The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
749.
The princes of Europe should really consider whether as a matter of fact they can dispense with our services--with us, the immoralists. We are to-day the only power which can win a victory without allies: and we are therefore far and away the strongest of the strong. We can even do without lying, and let me ask what other power can dispense with this weapon? A strong temptation fights for us; the strongest, perhaps, that exists--the temptation of truth.... Truth? How do I come by this word? I must withdraw it: I must repudiate this proud word. But no. We do not even want it--we shall be quite able to achieve our victory of power without its help. The real charm which fights for us, the eye of Venus which our opponents themselves deaden and blind--this charm is the magic of the extreme. The fascination which everything extreme exercises: we immoralists--we are in every way the extremists. The corrupted ruling classes have brought ruling into evil odour. The State administration of justice is a piece of cowardice, because the great man who can serve as a standard is lacking. At last the feeling of insecurity becomes so great that men fall in the dust before any sort of will-power that commands. "The will to power" is so loathed in democratic ages that the whole of the psychology of these ages seems directed towards its belittlement and slander. The types of men who sought the highest honours are said to have been Napoleon! Cæsar! and Alexander!--as if these had not been precisely the greatest _scorners_ of honour.
And Helvetius would fain show us that we strive after power in order to have those pleasures which are at the disposal of the mighty--that is to say, according to him, this striving after power is the will to pleasure--hedonism! According as to whether a people feels: "the rights, the keenness of vision, and the gifts of leading, etc., are with the few" or "with the many"--it constitutes En oligarchic or a democratic community. Monarchy represents the belief in a man who is completely superior a leader, a saviour, a demigod. Aristocracy represents the belief in a chosen few--in a higher caste. Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody else's equal, "At bottom we are all herd and mob." I am opposed to Socialism because it dreams ingenuously of goodness, truth, beauty, and equal rights (anarchy pursues the same ideal, but in a more brutal fashion). I am opposed to parliamentary government and the power of the press, because they are the means whereby cattle become masters. The arming of the people means in the end the arming of the mob.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.