DOMINATION AND RESISTANCE IN NIETZSCHE’S THEORY OF PLEASURE

ABSTRACT

Because Nietzsche associates pleasure with the increase of power, it is often thought that the Nietzschean subject’s happiness requires domination of the external world, including domination of other persons. However, I argue that this view is not necessitated by Nietzsche’s theory of pleasure. Moreover, such a view is inconsistent with his repeated suggestion that pleasure may be found in activity, tension, and resistance. I suggest that Nietzsche’s various statements about pleasure can only be consistently interpreted by viewing resistance, rather than the overcoming of resistance, as the basis of pleasure. Finally, I argue that because resistance is essential to the feeling of pleasure, the Nietzschean subject’s happiness can only be continually maintained in social conditions where domination is absent—where each subject’s independence is preserved through the promotion of a balance of powers.

In The Antichrist, Nietzsche associates the feeling of pleasure with the increase of power and the overcoming of resistances. This association of pleasure with overpowering leads easily to the view that pleasure depends upon the subordination of the external world to one’s own power and that, consequently, individual happiness has the domination of the external world as its prerequisite. More disturbingly, this view of pleasure seems to suggest that within the specific sphere of social relationships, individual happiness requires domination of the social other.

In this essay I argue, on the contrary, that Nietzsche’s discussion of pleasure does not lead to the view that domination of the social other is prerequisite to pleasure in social relationships. I begin by showing that Nietzsche believes pleasure is an interpretation of one’s condition that depends upon the feeling of an increase of power rather than upon increased power simply. Because Nietzsche does not directly link power and pleasure, we cannot assume that an increase of power relative to an external object is a precondition of pleasure.

I then argue that any interpretation of Nietzsche’s view of pleasure that treats domination as the primary basis of power will be inconsistent with Nietzsche’s claims that pleasure may be found in activity, tension, and resistance as such. I suggest that Nietzsche’s various statements about pleasure can be consistently interpreted by viewing resistance, rather than the overcoming of resistance, as the basis of pleasure.

Finally, from this interpretation of pleasure I draw the somewhat surprising conclusion that the optimal condition for the Nietzschean subject’s happiness is not one of social domination but one in which there is a balance of active powers. I argue that because Nietzsche views resistance as essential to the feeling of power, pleasure can only be continually maintained in social relationships through the preservation of the each subject’s independence and through the promotion of proportionate power among subjects.

I will begin by arguing that the view that domination is prerequisite to pleasure is not compatible with many of Nietzsche’s statements about pleasure. I will then suggest that Nietzsche’s view can be most consistently interpreted by basing the feelings of both pleasure and displeasure in resistance and the ability to resist rather than in domination and the overcoming of resistance.

According to Nietzsche, pleasure is determined by the subject’s feeling of power. He says that pleasure is "the feeling that power increases—that a resistance is overcome" (A 2). We might conclude, then, that the social subject’s pleasure requires domination—that pleasure always involves the physical or psychological subordination of the other. Nietzsche sometimes suggests this; however, such a view leads to significant inconsistencies in his discussions of pleasure. I believe that a careful and consistent reading of Nietzsche’s various statements about pleasure will show that domination is not necessary to pleasure, and that pleasure can only be maintained in the absence of domination.

What is crucial in Nietzsche’s definition of pleasure is the focus upon the feeling of increased power and the overcoming of resistance. Pleasure is not identical to an increase of power or the overcoming of resistance simply. It cannot be, for according to Nietzsche pain and pleasure are interpretations of the subject’s condition, and not equivalent to that condition: "When a strong stimulus is experienced as pleasure or displeasure, this depends on the interpretation of the intellect . . . one and the same stimulus can be interpreted as pleasure or displeasure" (GS 127). In his posthumously published notebooks, Nietzsche suggests that this interpretation is based on a comparison of two distinct states in the subject. Pleasure, he says, is a "symptom of the feeling of power attained, a consciousness of a difference" (WP 688). So one way in which the subject might interpret her condition as pleasurable is through the comparison of a state of increased power to a previous state of lesser power. However, although increases of power and the overcoming of a resistance may be instances in which pleasure is felt, such states cannot be equated to pleasure simply. For the feeling of power, and consequently, of pleasure, depends upon the subject’s interpretation, an interpretation that may or may not accurately reflect the state of the subject’s power. Consequently, we cannot assume these are the only instances in which the Nietzschean subject experiences pleasure.

Indeed, the view that the overcoming of resistance is prerequisite to pleasure is incompatible with many of Nietzsche’s statements about pleasure and happiness. In On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche praises the members of the nobility by saying that "being active was with them necessarily a part of happiness," and he opposes this form of happiness to that of the oppressed "with whom it appears as essentially narcotic, drug, rest, peace, ‘Sabbath,’ slackening of tension and relaxing of limbs, in short passively" (GM I.10). But the overcoming of a resistance brings activity to an end. If there is pleasure in overcoming resistance, then it is first and foremost pleasure in the act of overcoming, not in the fact that the resistance has been overcome. The latter kind of pleasure is more in keeping with the "slackening of tension and relaxing of limbs" that Nietzsche disparages. It is, in other words, closer to a negative and passive form of pleasure that is reducible to the removal of displeasure. Furthermore, in Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche tells us that noblest form of happiness is characterized by "the feeling of fullness, of power that seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension" (BGE, 260). But such a feeling presupposes the presence of resistance—of something that prevents the "overflow" of power and provides the opposition necessary for any feeling of "high tension." Again, the overcoming of resistance would include such a feeling in the act of overcoming, but not in the state of having overcome the resistance.

If we insist that pleasure is only found in cases where resistance is overcome, then pleasure would be an interpretation by the subject of her condition that has its basis in the comparison of the state of acting against a resistance to the state of having overcome that resistance. On such a view, pleasure could only be experienced after the resistance is overcome, for prior to that state there is no basis for the comparison of the two. However, this conclusion would be incompatible with Nietzsche’s general view of pleasure since, as we have seen in the above passages, it is quite clear that Nietzsche also allows for pleasure in activity as such, not simply in the outcome of an activity that leads to the overcoming of resistance. Consequently, if we wish to interpret Nietzsche’s view consistently, the feeling of pleasure must have its primary basis in resistance, not in the overcoming of resistance. This is, in fact, a view Nietzsche explicitly presents in his posthumously published notes. There he calls pleasure "an excitation of the feeling of power by an obstacle," suggesting that it is this excitation produced by the obstacle, and not the overcoming of the obstacle, that is essential to pleasure (WP 658). It is resistance itself that is primary: "It is not the satisfaction of the will that causes pleasure . . . The feeling of pleasure lies precisely in the dissatisfaction of the will, in the fact that the will is never satisfied unless it has opponents and resistance" (WP 696).

Although Nietzsche never makes this claim explicitly in his principal published works, I believe the appeal to Nietzsche’s Nachlass is in this case justified. For if we interpret resistance as the primary basis of pleasure, we avoid inconsistency among Nietzsche’s various statements about pleasure. We can, with this interpretation, make sense of the possibility of both instances of pleasure discussed by Nietzsche: pleasure experienced in tension and activity as such and pleasure experienced in the increase of power or overpowering of an obstacle. Overcoming a resistance includes pleasure because it involves the engagement of resistance and the excitation of the feeling of power, not because the resistance has been overcome. At the same time, it is possible for any engagement of resistance to be a source of pleasure, even in cases where resistance is not overcome. For every action, whether it is one that dominates or resists, is a manifestation of the subject’s power. The subject’s feeling of pleasure in the manifestation of power is an interpretation based on a comparison between the state of the subject before and after the manifestation of its power in a specific action. It is, Nietzsche says, "a feeling of difference, presupposing a comparison" and a "consciousness of difference" (WP 699, 688). Consequently we can also, on this view, make sense of Nietzsche’s suggestion that happiness can be found in activity, tension, and struggle.

To be sure, not every resistance provokes pleasure. If we are to make sense of Nietzsche’s suggestion that pleasure has its basis in resistance, then we must also be able to explain cases in which resistance provokes displeasure. Nietzsche suggests that pain is experienced when the subject confronts a resistance to which it is not equal. It is, he says, "every feeling of not being able to resist or dominate" (WP 693). Admittedly, this means that the inability to dominate can occasion displeasure. But Nietzsche cannot consistently claim that the feeling of an inability to dominate is necessarily a cause of displeasure. For then we would have to conclude that there is no possibility of pleasure in struggle, tension, and activity as such—a conclusion that is, as we have seen, incompatible with Nietzsche’s view. We would also have to conclude that the greater the subject’s power relative to an external force, the more likely the subject will be to experience pleasure—for it is precisely in such cases that the subject will feel most capable of domination. But this conclusion is also at odds with Nietzsche’s statements. He claims, "An easy prey is something contemptible for proud natures. They feel good only at the sight of unbroken men who might become their enemies and at the sight of all possessions that are hard to come by" (GS 13). Strength, he tells us, is a "thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs" (GM I.10). But if displeasure were equivalent to a feeling of the inability to dominate, then the subject’s preferred relation would be precisely to the weaker, to what offers the least resistance to the supposed pleasure of domination.

As with pleasure, we can only consistently interpret Nietzsche’s view of displeasure by rejecting the primacy of domination and the overcoming of resistances. Nietzsche says that displeasure is produced by a feeling of "inability to resist or dominate," but it is necessary to distinguish in which cases each applies. In cases where the subject’s inability to dominate has as its consequence being unable to resist, then the inability to dominate is experienced as displeasure. That is, the subject’s inability to dominate another force or agent only produces displeasure in cases where this inability has as its consequence the subject’s domination by that force. And such a case can only arise where the particular aim of the subject’s action is directly incompatible with that of the agent in relation to which it acts. In such cases, to resist is to dominate, for the subject’s resistance directly interferes with the other’s ability to act independently according to its will.

Put another way, domination is only secondarily an issue in the determination of displeasure. Another agent must first seek to dominate the subject in order for the subject to experience displeasure in its inability to dominate the other. This displeasure is not directly due to the inability to dominate, but rather has its basis in the inability to resist domination. However, in such cases, resisting the other and dominating the other happen to coincide. For when an external agent seeks to dominate the subject’s activity, the subject can maintain its independence, its ability to resist, only by dominating the other—by preventing the action that the other seeks to accomplish. Consequently, there is only secondarily pleasure in domination, and there is only secondarily displeasure in the inability to dominate. Domination can be a source of pleasure whenever the manifestation of the subject’s power happens to have the domination of an external agent as its consequence. And the inability to dominate can be a source of displeasure whenever domination is a precondition of the subject’s ability to resist being dominated.

The most important consequence of Nietzsche’s theory of pleasure is that the optimal condition of the subject’s happiness is one in which social domination is absent. I have argued that resistance is primary in Nietzsche’s understanding of pleasure. Pleasure is a judgment about the manifestation of power in relation to an external force; consequently, it requires a resistance in relation to which power is manifested. Although the overcoming of a resistance includes pleasure, it also brings pleasure to an end. For once a resistance has been overcome, pleasure is no longer possible in relation to the overcome obstacle. In other words, pleasure requires the independence of the object to which the subject relates in the form of resistance. Consequently, pleasure can be continually maintained in social relations only if the independence of each participant in the relation is also maintained, for only in its independence can the other provide the resistance that is the essential basis of the feeling of power. Nietzsche’s view of pleasure, far from suggesting that the subject’s happiness requires the domination of others, instead suggests that happiness can be maintained only through the absence of social domination.

Furthermore, we need not assume that social happiness requires a coincidence or compatibility of every subject’s values, activities, and aims. Nietzsche’s view of pleasure also suggests that conflict and opposition are not necessarily incompatible with social happiness. If resistance is integral to pleasure, then the subject can take pleasure in any kind of social relation—even in oppositional ones. Indeed, oppositional relations will increase the possibility of the experience of pleasure, since there is greater resistance where there is opposition and difference. Nietzsche’s view of pleasure allows for the possibility of truly "loving one’s enemy"—that is, of loving another as enemy, by finding pleasure and satisfaction precisely in another’s opposition to and difference from oneself:

It is in light of Nietzsche’s view of pleasure that we can most fruitfully interpret his notorious comments in praise of conflict, war and warriors. They should not be read as endorsements of the domination of one subject or group by another, or as endorsements to harm one another. On the contrary, they endorse a condition that prevents domination: a struggle of powers that preserves the independence of each subject by preventing the resolution of power relations into a unity in which one party is subordinate. And they endorse a condition that optimizes the happiness of all members rather than necessitating the mutual sacrifice of pleasure: the preservation of mutual resistance as the basis of the feeling of power. When Nietzsche tells us to "love peace as a means to new wars" (Z:1 "On War and Warriors"), he is affirming conflict as such, rather than as a means to the end of destroying or dominating an enemy. To affirm conflict as such rather than as a means to an end is to affirm the strength and independence of one’s enemy as the precondition of conflict. The pejorative sense of "conflict," on the contrary, maintains a sense of harm to the other by treating conflict as a means to an end: the overcoming or destruction of the other. But this end negates conflict, since to successfully overcome one’s enemy is to bring conflict to an end. Nietzsche’s endorsement of war is, ironically, an endorsement of "peace" in its best sense: peace defined not negatively as the absence of activity and conflict, but defined positively as a balance of powers, mutual independence, and the active self-affirmation of subjects in their opposition to, and difference from, one another.

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NOTES