Walking the Tightrope

We resume my review of Christopher Janaway’s detailed analysis of On the Genealogy of Morals from his book Beyond Selflessness .  Here Janaway points out Nietzsche’s examination of the ascetic ideal as a manifestation of will to power, clarifying what he intends by the concept of will to power in a distinctive way. “Will to power may manifest itself in healthy or unhealthy ways, creating either unity or conflict in the psyche. The ascetic is sick, because he is split against himself by his need to locate ultimate value in despising and denying himself.  Opposed to this are those ‘rare cases of powerfulness in soul and body, the strokes of luck among humans’ ( GM II. 14), whom Nietzsche portrays as well-formed and healthy expressions of will to power. Yet Nietzsche’s thought tracks the intricacies of psychology with a subtlety that strains the boundaries of such classifications. “Nietzsche calls the ascetic a paradox and a self-contradiction, meaning not that the ascetic in an