This world is the will to power and nothing else. And you yourself are also this will to power and nothing else. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay – Friedrich Nietzsche Human beings have struggled for centuries to explain their existence: some thought it was meaningless, others a gift from God. But since the Age of Enlightenment and the dawn of the Age of Reason, these questions have taken a new turn. Philosophers, scientists, and other great thinkers of the Enlightenment period promoted the power of reason as a force for progress. Through its application, the hierarchical rigidity of ideas like aristocracy and divine ordinance was replaced by freedom and individual rights. But since that time, the age of reason has evolved into an age of insecurity, and we have arrived – confused, anxious and uncertain – at modernity. Some have asked: “Why has the generalization of “sweet reason” not produced a world subject to our predictions and our control? This is the lesson we have learned: that the power of reason, and the accumulation of knowledge and understanding that comes from it, has its limits and its flaws. The modern problem, as Anthony Giddens identifies in his book The Consequences of Reason, is that the power of knowledge and reason has run into a wall of uncertainty. It became clear that "no amount of accumulated knowledge about social life could encompass all the circumstances of its implementation, even if this knowledge were completely distinct from the environment to which it is applied." We might once have thought that reason could explain all circumstances, but we have since learned that this is not the case. This is the nature of risk. Despite the accuracy of our knowledge and the agility of our reason, circumstances will escape our control. We can never beat risk and we never will. In modern times, after the great age of Reason, reason does not have the power to overcome uncertainty. “…The equation between knowledge and certainty has proven to be an error. » Uncertainty is not a problem in itself, but the particular threat of this modern uncertainty is that it results from circumstances of our own making. Our risk environment emanates not so much from nature and war as from reflexive threats: threats – like the planes we invented that fly into the skyscrapers we built – that we helped create. Here lies the risk – that the plane will land on this building – at the center of our modern feelings of insecurity, the result of reason. Modern ontological insecurity comes from this promise of reason as a source of legitimacy and power, and its inability to deliver on its promises. absolute certainty. The tension between the promise of reason and its inability to overcome the circumstances of our own creation is a source of metaphysical anxiety. Giddens identifies two mechanisms we use to combat this anxiety and ensure normal functioning. Being “constantly and consciously anxious…would paralyze ordinary daily life.” So, knowing that these risks are beyond our control, we evoke a “vague and generalized sense of confidence in distant events,” a sense of destiny that helps us keep these events from occupying the forefront of our minds. Destiny emerges from modern anxiety as a way to avoid a sense of existential fear about the risks we face and as a method to accomplish the daily tasks of life. According to Giddens, thisfinal contradiction – of a supposedly rational society employing a sense of destiny to combat the insecurity it feels due to circumstances beyond its control but of its own creation – is what informs the quality of modernity. This ensures that we remain the riders, not the drivers, of the heavy goods vehicle. It is also, apparently, inevitable because our efforts to accumulate more knowledge and employ the force of reason against this uncertainty only backfires: "New knowledge (concepts, theories, discoveries) [does] not make simply make the social world more transparent, but [modify] its nature, orienting it in new directions. » The more firmly we grasp our knowledge about the world, the faster that world changes. For example, suppose a woman getting married today in New York knows that she has about a 50% chance of getting divorced. This statistic, while it has no real bearing on a woman's chances of remaining happily married, changes the way she views her future compared to a woman who knows nothing about her chances of getting divorced. As much as we can try, “we cannot grasp “the story” and easily bend it to our collective goals. » In this way, knowledge actually contributes to increasing uncertainty, reinforcing circumstances over which we are powerless. According to the model Giddens expounds – of the conflict between rationality and destiny, and of our inability to demand action on the unstoppable weight of modernity – modern agents are relatively powerless. But there is another perspective: a way to reorient ourselves from modern circumstances that could strengthen our tenuous hold on the heavyweight. If we are seeking some kind of transcendence of the modern paradigm – a way in which we might come to terms with its heavyweight nature, and discern some agency for ourselves – it might seem unusual to turn to Friedrich Nietzsche, known for his rejection of morality and truth (a rejection he shares with the doctrine of nihilism). But Nietzsche's nihilism evolves from his interpretation of truth as an unfixed and evolving phenomenon. If we follow the evolution of his thought, it becomes clear that he rejects metaphysics in order to anchor us more firmly in the here and now. From this anchoring is born the source of the will to power, the force that Nietzsche believes responsible for the greatest of human projects. Only when we accept his vision does it become clear that, rather than evoking the absurdity of life, Nietzsche's way of thinking illuminates a path by which we might begin to steer the juggernaut. Even though some of Nietzsche's philosophical ideas overlap with nihilism, they do not originate from nihilism. the same hypothesis. Nihilism posits that life is meaningless, while Nietzsche is more concerned with the nature of facts and knowledge that give rise to belief in metaphysical ideas. He insists: “To the extent that the word “knowledge” has any meaning, the world is knowable; but it is interpretable otherwise and has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings. This is Nietzsche's rejection of absolute truth – because only real, tangible things that present themselves to us are obvious, and it is not justifiable to interpret them beyond what is obvious. Therefore, knowledge is not fixed or unchanging, but fluid and subject to change: just as life itself is constantly evolving. Using the metaphor of life as a painting, Nietzsche further explains: “This painting – what we men call life and experience – is graduallybecome, and is in fact still fully becoming, and should therefore not be considered as a fixed quantity. from which one could draw a conclusion as to the author (sufficient reason)... There is a movement towards existence, both in its distinct past and in its prospective future. Since “life and experience” have always been and continue to be changing, it is not reasonable to “draw a conclusion” beyond what is certain. Here we can see that Nietzsche does not reject metaphysics in order to declare life meaningless: according to his way of thinking and his rigorous methods of thinking, there is simply no justification for believing in it. It is precisely the same phenomenon that, according to Giddens, is at the heart of the insecurity inherent in modernity. Nothing we know or believe is stable because it is always subject to change. In this context, Nietzsche can help explain where modern insecurity comes from: Listen, isn't our need for knowledge precisely this need for the familiar, the desire to discover everything strange, unusual and questionable, something that no longer bothers us? Isn't it the instinct of fear that drives us to know? And isn't the jubilation of those who gain access to knowledge the jubilation of the re-establishment of a feeling of security? If knowledge produces security, then it is easy to understand why an age in which knowledge is not certain is an era of great uncertainty. “Reflexively applied knowledge” is metaphysically empty because, in modern times, “the equation between knowledge and certainty has been shown to be ill-conceived,” and knowledge is therefore not necessarily productive of absolute truth . When our quest for certain or absolute knowledge fails, our feelings of insecurity overwhelm us as well. Nietzsche gets around this dilemma by denying the necessity of the very claims to absolute knowledge that we find at the center of our modern insecurity. According to his view, there is nothing beyond this life and experience that can serve as a standard – neither morality, nor truth, nor God – and therefore any search for metaphysical truth is futile. In light of this conception, the only alternative to nihilism, and the only option for Nietzsche (who believes in nothing beyond the here and now) is to identify a force at the center of the world he characterizes. For Nietzsche, the answer is clear; the history of humanity has been the expression of a will to power. In its greatest conquests, of war and empires, and in its highest achievements, of art and culture, humanity has exercised its power. Nietzsche explains his conception at the end of Will to Power: And do you know what the “world” is for me? Should I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm and iron force which neither grows nor diminishes, which is not spent but only transformed… This world is the will to power – and nothing else! And you yourselves are this will to power – and nothing else! This both illustrates the central position of power in Nietzsche's worldview and demonstrates how that view excludes the claims to absolute knowledge that give rise to modern insecurity. The world is not simply the will to power, it is nothing else. Every action, every creation, every triumph and every failure is an expression of this fundamental force. And because our world is "just morphing" – it is without beginning or end, it neither grows nor shrinks, and yet contains an enormous amount of force and energy – the only things we can be sure of are those that exist now, here, before our eyes. It now seems possible to, 2001.