a lifetime standing in thunderstorms, manages to be struck by lightening 2 or 3 times.
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Note: the bulk of Nietzsche’s aphorisms were likely written on his daily walks when his mind was free to do what it willed.
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But let us not underestimate the danger of such an approach –that is given its susceptibility to impulse. It was in an aphorism that Schopenhauer argued that women should not be allowed in the opera since all they would do is gab through it all.
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“Son, you can’t just let your mind wander like that. You never know what trouble it will get into.”
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It is the spontaneity of the aphorism that threatens the elitism of the classical sensibility.
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Realized today the irony of the progressive idealist now having to be the one that has to defer to Ockham’s razor. While the pro-Capitalists are full of all kinds of complex arguments as to why it is civilization is failing (like a teenager busted at something and throwing everything on the table hoping that something will stick( in other words: rationalization (for the progressive idealist, it is the simplest explanation possible:

That a handful of people are hoarding resources while expecting everyone else to fight for the crumbs that fall off the table.
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Hence, the threat that the aphorism, in its ease of composition, poses to the classicist who generally allies themselves with producer/consumer Capitalism. Is it not the vindication of being marketable that determines what is of value?

And how marketable is the aphorism?
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There is something about the mind that likes juxta-positioning one thing on the other: bricolage. What are dreams but the mind and brain sifting randomly through the various units of thought (the qualia (and fusing them together until they find patterns that work and that they can repeat?

Perhaps dreams are aphoristic in nature. Perhaps they are what resist marketability, what insists on our autonomy in the face of the market. Perhaps our dreams, like the aphorism, are for us alone.
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Sorry about that! Just stepping through the aphorisms and seeing where they take me.
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Perhaps the aphorism is a form of play.

On the question of why some people seem to seek their own oppression and the irrationality of their arguments rooted in self interest:

“This presumes a great deal I know- but rather than defining the 'best interests' of these people for them- they might claim that their best interests are 'moral' or 'principled' rather than economic or social- I see no other way to make sense of the decisions they end up supporting.”

Yes, many of them will try to do so in the Calvinistic sense of encouraging evil by rewarding the unproductive poor through tax funded social programs. But this only shows itself to be little more rationalization in that it is ultimately economic in that it is motivated by their fear that their resources might be compromised. For all their claims to the “moral” or “principled”, nothing could be more evil than what comes out of the Calvinistic tradition and the despicable notion that our standing with God is somehow expressed through our economic standing in this world. And I’m quite sure there are many Christians who would agree with me on this.

That said, allow me to add a Zizekian twist on this in proposing that such rationalization (including the Calvinistic (does not necessarily indicate a complete lack of compassion for the poor or moral recognition. In fact, I would argue that a lot of right-wing behavior (the hysteria (can result from an overzealous attempt to suppress the moral uncertainty of what they do: the kind of push/pull tension that defines Jouissance as Lacan defined it and was articulated by Zizek throughout many of his writings like this one from Plague of Fantasies:

“It is especially important to bear in mind how the very ‘bureaucratization’ of the crime was ambiguous in its libidinal impact: on the one hand, it enabled (some of) the participants to neutralize the horror and take it as ‘just another job’; on the other, the basic lesson of the perverse ritual also applies here: this ‘bureaucratization’ was in itself the source of an additional jouissance (does it not provide an additional kick if one performs the killing as a complicated administrative-criminal operation? Is it not more satisfying to torture prisoners as part of some orderly procedure –say, the meaningless ‘morning exercises which served only to torment them –didn’t it give another ‘kick’ to the guards satisfaction when they were inflicting pain on their victims not by directly beating them up but in the guise of an activity officially destined to maintain their health?”

Now on one hand, we can associate this with a sociopathic lack of empathy. We can see this in a lot of the rock-star non-chalance that a lot of pro-Capitalists tend to resort to. Take, for instance, Marlee Maitlen’s response to Bill Maher on Real Time when he brought up the issue of man-made climate change:

“Surely Bill, you don’t expect me to ride a bike to work.”

And we can root this kind of approach to Ayn Rand who went from a legitimate argument of being weary of all arguments that an individual is being selfish if they fail to put their social situation over their personal desire to the perfect license of being able to do whatever you want even if it comes at the expense of others. Of course, we mainly see this in the more secular elements of the right which I will later try to establish as subject to the same push/pull moral tension as the other aspect of the right.

But, in order to understand it, we have to look at the more Christian element of the right and ask if they’re completely oblivious to the harm their policies are doing to the poor -that is for the sake of self interest. I would argue that they’re not and that this is why they feel compelled to resort to the hysterical tactics that they do: they have to throw themselves fully into a hysterical belief system because it is the only way they can delude themselves into believing that what they are doing is morally right. Take, for instance, the behaviors of the Tea Party which can be described as being clinically hysterical. Like Lacanian Jouissance, at a sub-conscious level they experience the discomfort of being wrong while at a conscious self-interested level they experience being right.

And given this, we can now see the secular right (the libertarians and Rand-heads (as being like Kierkegaard’s continuation of sin: that which, rather than face the guilt, leans into evil in order to move itself as far beyond its moral failure as it possibly can: chooses pure evil over moral uncertainty. And in that sense, for all the cool airs (that rock star non-chalance ( it takes on, it can equally be seen as an expression of hysteria.

Flirting, to me, is an expression of the inherent creativity of language and is why philosophers like Rorty and Deleuze put so much emphasis on discourse. It is a form of play that seeks the propagation of a given genetic makeup, via resonance and seduction, which makes it significant in evolutionary terms.

And it underlies the very act of engaging in philosophical and intellectual discourse. In fact, if you think about it, every time we engage in discourse, we are basically engaging in a form of flirtation that is inherently creative. And for good reason:

First of all, think about the power of recall involved in pulling up the right word at the right time in order to even form a sentence. In that sense, the very act of being able to form a meaningful sentence seems almost magical. Now consider the creativity involved in a normal conversation. I string words together into a sentence that is unlike any sentence I’ve uttered before. Then you, based on the meaning you extract from it, respond by stringing words together into a sentence that is unlike any you have before. At the same time, we’re both doing so through a loose repetition of things we have said and heard: our new and novel sentences are variations of sentences we have said and heard before. And we engage in this always for some purpose that will serve our ends. This was suggested by Wittgenstein’s concept of the language game and correlates with the evolutionary process of brain plasticity.

Flirting is basically an amplification of this day to day process, because there is way more at stake (once again: the propagation of a given genetic makeup (and lies at the heart of why some people will take it further by trying to write great poetry or philosophy.

“If discourse is flirting, that what is the philosophic analogue to actually 'doing the deed' ?”

The third synthesis of Deleuze and Guattarri 's 3 syntheses as described by Ian Buchanan in his reader’s guide to The Anti-Oedipus: consumption or consummation.

And if you think about it, flirting is a process that perfectly describes the process. First you start with the connective (or conjunctive) synthesis in which two individuals are finding their common ground through the seduction and resonance of the sentences they manage to string together (itself a product of the connective synthesis and as beholden to the next 2 as the process of flirtation itself (that is in order to point to the complex interaction between the 3 syntheses: the enfolding and enfolded within relationship between all 3 through which we experience the push-pull tension of Jouissance (in order to reach a given end: the third synthesis of consumption or consummation.

Of course, in the midst of this process is the disjunctive synthesis in which the 2 are finding their differences (the main one being the differences in sex and gender (although the same process would apply to gays: as will be pointed out in the below point concerning friendship (that will add to the appeal (the Jouissance (that will eventually land our 2 subjects in bed. And were there not this disjunctive process, the synthesis might not happen since the other we are trying to seduce and resonate with would simply be “more of the same”: that which is too much like ourselves to be worth trying to obtain: too much like masturbation.

But in order to get at the true depth and subtlety of the issue, we have to look at the disjunctive synthesis enfolded within the synthesis of consumption and consummation. Once that synthesis is achieved, it is only a matter of time before the desiring machine seeks more desiring production. This is why our 2 subjects, even after the synthesis of consummation will still lay there and flirt: both through the discourse of language (the ultimately awkward attempt to describe how great the experience was (and body language: the smooth frenzy of caressing as if the hands are looking for yet another way in.

The important thing to note here is the ubiquitous role that discourse is playing throughout all this: including that within the body language engaged in during the consumptive synthesis of sex that the discourse of flirting was leading to.

And if we think about it, we can apply the same dynamic (via discourse (to the friendships we form –that is sans the body language of sex. We basically form our friendships based on the way we resonate and seduce through the discourses (the watered down forms of flirtation (that we throw at them because they have managed to resonate with and seduce us. However, the main synthesis of consummation that results, in this case, is that of them coming back: that which has enfolded within it the same disjunctive synthesis of knowing that the other is their own person, that the duration of the friendship is always dependent on the willingness of the 2 parties involved to keep engaging in discourse and the 3 syntheses involved.
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And if, as Deleuze argues, friendship is a matter of knowing the other’s madness:

“Until they know your madness, they cannot be your friend.”

:perhaps there is a certain amount of blackmail involved that keeps it going until the seduction and resonance (discourse as flirting (kicks back in.

“There is even a more striking cite [?: concept…] of Nietzsche’s concerning…. Pansexuality: "The mode of art and sexuality is always at the top [or back] of his mind.“

I had to take a few liberties with this translation. But if I get you right, you’re basically pointing towards the privilege Nietzsche gives to philosophy as a form of poetic exploration (the Dionysian (as compared to the desire to give philosophy the “sure footing of a science” (the Apollonian: an obsession with the Truth that he was opposed to.

But to offer a couple of alternative takes on this:

To take off from and revise Russell’s description: philosophy lies in that no-man’s land between science and literature: we can go a long ways in understanding any philosopher by placing them at some point in the midst of that spectrum –that is as long as we don’t oversimplify by fixing them at that point. And Nietzsche clearly works most comfortably at the more literary side of it: as is clearly indicated by his love of the aphorism: that which is the choice of that divided mind that can’t choose between being a philosopher or a poet.

Secondly, as Joe Hughes points out in his reader’s guide to Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Deleuze’s primary attraction (and a good description of its value (to Nietzsche and Kierkegaard was the fact that they (rather than just describe (showed becoming in action. Now, in order to understand the import of this, we have to go back to Plato who was dealing with the problem of trying to describe a stable truth in a universe that was in a constant state of change: of becoming. Hence the import of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard in that they, after centuries of frustrated attempts to fulfill Plato’s agenda, turned, at last, to embrace becoming.

Of course, there was the reactionary neo-classicist movement of the Anglo-American analytic movement which you refer to several times:

“Sexuality as a "driving force", a desire (unconscious (is not very present in Wittgenstein, - as a very polite formulation.”

“This is very important, because the British empiricist school with their "tabla rosa" [brain] plasticity makes it totally clear why mankind is so unhappy and brutal and where the "Will to power" stems from.”

Now if I get (and have translated (you right, you’re getting at some of the fundamental issues I have with the Anglo-American analytic movement:

First of all, it is a little sterile given its lean towards the scientific side of the above described spectrum. It’s not that I underestimate the value of what it is doing. It’s just that it’s not for me. In fact, if the only option as concerns philosophy was its methods and agenda, I would have to go back to art or literature. Even though there are some analytic types I wouldn’t mind getting back to (such as Dennett or Searle (if they were all philosophy had to offer (or the dreary mathematics of early Russell (if it weren’t for the continental approach I wouldn’t even be here.

And it is my disposition that lies at the heart of my issue with the analytic when it smugly dismisses any method outside its own. It is one thing to say that a study of what we can say about a world that is perfectly observable can produce some useful results. It is quite another to assert that it is the only method by which we can achieve any valid understanding. In this sense, it is fascistic in nature (to put it in Deleuze’s (w/ and w/out Guattarri( terms( in that it seeks to cut off the flows of energy that are the primary source of the creativity that can get us beyond ourselves: beyond what our minds can presently do.

(And in this sense, I would respectfully disagree with your negative tone when it comes to “brain plasticity” in that it seems to me that the primary agenda of philosophers like Nietzsche, Deleuze , Rorty, and any other thinker that resides at the more literary side of the spectrum is to facilitate and accelerate that process: to ride it if you will.(

But there is, as you seem to be suggesting, a “Will to Power” aspect in that the dominance of the analytic movement (an academic TREND if you ask me (in that it seems to be the hegemony that comes with the increasing influence of corporate funding in universities: the intellectual coup of an emerging aristocracy/oligarchy via global producer/consumer Capitalism. And this (this abuse of Nietzsche's "Will to Power" ( I would agree, has been a major source of human brutality and misery. I mean think Ayn Rand.