Will To Power.

Anything that is living and a dying body, will have to be incarnate 'will to power.' It will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant- not from any morality or immorality, but because it is living and because life simply is will-to-power. Exploitation belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function, it is a consequence of the will-to-power, which is after all will-to-life.

From the 1890's the philosopher F. Nietzsche exerted a profound and enduring impact on society, he reckoned he could provide a persuasive account on e.g religion, science & philosophy. Nietzsche was not a typical happy chap, he did not at all have a positive view on life and it's challenges and felt rather sickened about his life on plant earth, and so should any other sensitive and honestly aware person be. And therein lies a great danger, Nietzsche felt. If we get sickened by life by looking at it in it's true colours, which we should,otherwise we would be deceiving ourselves, seeking comfort in imaginary religious ideas, wishful thoughts etc.
So, Nietzsche thought; we have to change our values, change from being weak, decadent, soft-hearted, sentimental and timid, to having courageous, self-assertive, risk taking, achievement taking obstacle overcoming values. We are going to have to become the type of person who relishes playing hard ball with life for our own self-created causes.
Therefore, Nietzsche introduced the hypothesis; that nature in essence is nothing but will-to-power. The will-to-power describes what Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in man: achievement, ambition, the striving to reach the highest possible position in life. Will-to-power is an explanation for all human behaviour. It is an impulse, conscious or unconscious, to become superior or dominant over other people, aspects or objects in order to distinguish yourself.
Robert M mentioned in lecture 'that every moral act the is always a feeling of self-satisfaction, an awareness that one is good, righteous and superior to the bad. You would argue that when Susan B Anthony, the American civil rights leader fought for women rights in the 1800's did it to gain equal rights between men and women, to help her fellow women in suffrage, not to gain power and feel superior to anybody else. You would also instantly argue that Maximus Gullermo Manus and his comrades in the Norwegian resistance movement, who were risking to get exposed by Gestapo and their lives , by sabotaging against the Nazi's during WW2, did it for peoples freedom and peoples rights. and every other war-hero that died on the battlefield, fighting for their countries freedom. But according to Nietzsche, is is the contrary; self-sacrificing for their cause or truth is still in accordance to will-to-power.
Will-to-power work by self-depiction. The martyrs get a great feeling of power via their belief that they were in the right. It gives them a sense of superiority, the society would also put them higher than themselves, and give their heroes superiority.
Nietzsche then goes on discussing the 'innocence of becoming.; he rejects the idea that the weak and weary are in such a condition because of the long period of domination and oppression they have endured at the hands of the ruling classes. The blaming of others for the conditions that one happens to be in is nothing more than finding a scapegoat. People need to find others responsible for their miserable condition because they don't want to feel as though there is no reason that they are what they are.
Nietzsche sees this idea as a product of the priestly class, who wanted to invent a right for themselves to take revenge upon those who were their oppressor. in other words responsibility for one's station in life and one's actions is a product of the revenge and ressentiment of those in a state of subjugation. The fact of matter, as Nietzsche claims, is that no-one is responsible for the situation into which a person finds oneself born, or th qualities that a person has: 'that no one has given man his qualities,neither God, nor Society, nor his parents and ancestors, nor he himself....that no one is to be held responsible for the fact that anyone exists at all....'- Nietzsche; The Will to Power, ibid pp 402
The innocence to becoming is the idea that all existence is innocent. To hold someone or something responsible for one's happen-to-be condition is merely to make sour grapes out of those who find themselves in a more favourable circumstances.

Did Nietzsche manage to debunk traditional religion, morality, and philosophical claims by providing us with the will-to-power hypothesis? Nietzsche contributes to the sociological discussion on for example culture, theory and being . He highlights how much of humans are being socially conditioned. His dislikes for sociology is clear, he argues that instead of there being positive effect on mankind, these sociologists of the future will produce a weakening and impoverishment on mankind.
Patrick Asper explains that 'one can divide Nietzsche's argumentation into three parts: (1) an explanation of how values emerge, (2) an explanation of how values emerge and (3) a normative critique of values.
By using this form we manage to expose the pattern which makes Nietzsche's arguments even more powerful.
Personally, I believe Nietzsche debunked the traditional way of thinking, maybe it is because I do think people are in accordance to will-to-power. There is always a deeper meaning why we do what we do.
But as discussed in class, there can be different levels of will-to-power, even though you still get a feeling of being in the right when doing something good, the difference lies in how you benefit from it.