The Will to Power
An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values
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The Will to Power
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Narrated by:
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Michael Lunts
About this listen
Nietzsche never recovered from his mental breakdown in 1889 and therefore was unable to further any plans he had for the ‘magnum opus’ he had once intended, bringing together in a coherent whole his mature philosophy.
It was left to his close friend Heinrich Köselitz and his sister Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche to go through the remaining notebooks and unpublished writings, choosing sections of particular interest to produce The Will to Power, giving it the subtitle An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. It was published in 1901, was expanded in subsequent years and was translated into English in its expanded form in 1910 by Anthony M Ludovici, who had done so much to bring Nietzsche’s work to the English-speaking public.
Ludovici explains that for Nietzsche, the Will to Power was the fundamental principle of all life, a view that could be found in many of his earlier texts, including Thus Spoke Zarathustra: ‘Where there is life, there is also will: not, however, Will to Life, but - so teach I thee - Will to Power!’ (In this, Nietzsche was concerned to overtake Schopenhauer’s concept of the ‘Will to Live’.)
This posthumous compilation is arranged in four books (divided into 1,067 sections):
- European Nihilism
- A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
- The Principles of a New Valuation
- Discipline and Breeding
Among the themes given prominence by this compilation - and it is, it must be remembered, basically an anthology - are nihilism, metaphysics and the future of Europe.
Nietzsche identified Christianity (and its claim to be ‘higher and better’) and its ‘meek/weak’ attitude as one cause of the nihilism that so concerned him. Another side of the coin was the ineluctable basic human nature of ’the will to power’. Deny that, and nihilism results. But passive nihilism (following the breakdown of social conventions, including conventional religion) can be counteracted by active nihilism and the role of the ‘ubermensch’, the self-reliant.
In aphorism after aphorism he argued for the creation of new values based on acceptance that there is nothing beyond ourselves. It remains his conviction that it is the men who are the masters of themselves - a dominating elite - who must lead. But a deeply human initiative, not the creation of a master race!
Aphorism 22 posits, ‘Nihilism. It may be two things: A. Nihilism as a sign of enhanced spiritual strength: active Nihilism. B. Nihilism as a sign of the collapse and decline of spiritual strength: passive Nihilism.’ Nietzsche’s powerful, uncompromising language continues right to the closing moments, where he concludes, ‘And even you yourselves are this will to power - and nothing besides!’
Translation by Anthony M Ludovici.
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What listeners say about The Will to Power
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- PAULO CERQUEIRA
- 29-12-21
Excelente book to the soul.
Nietzsche was a very intelligent man and we can feel it on his words. However he had some anger towards society and stupid man and this can also be felt on his words.
The book is enlightening and worth listened or read.
The narrator is superber, he could handle this complex and many time non-sense sentences very well, his voice added a charm to the content of the book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Allen K
- 18-10-22
Masterful
Narrator is superb in reading a master piece of philosophical works known to man.
His critique of Religion, Morality, philosophy and knowledge was by far the greatest part of this book.
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- Kindle Customer
- 05-03-20
Will To Power
You can't do a lot of things in the world withouth the German. Their thinking at it's best
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- adelin
- 01-02-23
excellent
there are many ways one can view FN and his works, but this one in particular allows one to evaluate each of the 1000+ points he makes and each person to consider carefully if they fit in today's world.....which is even more decadent and lost at sea than in his time, regardless of tech advancements. or perhaps because of them.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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- ZdH
- 16-04-24
Bad narration and a problematic book
I do not mean to come off too strongly on the narrator - Michael Lunts, but there is a repeating problem and it’s time for Audible to address it.
Audible can maintain its level as is, providing good quality and decent narration but the question is whether decent to good is enough?
I listened to many Audible books about psychology and Philosophy and in quite literally 100% of them the narrator did not pronounce names accurately and in some cases key words were mispronounced as well.
To my mind this is highly unprofessional.
In this case, the narrator - Michael Lunts repeatedly pronounce Kant in the same manner Americans pronounce the word ‘can’t’ when in fact it is pronounced the way British pronounce can’t or for the sake of explanation, the way you say cunt.
As I said, to me this is annoying, unprofessional and if to be blunt… shows ignorance.
Beyond that Nietzsche himself talks a lot about rhythm, how you should read different languages and primarily how you should read his own writings. You can’t just read Nietzsche any way you like. This isn’t old style English theater where good dictation and a deep voice will suffice. In fact, when it comes to Nietzsche, that will actually be wrong.
I find that style of reading good for romances and classic literature but when it comes to psychology and philosophy it does not work and wrong.
I found it somewhat acceptable in some of Freud’s books but you simply can’t read Nietzsche like that since the inherent rhythm is necessary and in that respect the narrator is doing a poor job indeed.
This is not a review of the book itself but to add a few words on that: this book is likely propaganda since the majority of it (or none at all) was NOT written by Nietzsche and it has already been established that many things were deliberately changed and added in order to support the then Nazi party and were edited and written by his sister who was married to a Nazi.
In my humble opinion close to nothing in this book was written by Nietzsche but I can’t prove it of course.
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