Beyond Domination: Aligning Health with Resistance and Care in the Shadow of Nietzsche

Or, Pathologizing Nietzsche’s Will to Power: Intergenerational Pathogens and the Health Humanities

Introduction: The Will to Power as an Intergenerational Pathogen

Nietzsche’s will to power has long been a central concept in philosophy, often celebrated for its alignment with creativity, transformation, and vitality. Yet, its darker connotations—domination, mastery, and authoritarianism—raise urgent questions about its ethical implications. In the context of the Health Humanities (HH), pathologizing the will to power as an intergenerational pathogen opens new avenues for understanding how power, trauma, and health intersect across cultural and historical landscapes. This project, drawing on Jared Russell’s Nietzsche and the Clinic and my own work on the ethics of cyborgian care and Laplanchian psychoanalysis, critiques the will to power as a relational and cultural pathology that transmits trauma and authoritarianism across generations.

By examining the silences in African American Studies (AAS) and the heuristic of White American Studies (WAS), the project interrogates how intergenerational pathogens—including trauma, authoritarianism, and systemic dominance—affect relational health. The will to power is treated as both a symptom and a driver of these pathogens, embedded in the fevered archives of cultural memory and transmitted through unconscious and technological means. Ultimately, this project reframes health as an ethical, relational process, emphasizing resistance, care, and mutuality over mastery.

Pathogens of the Will to Power: Strengths of Pathologization

1. Critiquing Authoritarianism and Domination

Pathologizing Nietzsche’s will to power as it aligns with authoritarianism enables a direct critique of systems that equate health and vitality with domination. Jared Russell’s psychoanalytic critique reveals how mastery reflects a denial of vulnerability and relational interdependence, reframing domination as a defense against unconscious anxieties. My work extends this critique to include the technological and cultural dimensions of relational pathology, where authoritarianism infects societal and familial structures.

Example: In the heuristic of WAS, systemic dominance—manifested in ideologies like Manifest Destiny, white supremacy, and patriarchal control—reflects a distorted will to power. Confederate monuments and digital hate forums act as fevered archives that perpetuate these authoritarian legacies, revealing the cultural unconscious’s complicity in their transmission.

2. Aligning Health with Resistance and Cyborgian Care

Reorienting health around resistance and care challenges individualistic notions of vitality rooted in domination. Jared Russell’s focus on psychoanalytic care complements my ethics of cyborgian care, which integrates human and technological relationality to foster mutual health. This reorientation positions health as an embodied, interdependent process, countering the isolating drive for mastery.

Example: The mutual aid programs of the Black Panther Party exemplify relational health. By providing community care—through free meals, health clinics, and educational programs—they created spaces for collective resistance and embodied care, demonstrating how health can subvert systemic neglect and authoritarianism.

3. Introducing a Hermeneutics of Suspicion

Pathologizing the will to power employs a hermeneutics of suspicion to interrogate its implicit alignment with health. Nietzsche’s concept often valorizes dominance as vitality, yet Russell and I argue that such alignment masks relational vulnerabilities and perpetuates trauma. By reframing health as care rather than control, this critique decouples power from well-being.

Example: In AAS, resilience is often celebrated as a response to systemic trauma. This framework reframes resilience as relational care rather than individual heroism, emphasizing mutuality over isolated strength. In WAS, this suspicion exposes how dominance narratives function as defenses against unconscious fears of dependence and loss.

4. Expanding Lacan’s Discourse Analysis

This project deepens Lacan’s discourse analysis by treating the will to power as a manifestation of the Master discourse, which perpetuates systemic domination. Jared Russell’s integration of psychoanalysis with Nietzschean critique aligns with my Laplanchian emphasis on relational care, shifting the focus from mastery to repair.

Example: AAS narratives of healing, from storytelling to mutual aid, often align with Lacan’s Analyst discourse, prioritizing relational repair over dominance. WAS, in contrast, reveals how the Master discourse operates through authoritarian family dynamics, institutional hierarchies, and cultural artifacts.

Challenges and Limitations of Pathologizing the Will to Power

1. Risk of Oversimplification

The will to power encompasses more than domination; it also includes creativity and self-overcoming. Pathologizing it risks reducing its complexity, neglecting its potential as a liberatory framework. Jared Russell’s critique, however, offers a nuanced perspective that preserves Nietzsche’s transformative potential while interrogating its darker alignments.

Example: Nietzsche’s critique of ressentiment—the reactive morality of victimhood—can inform resistance against oppressive systems. Ignoring this nuance risks losing valuable insights for both AAS and WAS.

2. Potential for Essentializing Mastery

By framing mastery as inherently pathological, the project risks essentializing the very concept it critiques. Russell’s psychoanalytic care and my Laplanchian focus on the relational unconscious offer a way to distinguish between destructive mastery (domination) and constructive mastery (self-determination).

Example: The Harlem Renaissance illustrates constructive mastery, as Black artists and intellectuals reclaimed cultural narratives while resisting domination.

3. Operationalizing Care in Health Humanities

Aligning health with care raises practical challenges, particularly in contexts where systemic neglect overburdens communities. My ethics of cyborgian care addresses this by emphasizing technology as a tool for amplifying relational health, though it cannot replace embodied care.

Example: Digital platforms like telehealth and mutual aid networks demonstrate how technology can augment care but also risk reinforcing systemic neglect when relied upon without institutional accountability.

Recommendations for Strengthening the Project

1. Clarify the Distinction Between Pathological and Constructive Mastery

   
   

   Following Russell, distinguish between mastery as domination and mastery as self-determination. My Laplanchian framework emphasizes relational care as the criterion for distinguishing between the two.

2. Engage More Deeply with Nietzsche’s Nuance

   
   

   Incorporate Nietzsche’s liberatory aspects, such as his emphasis on self-overcoming, framing these as acts of relational transformation rather than isolated mastery.

3. Ground Cyborgian Care in Embodied Practices

   
   

   Tie care to specific embodied practices, such as mutual aid, community health initiatives, and storytelling. Emphasize how technology can augment but not replace the necessity of embodied relationality.

4. Address Pathogens of Silence in AAS and WAS

   
   

   Expose the silences within AAS (hesitation to pathologize trauma) and WAS (denial of authoritarian legacies). Treat these silences as pathogenic, perpetuating harm by avoiding confrontation with intergenerational pathogens.

5. Reimagine Health Through Fevered Archives

   
   

   Use fevered archives—repositories of unresolved trauma and dominance—as sites for relational repair. Propose health as an active engagement with these archives through care, accountability, and mutual transformation.

Conclusion

Pathologizing Nietzsche’s will to power as an intergenerational pathogen reorients the Health Humanities toward relational ethics, embodied care, and accountability. By integrating Jared Russell’s psychoanalytic critique with my ethics of cyborgian care and Laplanchian psychoanalysis, this project challenges the silences within AAS and WAS, reframing health as resistance to mastery and domination. This framework envisions a reparative future grounded in care, mutuality, and the ethical engagement of trauma and power.