니체와 로렌스: ‘권력에의 의지’의 역사

Abstract

Since the twentieth century, various camps of politics, art and philosophy claimed Nietzsche and his idea of the ‘the will to power’ for their own purposes. At the center of the controversy is the question of whether the Nietzschean idea is an inner discipline of self-overcoming or a will to dominate and conquer others. The Expressionist artists and Otto Gross were inspired by the philosopher's thought in their leftist rebellion against the cultural heritage of Europe. Nietzsche's masculine teachings of leadership, courage, discipline, and hardness were mobilized by the national socialism of the political right in the Weimar period. Ludwig Klages, a Dionysian- Nietzschean philosopher, reproached the concept of the will to power. According to Heidegger, Nietzsche's philosophy is a culmination of the tradition of Western philosophy which has evolved into the technological will to dominate and subjugate nature and man as standing reserves. George Mosse and Georg Lukács traced the origin of Nazism to Nietzschean philosophy. Despite its detrimental effect on a genuine Enlightenment, Nietzsche’s perspectivism provided Adorno and Horkheimer with a methodology to criticize Enlightenment reason as an instrument of domination over men and nature. In the post-World War Two era, Kaufmann championed the ‘will to power’ as an inner discipline of self-overcoming of artist, saint, and philosopher rather than as the will to conquer and dominate others. J. P. Stern pinpointed the militant element of conquest in the ‘will to power.’ The French Nietzscheans of the post-structuralist quarter found a friend of democracy and pluralism in the German philosopher, and their effort to depoliticize Nietzsche justified the elimination of the will to dominate others from their discourses on Nietzsche. The controversy continues on into the twenty-first century. In Women in Love Lawrence showed a very negative view of Nietzsche's idea of the will to power as a violent will to conquer, rule, and exploit men and nature, which attached the novelist to one party in the history of interpretation of the concept. Indeed, in his early days on, Nietzsche had in mind not only the self-perfecting and self-overcoming virtues of will to power to reach a spiritual height, but an aggressive and militant will to dominate and torment others although he sometimes placed the ascetic virtues as the top of such will and desire. In fact, the two types of will to power are of one origin, interlocked with each other. Therefore Lawrence’s critical stance on the ‘will to power’ could be ascribed to the very element of the domination over others inherent in the philosopher’s thought. But Lawrence’s view of Nietzsche’s idea has undergone a considerable change since he left his country following the war. In the leadership period, he was deeply involved in the literary experiment of Nietzschean revolution of the will to power led by charismatic leaders. The world of Aaron’s Rod, Kangaroo, and The Plumed Serpent revolves around the themes of power, will, violence, and sacrifice of which the earlier Lawrence had such a scathing view. One may argue that, by their oscillations and reservations, Somers of Kangaroo and Kate of The Plumed Serpent manifest Lawrence’s fundamental skepticism over the Nietzschean politics of power and domination. But the alternations of hesitation and indecision, attraction and repulsion, also show the importance of the hierarchical order, the absence of a viable alternative, the inevitability of violent means in the writer’s thought. Although the violence and sacrifice in The Plumed Serpent and Nietzsche’s will to power may be called artistic sublimation of cruelty, they could also turn into a dangerous play of indulgence and encouragement. After The Plumed Serpent, Lawrence’s interest in the experiment with Nietzschean power politics wanes. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, his last novel, marks a retreat from the world of collective action. The focus has moved from heroic violence and masculine power to a more individualistic and mystical theme of the warm, bodily relationship between man and woman. With death approaching, Lawrence seems to have returned to the world of feminine ‘tenderness.’