Affective Foundation of Society in Nietzsche's Philosophy

Nietzsche believes that the different human types should be allowed to thrive and not be reduced into uniformity, as he says “nothing should be banished more than . . . the approximation and reconciliation” of the different types (KSA 12:10[59]).1 He sees the approximation as a reflection of democratic values and monolithic morality that he opposes. Instead, he believes that humans should be naturalized and allowed to live in accordance with their own nature. To achieve this, Nietzsche proposed “the great politics,” which “makes physiology into the ruler over all other questions” to “breed humanity as a whole” so that “one affirms what one is, one denies what one is not” (KSA 13:25[1]). In this way, Nietzsche thinks the different types should live in accordance with their respective nature.In The Antichrist, Nietzsche argues that “every healthy society” consists of different physiological types.2 He repeatedly says that “Nature, not Manu,” separates these physiological types of the hierarchical order,3 which is “merely the sanction of a natural order, natural lawfulness of the first rank.” While each type has “its own hygiene, its own realm of work, its own feelings of perfection and mastery” (A 57), this rank order is “the sanctioning of a natural distance between several physiological types,” which are “determined and best developed for different activity,” like “division of labor” (KSA 13:14[221]). Therefore, Nietzsche describes the physiological types divided in a healthy society as “differently gravitating” and “mutually conditioning” types (A 57). In order for a society to be healthy as a whole, individuals should be neither uniform nor scattered, but should be in an organized structure together. This structure is “opposed to an atomistic anarchy.” A “human community is a unity [Einheit],” and “all unity is unity only as organization and co-operation.” In this way “a ruling structure,” which does not exist as one, “means one [Eins]” (KSA 12:2[87]).However, what is it that produces this unity? Nietzsche's envisioned “naturalization of human beings” (KSA 9:11[211]) involves a society where different types live actively in accordance with their nature or respective physiological constitution. However, the existence of different types does not ensure the formation of society as a whole. Individuals of different types with different power will not automatically gather to form a society if they remain merely as individuals. In other words, if there is no social character in nature itself, a society could be seen to be formed “by accident,” as Hobbes understands (42). What then is the basis that allows individuals to be incorporated into the social order? This article explores the social aspect of Nietzsche's understanding of nature, particularly with attention to his idea of affects, which will lead us to the idea of the affective foundation of society in his philosophy.4Nietzsche often describes nature as something chaotic that is elusive, uncertain, indifferent to human affairs, and without purpose and mercy. Thus, he writes, “how could you live according to this indifference? Living—is that not precisely wanting to be different than this nature? Is living not assessing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different?” (BGE 9) In this regard, the first point to note is that the “nature” of which Nietzsche speaks involves human nature strong enough to play with chaos and even to defy nature's indifference and brutality. As Conway points out, “the ‘return to nature’ that he envisions thus involves a return to human nature as the sole authority or justification for the nomothetic preferences required by the restricted economy of Life” (42–43). It is human nature to impose order on the natural world, transforming its amorphous state into a structured form of life, and to create a hierarchy of values in nature's indifference—this is perfectly natural and is the task of the philosophers. Therefore, rather than settling in “the infinite domain of Chaos” as Seung argues (292), Nietzsche reminds us of human nature: “We speak of nature and, in doing so, forget ourselves: we ourselves are nature” (WS 327). In this respect, the affirmation of nature means for Nietzsche above all the affirmation of human nature.Thus, this article is to clarify how human nature can be the basis for the formation of society in Nietzsche's philosophy. As Nietzsche introduced the concept of the “will to power” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he considers nature generally in terms of will to power. Thus, he writes, “homo natura. The ‘will to power’” (KSA 12:2[131]). This article particularly focuses on the social aspect of the concept, which has not been much explored. In the following sections, I will examine how Nietzsche's early and middle works recognized the social character of nature, and then how this social character is reflected in his later concept of the “will to power.”As Nietzsche seeks the affirmation of nature, from the early period onward, he seems to keep ruminating on the nature that should be sought for each person to be healthy. The problem is that there is no unaffected nature, and human nature is conditioned and affected by circumstances.5 Nietzsche was well-aware of this, and he pointed out that most value judgments, our behavior, and our feelings are affected by and adopted from others and then “become our nature” (D 104; D 34, 35, 38, 247). In other words, “nature arises from the long-lasting practice” (D 248). We can understand that his genealogical work is therefore designed to trace the practices that have formed our nature. The line between nature and culture is blurred, and cultural practices that will train people to incorporate certain values into the body become significant. If human nature is always affected by circumstances, what nature are we required to affirm?In his early and middle periods, Nietzsche distinguishes between the first nature and second nature. The first nature is the “inherited nature” given to us as “the products of earlier generations,” and the second nature is what is cultivated as “a new instinct” in us. On the face of it, his view of the second nature appears negative because the second nature is implanted “so that the first nature withers away.” This implantation is a dangerous attempt at “negating of the past” that has formed us (UM II:3). As we learn what is socially desirable and approved behavior, we develop a second nature whereby a certain socially acceptable drive predominates over the first (D 38). Human beings have their own nature, but its development can be hindered, in Nietzsche's view, by contemporary education and upbringings that are applied to all in a blanket fashion, not distinguishing between or adapting for different types. This contemporary method of upbringing compels a human being to accept values against their nature, which in Nietzsche's logic will lead them to “fall sick” and “ruin the vitality of their nerves [Nervenkraft]” (D 500). In this situation, “[w]ith most people, the embryo of the first nature dries up,” and only a few can be strong “enough to shed this skin” of the second nature “when under its cover their first nature has matured” (D 455).6When Nietzsche speaks of one living according to one's nature, it is arguably this first nature that he has in mind. However, it should be noted that the distinction between first and second nature does not mean that his intention is to entirely deny the second nature and bring out the first, since there is no such thing as absolutely ahistorical human nature; “even that first nature was once a second nature, and every victorious second nature will become a first nature” (UM II:3). As stated above, nature comes from long-standing practice (D 248; GS 290). Nietzsche at first seems to consider “nature” in terms of “talent [Begabung]” in contrast with “learning,” but then again, he writes that “the person who learns imparts [begaben] talent to himself” (D 540). Goethe and Raphael, without “envy,” “were both great learners and not just the exploiters of those lodes” of what was given from “their ancestors” (D 540). They were able to use their formative power, actively and without envy, to appropriate other nature. In this respect, the interplay between first and second nature is significant. Given that human beings live always in relationship to society and culture, we understand that there is a limit to what can be achieved by individuals’ personal cultivation if society as a whole is not healthy. It is therefore understandable for Nietzsche to envision a new society or a new whole where healthy individuals can be raised.In his letters dated December 1882, Nietzsche writes “I have a ‘second nature,’ but not to destroy the first [nature] but to bear it”; “I will now prove that only with this second nature I have entered into the actual [eigentlich] possession of my first nature” (KSB 6:344–45). These statements emphasize the second nature formed by the social context or interrelation that affects our first nature; unfortunately for the scholastic pursuit of continuity, he no longer explicitly uses the term “first nature” in his later period.7With the interplay described above in mind, it is difficult to create a reference point for measuring the health of nature and judging the kind of nature it is suggested that we should strive for. Nietzsche seems to emphasize the first nature and the “drives that constitute his being [Wesen]” (D 119), but drives are “transformed,” and what transforms the drives by being attached to them Nietzsche calls the “second nature” (D 38). It is hard then to reach the first nature, or to “return to myself,” the “nethermost self” (EH ‘HH’ 4), since our nature is already engaged in a web of social relationships. If we take Nietzsche's view of the interplay of our two natures into account, and we understand that drives are transformable, it is hard to create a single position from which the different drives that constitute human nature are judged and prioritized. Thus, Nietzsche no longer uses the term “the first nature” after 1882;8 instead, he uses the concept “will to power” as a tool for understanding nature.From this discussion, we learn that Nietzsche gives weight to the social and cultural aspects of nature—that is to say, the fact that human nature is coordinated and transformed in social relationships. This aspect is also included in the concept of will to power, as we shall see. By looking into the social character within the concept, we can see what the basis of the formation of society is.The will to power can, of course, be considered and examined in various ways. Nietzsche thinks “life itself is will to power” (BGE 13) and explores “a world whose essence is will to power” (BGE 186). He considers will to power using several terms: drive, affect, desire, and instinct (cf. GS 349; A 6; KSA 11:39[6]; KSA 12:1[61]; KSA 12:1[59]). These varied descriptions show the multi-layered aspects of the concept, and they come from the complex and multifaceted nature of life itself, with the “multiplicity of ‘will to power’: each with a multiplicity of expressions and forms” (KSA 12:1[58]).9 Life unfolds itself in various ways, through thoughts, desires, emotions, and so forth. In other words, life is a field wherein these express themselves. Nietzsche tries to understand these expressions in terms of will to power, which is “the innermost essence of being” (KSA 13:14[80]). He refers to this essence and its expressions with the same name; in essence, will to power is the affect and drive and desire that are expressed as affects and drives and desires.At the basic level of these life expressions, Nietzsche believes, are drive and affect, above all. This article focuses more on affect, because looking at will to power in relation to affect shows its social character in an evident way and reveals the implications associated with the formation of society more clearly. What then is the affective understanding of will to power? Nietzsche speaks of “will to power psychologically,” holding “that the will to power is the primitive form of affect, that all other affects are only its developments” (KSA 13:14[121]; cf. BGE 23). He thinks about the “derivation of all affects from the one will to power,” and considers them as of the same essence (KSA 12:10[57]). In this respect, will to power is the affect that is to consist in and be expressed as all affects.10It has often been discussed that drives are essential for understanding our nature. We need to see now in what sense affect is constitutive of nature. While Nietzsche emphasizes that “under every thought there is an affect” and the “series and succession of feelings, thoughts, etc. are symptoms of the actual occurrence” (KSA 12:1[61]), he does not provide a clear definition of affect. Nietzsche often uses “affect” to refer to what are usually called emotions or feelings, such as hatred, greed, envy, courage, love, and resentment (BGE 23, 192, 260; KSA 10:7[87]; 13:24[1].2), so that, broadly, scholars understand affects to be “feelings” (Janaway 206; Leiter, “Moralities” 576; Richardson 37), or “any mental episode which constitutively involves a pro- or con- attitude” (Poellner 229). In a rather different stance, Emden, highlighting the precedence given to biology, asserts that affects are not “discrete mental states” but the same as what Spinoza meant by affect [affectus] (Emden 33). Spinoza used “affect” [affectus] differently from emotions in an ordinary sense11 and argued that all affects arose from three primary affects: desire, joy, and sadness (III, P11, Schol.). Nietzsche similarly regards affects as a state of body and considers them as derived from will to power, and saw “pleasure” [Lust] and “displeasure” [Unlust] as “cardinal facts” in the action of will to power (KSA 13:14[80]). However, due to the lack of explanation in Nietzsche's text as well as in Emden's, it is not clear that what Nietzsche means by the term was necessarily influenced by Spinoza.Whether affects are understood as mental states or whether their physiological basis is emphasized, Nietzsche's comments on affect doing the work of interpreting and its relation to the will to power have often been somewhat downplayed. For example, Gemes argues that it is better to focus on drives rather than affects because “it is drives that Nietzsche most consistently and plausibly emphasizes as the basis of our nature,” and an affect or “a feeling, a ‘what it feels like’ does not seem to have the right temporal spread or active character to do interpreting” (104). This kind of view proceeds mainly from the understanding that affects are occurrent feelings. Are affects merely incidental then to the activity of drives?We find that Nietzsche often uses the terms “affect” and “drive” together, such as “soul as social structure of drives and affects” [Gesellschaftsbau der Triebe und Affekte] (BGE 12). Although he does not seem to differentiate between them clearly, scholars have tried to clarify the difference, although not particularly in relation to will to power. Janaway understands that “a drive is a relatively stable tendency to active behavior of some kind, while an affect, put very roughly, is what it feels like when a drive is active inside oneself” (214). Similarly, Constâncio and Branco draw a distinction in the editors’ introduction: “By ‘drives’ Nietzsche means the ‘forces,’ ‘under-wills,’ or ‘wills to power’ that direct our behavior towards the satisfaction of organic needs. An ‘affect’ is simply what it feels like to be driven by a drive” (xvi). Katsafanas clarifies the connection between drives and affects by defining drives as “non-conscious dispositions that generate affective orientations” (10). Surely affects accompany drives, and we can agree with the analysis in this respect. However, Nietzsche often puts them together without clarification or differentiation as if they are interchangeable. For example, Nietzsche writes that “the animals follow their drives and affects: we are animals . . . . and morality is only a sign language of our drives?” (KSA 10:7[76]). Later in another passage, he posits that “moralities are only a sign language of the affects” (BGE 187); it is understandable then that some scholars do not distinguish sharply between the two terms.12Still, if “drives and affects” is not merely a pleonastic expression, they at some point should play different roles in constituting our nature, and affects should not be considered merely incidental to drives. The first thing to point out in demonstrating this is that Nietzsche emphasizes the physiological basis of affects, which can operate at a deeper level than conscious thoughts and feelings. He argues that “what is really going on in the activity of our human affects” is the “physiological movements” (KSA 9:11[128]) and “all affects” are “a state of body” (KSA 10:9[44]). As affects are a state of the body as a physiological movement, affects are not understood as merely transient feelings but can have continuous influence or a temporal spread, which concerns Gemes, as seen above. Affects are related to the mechanism of our physiological response to what we encounter in the world, and this mechanism can be ingrained in the body. Nietzsche understands that “affects” are connected to “the formation of the memory-material—continuous living on and interacting” (KSA 11:25[514]), and memory leads to “a habituation to a particular causal interpretation” (TI ‘Errors’ 4).This view of interpretation in relation to affects not only applies to causality but can also be understood in a broader context. Nietzsche writes that “all affects” are “first a state of the body: which is interpreted. Later the interpretation freely produces the state” (KSA 10:9[44]). This shows that once the mechanism of how we respond to the world, how we interpret, is ingrained in the body, this mechanism or interpretation can produce our bodily state—so in the end, the interpretation does not come after events but comes first. With this in mind, we need to look at the concept of will to power in relation to drives and affects more closely.Behind our conscious thoughts and activities is the “play of affects” (KSA 13:11[113]) or the “play and struggle of affects” (KSA 12:1[75]), and the nature of this play is agonal (cf. BGE 117). It should be noted that Nietzsche does not think that the way the affects or drives work is entirely individual. He makes critical comments in a note on Spinoza's idea of self-preservation: “Pre-egoism, herd-drive are older than the ‘willing self-preserving.’ The human being is first developed as a function: from this the individual releases itself again later, while the individual as a function has come to know innumerable conditions of the whole, of the organism, and has gradually been incorporated” (KSA 9:11[193]; cf. 11[182]).In this respect, the human being and its drives are raised first in the context of society. As “the human being began as a part of a whole,” Nietzsche understands, “through indescribably long habituation, people first feel the affects of society . . . , and not as individuals!” (KSA 9:11[182]). Therefore, Nietzsche does not consider the play of affects and drives to be simply an occurrence isolated to the individual, since our existence is in the context of society and relationships with others. I argue that we can understand that in Nietzsche's paired expression “drives and affects,” the drives refer more to intra-relation and the affects to inter-relation. In other words, the drives are the basic element that constitutes an individual formed by the arrangement of drives,13 and the affects indicate how this individual is situated in the relational network of the whole.It is discussed that our judgments, especially moral judgments, result from affects about, or affective responses to, situations.14 Even in his middle period, Nietzsche clearly emphasizes the moral feelings that prescribe moral actions. But this feeling, this affective response, is not an individual's personal one; “evidently moral feelings are transmitted” in the way that children “imitate” the older generation's “inclinations for and aversions to certain actions” (D 34). These feelings become so natural for them that they grow to believe they are rationally justified. However, “behind feelings there are judgments and valuations, which we have inherited in the form of feelings (inclinations, aversions).” He continues: “To trust one's feeling—that means obeying one's grandfather and grandmother and their grandparents more than . . . our reason and our experience” (D 35). It is notable that Nietzsche thinks “the same drive develops into a painful feeling . . . or a pleasant feeling” under the different customs and social evaluations attached to it, which he calls the “second nature” as seen above, and in this way, drives are “transformed” (D 38). Drives can be transformed in the sense that some drives grow and others wither, in line with their interaction with external circumstances.It is important to note that Nietzsche places great emphasis on the social character of drives, or the second nature, as the factor coordinating drives. In his later period he still believes in the transformation of drives, arguing “drives are the after-effects of long-standing evaluations, which now act instinctively” (KSA 11:25[460]). Nietzsche's concept of drives transformed by socially attached feelings evolves into the paired expression “drives and affects” in his late period. The transformation is now understood in terms of “interpretation”: “the will to power interprets” (KSA 12:2[148]),15 and “the interpretation itself, as a form of the will to power, exists . . . as an affect” (KSA 12:2[151]). “Who interprets?—our affects” (KSA 12:2[190]). This affective interpretation shows “a symptom of certain physiological conditions” (KSA 12:2[190]) that reveals what one's life needs. In this respect, affects are not just what it feels like to be driven by drives, but rather they show how we interpret and how we instinctively see and utilize the world for our growth. All our activities are based on affectivity, the unconscious process of the affective interpretation of the world.Furthermore, what we understand as drives always work or are expressed in the form of affects. This is because, on the one hand, as Katsafanas argues, drives induce affective orientations, and on the other hand and more importantly for our discussion, the movements of the drives of individuals are always within the broader context of the whole since we live in the world as will to power, “essentially the world of relationships” (KSA 13:14[93]) where “only relations constitute being [Wesen]” (KSA 13:14[122]). That Nietzsche already speaks of the “social drive,” like “fearfulness” (D 174) directing the moral principle, hints that drives are in the social context and already in the form of affects.Affectivity indicates the relations or our being in the relations (Franck 158). As seen above, Nietzsche points out the imitation of feelings, which shows how our judgments, inclinations and aversions are already settled in us. Our life is situated in this kind of affective web of relationships, which generates a certain affective interpretation of the world. This interpretation becomes ingrained in us as we grow up. Human beings are always born and live in a certain affective network, and this network generates the interpretation to be built in them. This does not mean that there is only this network, and there are no drives or affects that belong to the individual, but what we regard as belonging to the individual does not exist by itself but operates within the network, and so cannot be thought of apart from the network.For example, appetite may be regarded as intrinsic to an individual, but the way the appetite is activated is largely prescribed in the network, so that something tasty to people in one country can be repulsive to people in another country merely by imagining it. This is the same with sex drive. We know the ancient Greeks treated sex differently from the way modern society does, and, in particular, differently from the largely repressive approach of Christian morality. That we acknowledge that general standards of beauty have changed over time means these changes have taken place in the affective network that generates certain interpretations with which we encounter the world. We may easily think that human drives are intrinsic and the same irrespective of circumstances, but we can imagine how differently the structure of the totality of our drives would be shaped and work if we grew up in a community where people believed men's libido was aggressive and women's passive, or wherein Eros was understood as longing for harmony and beauty as Plato understood it.16In this way, the structure of drives constituting the individual is formed by the individual's interaction with the affective network. The drives refer more to the intra-relation and the affects to the inter-relation, though they are not separated, and Nietzsche's paired expression “drives and affects” places emphasis on the social character of the expression of drives, meaning that drives are coordinated by affects and expressed in the form of affects. As discussed, the affects are deeply ingrained in us, and they play a crucial role in directing and regulating our drives, and they ultimately shape the way we act and behave. Ultimately, it can be said that our actions and behaviors are largely shaped by the way we interpret and respond to the world affectively.The world as will to power is the world of relationships. In this light, it makes sense that affect, which implies relationships, is used as the term to describe the concept of will to power. The will to power consists in wills to power, the multiplicity of the will to power, and this multiplicity signifies the relationships that are in the play of affects. In this respect, the will to power is the most basic “drive and affect” from which other “drives and affects” stem. Nietzsche remarks that “will” is “above all an affect: and specifically, the affect of command” (BGE 19). The command is toward power, and this “toward” indicates the drive, specifically “the basic drive of life” as “the expansion of power” (GS 349). Thus, will to power refers to affect that drives toward power. In this way, the will to power is related to the paired expression “drives and affects” and becomes the basic premise upon which one may view the world.From the discussion above, we understand that the economy of drives and affects points to the dimension beyond the individual. Nietzsche writes: The world seen, felt, interpreted as thus and thus so that organic life may preserve itself in this perspective of interpretation. Man is not only a single individual but the living total-organic [Gesammt-Organische] in a particular line. That he endures proves that a species of interpretation (albeit continuously being constructed) has also endured, that the system of interpretation has not changed. (KSA 12:7[2])The way people live represents a certain interpretation of the world produced by the economy of drives and affects. The character of this economy is basically agonal, or contesting, and there is a struggle between interpretations. This struggle is between the “incorporated piece of interpretation,” that is, “older evaluations which are so firmly incorporated that they belong to our basic constitution,” and the new interpretation based on “newer needs.” When there is an absence of struggle and the dynamic of interpretation ceases, it signifies the ruin of life and of the whole (KSA 12:7[2]).Here, the struggle of interpretation is not a horizontal movement; a “reinterpretation of the strengthened elements into the ‘good’” (KSA 12:9[185]) is needed. The “reinterpretability of the world” is related to the “managing of affects” (KSA 11:35[84]), and this re-interpretation is the enterprise of Nietzsche's great human beings with the long view who create values to direct humanity. They are the ones who can initiate the reshaping of the existing affective interpretation. This change in the affective interpretation as the way we instinctively see the world is also a change in our “taste” concerning the world. Thus, Nietzsche asks, “How does the general taste change?” The great individuals who initiate the change enforce “the judgment of their taste” to make it “a need of everyone” (GS 39). Since “our needs,” which represent our physiological condition, are the basis of the interpretation (KSA 12:7[60]), the change they initiate will eventually form a certain affective interpretation based on which people conduct their relationships and see the world. In a sense, they conquer the world: “to conquer—is the natural consequence of an overflowing power.” The “philosophers,” like “artists,” “want to make their taste ruling in the world” (KSA 10:7[107]). The change of the interpretation, then, involves this vertical movement.The struggle for the dominant interpretation might seem to be at odds with Nietzsche's emphasis on the durable social structure, which is expressed in his appreciation of imperium Romanum (TI ‘Expeditions’ 39; A 58, 59). Nietzsche sets a high value on durability: “[D]uration is a first-rank value on earth” (GS 356). However, it is not that he promotes a static society. He is well aware of “a gradual increase in inherited stupidity, which trails all stability like its shadow” (HH 224). The dynamics between old and new interpretations do not mean an unstable and rapidly changing society, which only indicates chaos of valuations. He believes the dynamics are possible only when based on a stable structure.We can find a clue to how Nietzsche explains the dynamics in social change or progress in section 224 of Human, All Too Human, where he employs the term “inoculation.” Here, he argues that “a partial weakening has to precede every large-scale advance.” There are individuals who attempt new things that deviate from the dominant drives and affects of society but unfortunately perish without gaining influence. However, “in general, especially when they have descendants,” they effect a partial weakening and come to inflict “a wound upon the stable element of a community” (HH 224). “Precisely in this wounded and weakened spot, the whole collective being is inoculated, as it were, with something new” (HH 224). However, Nietzsche adds, the whole “must be strong enough to absorb this new thing into its blood and to assimilate it”; otherwise, it only dismantles the whole. In this sense, durability is a necessary condition for constant social development.17 The “steady development and refining inoculation” is possible “only when the maximum durability has been securely grounded and guaranteed,” (HH 224) though established authority will resist this inoculation. Nietzsche sums up: “[T]wo things must come together: first, an increase in the stabilizing force brought about by uniting minds in belief and in communal feeling; and second, the possibility of attaining higher goals as . . . partial weakenings and woundings of the stabilizing force occur” (HH 224). In other words, there should be a durable society, but at the same time, the attempts at a new interpretation or re-interpretation are always needed.The “inoculation” of the new thing can be said to be the beginning of the formation of a new affective interpretation. As its influence expands, the affective interpretation may enter a race to become the new dominant interpretation in society. In the sense that the affective interpretation regulates the activity of drives, the dominant interpretation of a society shapes the lives of its members in a certain way, or “in a particular line” (KSA 12:7[2]). This “line” can also be thought of as a “perspective” as Nietzsche considered “perspectives” in terms of “affective interpretations” (GM III:12). As affective interpretations are shared within the network of affective relationships among people, the “perspective” refers not to the viewpoint of a single person, but to collectively generated perspectives or the shared understanding and interpretation of a group or community. The perspectives emerge from diverse and overlapping affective networks within society. While there can be multiple perspectives, a society as a whole forms the basic, shared affective interpretation as “the common seat or organ of sensation” [Sensorium commune] (KSA 11:25[461]) that serves as the foundation for affects within society. In this respect, our views and interpretations of the world are not entirely personal, not universal either, but collective. This collectively generated perspective as an affective interpretation works as the basic fabric of affects and forms the basis of a society.While Nietzsche seems to focus on the great individuals who can create the “line” or “perspective” shaping people's lives, his thought is not limited to the individual level. It is often believed that Nietzsche's philosophy is oriented toward the individual who seeks self-cultivation or self-mastery and escapes to solitude away from the miasma of society. However, Nietzsche stated that “all creative natures struggle for influence, even if they live alone— . . . self-overcoming only makes sense as preparation for being a ruler” (KSA 10:16[86]), indicating that these individuals are not completely isolated from society.Nietzsche recognized the extent to which individuals are influenced by society, as seen in his concept of “affect.” When the affective interpretation is fragmented and not shared, a society as a whole cannot be formed to have a certain unity, as Nietzsche denounces “modern society” in the decadent age of mixture as “not a ‘society,’ not a ‘body’” (KSA 13:16[53]). The affective interpretation is shaped by social relationships, and the affective interpretations, combined with drives, transform and shape our behavior. The drives of the public operate within this shared affective interpretation. In this way, the dominant interpretation of a society can shape people's lives in a particular way. Thus, society is a field of struggle over what kinds of human being are to be raised. In this sense, “society itself is a means of war” for shaping people's lives according to a certain line or perspective, and “life is a consequence of war” (KSA 13:14[40]) in that people's lives are shaped by the dominant interpretation. In this respect, affective interpretation serves as the foundation of society.