Originally Posted by kerry

Hattie asked in the Kansas anti-gay law thread why fundamentalists impose their wills on others. I'm toying with an hypothesis, partly related to Nietzsche's analysis of the Will to Power and his contempt for the Will to Pleasure/Hedonism.

Is it true that if an individual or a group supresses the will to pleasure, the will to power takes its place or at least is enhanced by the suppression of pleasure? Hedonists in general seem completely uninterested in imposing their wills on others, at least partly because they are spending their time pleasuring themselves. Fundamentalists of all stripes put severe restrictions on pleasure seeking, unleashing the will from the service of pleasure and frequently harnessing it to the quest for power. This would account for some of the great successes of religion. Could capitalism have become the worldwide success it is without its connection to protestantism? Would catholic christianity have yielded its massive medieval power without the celibacy of it's ruling elite?