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Not increase of consciousness is the goal, but enhancement of power.

In the quest to live a good life, each of us, consciously or implicitly, chooses an ultimate value around which to orient our life.

For many this value is wealth. For others it may be status, social acceptance, happiness,

pleasure, love, knowledge, or comfort. In this video, drawing from the insights of the

19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, we are going to argue that if we want to maximize our health and fulfillment, the value we should esteem the highest is power.

What is good? asks Nietzsche. All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself and man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. Not contentment, but more power.

Many people associate the concept of power with the ability to control others and to put them in the

service of their needs and desires. But this is not the type of power Nietzsche had in mind,

as for him the desire to control others is often the type of power Nietzsche had in mind, as for him the desire to control

others is often the manifestation of an underlying weakness, or as he writes, the will of the weak

to represent some form of superiority, their instinct for devious paths to tyranny over the healthy.

Where can this not be discovered, this will to power of the weakest?

Instead of power as the Machiavellian control of others, the type of power Nietzsche thought we should

pursue is a power we embody and express within ourselves. A power, in other words, that is equivalent to what Nietzsche called

growth and expansion, or to what the contemporary philosopher John Richardson called,

the enhancement of a capacity or an activity already given.

As a few examples, an athlete who becomes stronger is increasing his power, as is the writer

who improves her writing, the orator who sharpens his public speaking abilities, or the teacher

who enhances her capacity to educate.

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