Power and interiority
24
Feb
Clarified in the previous post the difference between soul and spirit, the concept used by
Hegel to develop the (metaphysical, for him “subjective”) idea of power uses an analogy of digestion, which Byung Chul Han takes advantage of:
“Power is, for Hegel, already effective at the most elementary level of life. Digestion, in this way, is already the process of power in which the living being takes with him, little by little, his other identity” (Chul Han, What is Power?), he goes so far as to say that the living being generates identity with the other, but ignores that in its genesis there is a metaphysical process.
Nietzsche will develop this issue as the will to power, in this case confused with the domination that we have already dealt with here and which is a sociological category, but power as a metaphor, in our view the most appropriate, is what we generate in our digestive interiority.
How do we digest the image of the other as our identity or not, as we recognize differences not only in the genotype, but mainly in the differences in feelings, judgments and decisions, more broadly according to our cosmovision.
So the desire for peace or war with what is different, tolerance or intolerance in diversities of thought about the world and things should not be in the category of right and wrong, of course, wrong should be punished, but what is wrong it must be circumscribed within the limits of the human, so if killing is wrong, war is a serious mistake where one people can exterminate another.
The renunciation of this metaphysical power, generated in our interiority and our vision of the world, must always be internalized (digested) also as a will, a command, of the non-power.
The biblical lesson on this issue, described as the “temptations of Christ”, is found in the passage Mt 4,1-11.
In the passage after fasting and renouncing the power to turn stones into bread and saying that he should fall on the city of Jerusalem, the devil tempts him with power and shows him the kingdoms of the world: “and he said to him: “I will give you all this, if you kneel before me to worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him. And the angels approached and served Jesus ′′ (Mt 4. 9-11).
