OBJECTIVES:
(A) To suggest that the notion "selfishness is evil" is an extremely debilitating and violence-breeding context.
(B) To indicate some of the holdcepts of the "selfishness is evil" context.
(C) To persuade you to do the necessary research and thinking in order for you to discover the virtue of selfishness.
(D) To indicate why some people avidly promote the absurdity that "selfishness is evil."
(E) To indicate why so many swallow this absurdity without tasting it first.
(F) To suggest that one of the most important consequences of believing that "selfishness is evil" is self-blindness - blindness to one's own needs.
(G) To indicate that individual sacrifice is a concomitant of "selfishness is evil" - an inverted "morality" resulting in humans being regarded as sacrificial animals...and being slaughtered by the million.
(H) To suggest a relationship between selfishness and quality.
(I) To introduce the notion of "selfish service."
(J) To describe the idea of synergy.
(K) To define power.
(L) To indicate that power is not inherently good or evil.
(M) To suggest that "weakness corrupts and absolute weakness corrupts absolutely."
(N) To describe brain power.
(O) To define synergic power.
(P) To define supergoal.
(Q) To describe will-to-power and to suggest that this is the most basic human impulse and motivation.
(R) To indicate why will-to-power as our basic driving motor has remained invisible to us.
(S) To describe metabolism as will-to-power.
(T) To describe motivation as will-to-power.
(U) To indicate that survival is not the most basic human purpose or drive.
(V) To draw attention to the inversion of will-to-power.
Selfishness: Concern with one's own interests.
It is not a mere semantic issue nor a matter of arbitrary choice. The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word "selfishness" is not merely wrong: It represents a devastating intellectual "package deal," which is responsible - more than any other single factor - for the arrested moral development of mankind. - Ayn Rand ("The Virtue of Selfish-ness")
The popular "package deal" (context of "evil selfishness") contains at least these holdcepts:
(A) The individual interests of humans are necessarily in conflict;
(B) There are higher values than individual life, such as "the good of society," "public interest," etc.;
(C) Individual sacrifice for a "higher good" is a virtue;
(D) Self-sacrifice for another or others is a virtue;
(E) The happiness of others is senior to personal happiness;
(F) Selfishness is evil; furthering your own interests is evil; you can only do so at the expense of others;
(G) Blindness to oneself as a unique and supreme individual and blindness to one's own needs.
The popular context of "evil selfishness" results in human suffering and slaughter on a grand scale. It is a stupefying and violence-breeding concept.
We are culturally and politically a thousand years behind man's needs...the next step in human progress is to dump the load of sanctified idiocy we miscall our moral values and accept the principles of nature...
We've given up superstition in the physical area; but if you mention to a fear-ridden follower of the conventions the thought of discarding the sanctions of the dark ages, ideals of conduct that came into being when it was considered a sin to unravel the mysteries of life, you shock his sensibilities...
This was once the attitude toward matters of science, as well. It still dominates in economics and the law. - David Seabury ("The Art of Selfishness")
And in much of religion, psychology, sociology, and in the "human potential"/"New Age" movements. - "AS"
This may be a "bitter pill" for some -
The greatest gifts are given by the truly selfish. From this man's love of freedom, then, has come this book, a gift of power and of joy for whoever years to be free. - Richard Bach, author of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" (On the back cover of "How I found Freedom In An Unfree World" by Harry Browne)
Why should some people continue to promote the "evil selfishness" absurdity?
Let us suppose that I want your money and/or your support without having some value to trade. I don't want you to act in your own interests; I want you to sacrifice your interests for my interests - what do I do?
Suppose I am a "priest" or a "politician" with little more than deception to sell - what do I do?
Suppose I am a "general" and I want to be a hero, but I don't want to risk my life - what do I do?
Suppose I am the founder of some newfangled cult and I want you to work for me without paying you - what do I do?
The man of faith, the "believer" of every sort, is necessarily a dependent man - such as cannot out of himself posit ends at all. The "believer" does not belong to himself; he can be only a means, he has to be used, he needs someone who will use him. His instinct accords the highest honor to a morality of selflessness: Everything persuades him to it; his intelligence, his experience, his vanity. Belief of any kind is, itself, an expression of selflessness, or self-alienation...if one considers what needs people have of an external regulation to constrain and steady them, how compulsion, slavery in a higher sense, is the sole and final condition under which the person of weaker will...can prosper: then one also understands the nature of conviction, "faith." - Friedrich Nietzsche ("The Anti-Christ")
The most profound consequence of the "selfishness is evil" context is that most humans have been conditioned, indoctrinated - even brainwashed - into relative blindness regarding themselves as unique and autonomous individuals and their own needs. As a result, most humans are incapable of recognizing many of their own needs and satisfying them. So who do they run to for stimulation and satisfaction?
The apparently crazy idea that a man should esteem the actions he performs for another more highly than those he performs for himself - and that this other should do likewise, etc. (that one should call good only those actions that a man performs with an eye, not to himself, but to the welfare of another) - has a meaning: Namely, as the social instinct resting on the valuation that the single individual is of little account, but all individuals together are of very great account provided they constitute a community with a common feeling and a common conscience; therefore, a kind of training in looking in a certain definite direction, the will to a perspective that seeks to make it impossible to see oneself.
My idea: Goals are lacking, and these must be individual! We observe how things are everywhere: Every individual is sacrificed and serves as a tool. Go into the street, and you encounter lots of "slaves." Whither? For What? - Friedrich Nietzsche ("The Will To Power")
At this point, you might like to review the definition of "quality" in Section 5. Do you see a relationship between "quality" and "selfishness"?
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. - Robert Heinlein ("Time Enough For Love")
Service: Joyful contribution to the self-defined welfare or well-being of oneself and of others, with the consent and eager, self-interested, self-serving participation of the recipients, with no sacrifice.
(You may care to reflect on why I included "self-defined," "consent," etc.)
The greatest productive force is human selfishness. - Robert Heinlein ("Time Enough for Love")
Synergy: Working together; combined or coordinated action or operation; cooperative action of discrete agencies, such that the total effect is greater than the sum of the individual effects taken independently.
When we look at organisms that work - and just about every organism apart from human society does work - we find that there is one particular quality that they all share: The many components naturally and spontaneously function together in harmony with the whole. This characteristic can be seen operating in organisms as different as a slime mold, an oak tree, or the human body. This harmonious interaction can be described by the word "synergy," derived from the Greek "syn-ergos," meaning "to work together."
Synergy does not imply any coercion or restraint; each individual element of the system works toward its own goals, and the goals themselves may be quite varied; yet the ele-ments function in ways that are spontaneously mutually supportive. Consequently, there is little, if any, intrinsic conflict.
The word "synergy" has sometimes been used in the sense of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts; but this is not the word's root meaning - this interpretation is a consequence of synergy in its original sense. Because the elements in a synergistic system support each other, they also support the functioning of the system as a whole, and the performance of the whole is improved.
Yet, as much as we might want increased synergy in society, it will not come about simply through desire, intellectual decision, argument, or coercion. The amount of synergy in society is a reflection of the way in which we perceive ourselves in relation to the world around. In order to increase synergy, then, we will need to change some fundamental assumptions that lie at the core of our thinking and behavior. This will mean evolving inwardly as much as we have done outwardly. --Peter Russell ("The Global Brain")
A crude example of synergy (or holism) is an aircraft. When various parts and sub-assemblies are put together in a certain way, the "whole" acquires an ability not available to the individual parts: The ability to fly.
Power starts with clarity. - Stewart Emery ("The Owner's Manual For Your Life")
Power: The ability to act or to perform work; the capacity to increase satisfaction by intentionally affecting or influencing the thinking and behavior of others.
(Power is here considered in a context neither good nor evil. Power can be used beneficially or abused detrimentally. This depends largely on the techniques used to wield power: Persuasion, misrepresentation, hypnotism, coercion, threat, violence, force, etc.)
Weakness corrupts, and absolute weakness corrupts absolutely. - Stewart Emery ("The Owner's Manual For Your Life")
When I read a book, I underline what I think is most important; I write comments in the margin. In Stewart's book, only on about ten pages did I not find anything I judged important enough to highlight. A third of the book is devoted to power. It is subtitled "The Book You Should Have Gotten At Birth, But Didn't," and is one of the best examples of meta-information I have come across. Stewart is also the author of "Actualizations: You Don't Have To Rehearse To Be Yourself." ("Actualize," as Stewart says, "means to make real through action.") (See also Section 15.)
Brain Power: The capacity of the human brain to actualize its conceptions; the ability of the human brain to accurately perceive "what is" and to realistically conceive "what should be" and to effectively initiate, perform, and complete action that will transform "what is" into "what should be;" the faculty of the human brain to metaphorically "step outside" itself, to observe and to monitor itself, and to improve its own contents and operation; the ability of the human brain to select, perceive, and interpret information in an infinitely flexible and variable manner; the creative ability to imagine and visualize original and novel possibilities and impossibilities; the capacity of the human brain for memory, concentration, and computation; the ability of the human brain to reprogram itself; the mysterious power of the human brain to "make decisions."
In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits. - John Lilly ("The Human Biocomputer")
Synergic Power: In their excellent book, "Synergic Power: Beyond Domination, Beyond Permissiveness; Power to Use With People - Not Over Or Against Them," James and Marguerite Craig define "synergic power" as follows:
"The capacity of an individual or group to increase the satisfactions of all participants by intentionally generating increased energy and creativity, all of which is used to co-create a more rewarding present and future."
("Synergic Power" is available from Proactive Press, P. O. Box 296, Berkeley, California 94701, U.S.A. Price: $4.95. This book is a good example of the notions of meta-information applied to the subject of "power." It has considerably influenced the formulation of this paper. Again, I'm not suggesting that all, or any, notions in the book be accepted uncritically.)
Supergoal: A goal that appeals to a great variety of people; a goal that satisfies most human needs; a goal that maximizes responsibility, power, quality, and freedom.
Example: Converting or transforming human living conditions such that:
I'm not sure just what the "supergoal" of the "meta-information network" should be. Suggestions welcome.)
My idea is that every specific body strives to be master over all space and to extend its force (its will-to-power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it; thus, they conspire together for power, and the process goes on... - Friedrich Nietzsche ("The Will-To-Power")
Will-To-Power: The fundamental energy-orientation of all life forms to: occupation, ownership, control, exploitation, survival, growth, and expansion; the internal power of life forms to survive and grow and to overcome and master external obstacles, threats, restraints, and resistances; the inherent tendency or impulse of living organisms to self-actualization to achieve the highest degree of power, freedom, responsibility, and quality conceivable to themselves; the capacity of life forms to proceed in apparent contradiction of the "tendency for the universe to run down" (as expressed by the second principle of thermodynamics) to survive and grow by extracting nourishment (including air, water, food, energy, information) from their environment and to become more complex; the creative and imaginative ability to life to transform itself and its environment; the extension of self through perception, conception, decision, communication, and construction; the destructive and imaginative ability of life to extinguish itself (inversion of will-to-power).
All "purposes," "aims," "meaning" are only modes of expression and metamorphoses of one will that is inherent in all events: The will to power. To have purposes, aims, intentions, willing in general, is the same things as willing to be stronger, willing to grow - and, in addition, willing the means to this.
The most universal and basic instinct in all doing and willing has, for precisely this reason, remained the least known and most hidden because, in practice, we always follow its commandments because we are this commandment.
All valuations are only consequences and narrow perspectives in the service of this one will: Valuation itself is only this will to power. - Friedrich Nietzsche ("The Will to Power")
Will-to-Power as Metabolism:
(A) Solid matter is taken from the environment by an organism; it is processed in some way; the most valuable parts of it are extracted and incorporated into the body of the organism; waste materials are excreted.
(B) Ditto liquid matter.
(C) Ditto gaseous matter.
(D) Ditto sense impressions or perception.
(E) Ditto information.
Meta-information can be described as the efficient metabolism of information - the extraction of a thimbleful of gold from a mountain of slag. In evolutionary terms, information-metabolism is still in its infancy - most of us suffer from "information constipation" - we find it difficult to excrete the bulk of the rubbish we ingest.
On the "Machiavellianism" of Power The will to power appears:
(A) Among the oppressed, among slaves of all kinds, as will to "freedom"...
(B) Among a stronger kind of man, getting ready for power, as will to overpower; if it is at first unsuccessful, then it limits itself to the will to "justice"...
(C) Among the strongest, richest, most independent, most courageous, as "love of mankind"...as overpowering, bearing away with oneself, taking into one's service, as instinctive self-involvement with a great quantum of power to which one is able to give direction: The hero...(-sexual love, too, belongs here: It desires to overpower, to take possession, and it appears as self-surrender...)
"Freedom," "Justice," and "Love" ! ! ! - Friedrich Nietzsche ("The Will to Power")
Will-to-Power as Motivation:
Is all human motivation a function of will-to-power? "I know that I am because of what I can do"? ("I am what I do"?) Is there a relationship between power and pleasure? Is the feeling of security the absence of a threat to will-to-power? Is creativity will-to-power? Is protest the physiological condition sometimes elicited by a threat to will-to-power? Must I destroy what threatens my will-to-power? Is suicide the final, desperate will-to-power over oneself?
The wish to preserve oneself is the symptom of a condition of distress, of a limitation of the really fundamental instinct of life which aims at the expansion of power and, wishing for that, frequently risks and even sacrifices self-preservation. It should be considered symptomatic when some philosophers - for example, Spinoza, who was consumptive - considered the instinct of self-preservat8ion decisive and had to see it that way; for they were individuals in conditions of distress.
The struggle for existence is only an exception, a temporary restriction of the will to life. The great and small struggle always revolves around superiority, around growth and expansion, around power - in accordance with the will to power, which is the will of life. - Friedrich Nietzsche ("The Gay Science")
Will-to-Power as Inversion:
Remember the "quality dimension" from Section 4? The negative part of the "quality scale" represents the inversion of will-to-power. This has to do with using or applying one's power destructively - either against others or against oneself - all forms of sacrifice...most of religion and politics are manifestations of the inversion of will-to-power...
Depression is will-to-power inverted against itself. An organism that has the ability to elevate itself also has the ability to depress itself.
Books on Developing Will-to-Power:
| Roberto Assagioli | "The Act of Will" |
| J. H. Brennan | "Getting What You Want" |
| Harry Browne | "How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World" |
| Wayne Dyer | "Your Erroneous Zones" "Pulling Your Own Strings" "The Sky's the Limit" |
| Suzette Haden Elgin | "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" |
| Stewart Emery | "The User's Manual For Your Life" |
| Viktor Frankl | "Man's Search For Meaning" |
| Eric Hoffer | "The True Believer" |
| Friedrich Nietzsche | "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" "Will to Power" |
| P. D. Ouspensky | "In Search of the Miraculous" |
| Ayn Rand | "The Virtue of Selfishness" |
| Robert Ringer | "Winning Through Intimidation" "Looking After No. 1" |
| Robert de Ropp | "The Master Game "Warrior's Way" |
| David Seabury | The Art of Selfishness" |
| Colin Wilson | "The New Existentialism" |
Casette Course on Developing Will-to-Power:
Write to Sybervision Systems, Inc., 2450 Washington Avenue, Dept. 270, San Leandro, California 94577, U.S.A. for:
"The Neuropsychology of Achievement" (highly recommended).
POINTS TO REMEMBER:
(A) The notion that "selfishness is evil" is probably the single most debilitating, destructive, and violence-breeding context that infests human brains.
(B) The "evil-selfishness" context includes at least these holdcepts:
(C) It may be worth your while to do the necessary research and thinking to discover that selfishness is a supreme virtue.
(D) Those who promote the "evil-selfishness" absurdity do so because they want you to sacrifice your interest for their personal benefit.
(E) The people who swallow this absurdity are the "true believers," people who cannot posit their own purposes, people who do not belong to themselves, people who can only be a means, people who have to be used, people who need others to use them, people who aspire to the "glorious sacrifice" on the battlefield: Cannon fodder...
(F) People who believe the grotesque absurdity that "selfishness is evil" tend to be blind to themselves as unique and supreme individuals and tend to be blind to the their own real needs; it is almost impossible for these people to achieve satisfaction in life.
(G) Because of the holdcept "selfless sacrifice to a higher cause is a virtue" (and individuals are sacrificial animals), millions of humans have been, and continue to be, slaughtered.
(H) Quality is unique to each individual; hence, it is through the selfish expression of will-to-power that quality is achieved.
(I) Service can be rendered in such a manner that everyone concerned benefits, and no force or violence is involved.
(J) Synergy relates to working together in such a way that the whole achieves more than its constituent parts could achieve by themselves.
(K) Power is, basically, the ability to act; it is the distinguishing characteristic of life.
(L) Power is not inherently good or evil; power can be used or abused.
(M) Weakness corrupts and absolute weakness corrupts absolutely.
(N) The most valuable asset of human life is the human brain; it is the most powerful organ we know about.
(O) Synergic power is power aligned to mutual benefit.
(P) A supergoal is a goal that furthers life most and that many people can agree about.
(Q) Will-to-power is the basic expression of life; life can be defined as the extension of will-to-power.
(R) It is because we are, in fact, will-to-power, and it is difficult for us to see ourselves, that our will-to-power has tended to be invisible to ourselves.
(S) How will-to-power manifests as metabolism.
(T) How all human motivation stems from will-to-power.
(U) Will-to-power is a more basic motivation than survival.
(V) The inversion of will-to-power; e.g., depression and suicide.
CLARITY CHECK:
(A) How would you describe or define selfishness?
(B) What do you think of the assertion that selfishness is a supreme virtue?
(C) What are the holdcepts of the "evil-selfishness" context?
(D) Do you intend to research the selfishness issue further?
(E) Why do you think some people promote the "selfishness is evil" absurdity?
(F) Why do you think that the "evil-selfishness" context might be debili-tating, destructive, and violence-breeding?
(G) Why do some people swallow the notion that "selfishness is evil"?
(H) Why does acceptance of this otion tend to blind one to oneself?
(I) Why does this notion result in human slaughter?
(J) What is the relationship between selfishness and quality, and why?
(K) How would you describe or define service?
(L) What is synergy?
(M) What is power? Can you list some aspects of power?
(N) Why is power inherently neither good nor evil?
(O) What do you think of the notion that "weakness corrupts and absolute weakness corrupts absolutely"?
(P) What is brain power? Can you list some aspects of brain power?
(Q) What is synergic power?
(R) What would you regard as a desirable supergoal?
(S) How would you describe will-to-power?
(T) Why do you think that our will-to-power has tended to be invisible to ourselves?
(U) Can you see metabolism as the expression or manifestation of will-to-power?
(V) What do you think of the notion that all human motivation is a function of will-to-power?
(W) Can you see that will-to-power is a more fundamental drive than survival?
(X) Can you make a list of ways that will-to-power gets inverted?
(Y) At this stage of the book, what is your overall opinion?
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