Sapper46123 wrote:I suppose the basis for totalitarian ethics (i.e. why progress is a wise goal) would come from Darwin, and people like Neitzsche. From a Wikipedia article:
H.L. Mencken's book on Nietzsche described his work as an early effort to reconcile the philosophical implications of Charles Darwin's "survival of the fittest" evolutionary theory with contemporary moral and ethical systems....
One of Nietzsche's central concepts is "the Will to Power" (Wille zur Macht), a process of expansion and venting of creative energy that he believed was the basic driving force of nature....
... the Will to Power is taken as an animal's most fundamental instinct or drive, even more fundamental than the will to self-preservation. The Will to Power is something like the desire to exert one's will in self-overcoming, although it may well be unconscious.... Nietzsche's ideas of aggression are almost always meant as aggression toward oneself, as the energy one motivates toward self-mastery. In any case, since the Will to Power is fundamental, any other drives are to be reduced to it...
The suffering born of conflict between competing wills and the efforts to overcome one's environment is not evil, but a part of existence to be embraced.
I haven't read much of Nietzsche. But I do seem to like his theories regarding evolution so far.
I agree with you, Neitzsche is brilliant. However, you misunderstand him. The will to power can't manifest in any state, especially a totalitarian one; within capitalism and other free systems, one has the ability to express themselves however they want and establish dominence. However, within totalitarianism only the leaders have the ability to attempt the will to power; everybody else has to accept
their will to power.
Further more, totalitarianism can't exist in correlation to the will to power. In it, people have to act with a hive mentality and sacrifice to the good of all instead. If you accept the will to power, people will not act for the good of all. Instead, they'll work the minimum amount to survive and constantly undermine whoever to establish themselves in power. In fact, most will fight against it all together.
Even more to the point, Neitzsche points out that no goal of perfection is obtainable. It's ridiculous to work for a perfect system, you'll never attempt it; all you'll do is fall short and live an unenjoyed existance. You can note the twenty-five hundred years of thought stemming from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle has not provided any perfection. In the middle ages, people were tortured by either themselves or somebody else if they fell short of what was socially acceptable in the slightest. However, nobody ever became the image of perfection. The same will happen if you push for a perfect society, it will never happen.
If you know anything about Neitzsche at all, you'll know he hates Plato. You can't make their beliefs compatable, Neitzsche is the antithesis of Plato.
As Vivisekt has pointed out many times, freedom is only possible under an anarchist setting. Even in libertarian governments, I am not free to impose my lifestyle on others, nor am I free to harm others.
That's a misconception. You're speaking of complete & total freedom; this is impossible. On the one hand, you could be free to kill and rape; on the other, you're free from being murdered or being raped. You can only pick one, therefore the one which protects your rights over your body is chosen.
Furthermore, happiness is a wise goal because it can be established as the root cause of what "good" is, as well as why we act and establish "good".
How is "happiness" a fundamental goal?
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Did I claim it to be a fundemental goal? I merely said it can be construed that because it's the basis of all ideals, either in action or in conception.
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