A reader writes:
Your post "Blogging for Power" is either disingenuous or simply naive. Of course power motivates you to write on politics, whether you're conscious of it or not. You influence hundreds of thousands of readers on a daily basis, and, yes, that does influence elections. You've practically been Obama-central in the blogosphere: if there's an important piece of Obama news, you'll have posted it within an hour or two. Your article, "Goodbye To All That," seems to have played a major role in persuading many opinion-makers that Obama's time is now.
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche recognized The Will to Power didn't need self-consciousness to achieve its ends; perhaps self-consciousness just gets in the way. They also recognized that Power is not a function of the human ego, but a shaper of it. Humans are will-to-power beings in the same way we're sexual beings. Power is intrinsic.
Why don't you just admit it, Andrew? Where's the shame in it? Do you really believe your passionately biased take on everything Clinton isn't driven by a force larger than mere psychology or random preference?
At the risk of some self-psychoanalysis, I disagree. Sometimes, I feel much happier when my views or arguments are thoroughly rejected, rather than accepted. In fact, I often get queasy at the thought of getting yes for an answer. And so I hide behind the Nietzschean mask of mere self-expression. Forgive me for needing it.