Strength Expressing itself as Strength

            I want to elaborate a little bit on a point I made in class on Tuesday. On Tuesday, our resident child molester questioned whether strength must always express itself as strength by bringing out an interesting example: a lion kills his prey but then proceeds to take care of the child it has with its prey, thus seemingly being strong but expressing weakness. The lion has shown the ability to successfully kill prey but does not actually express that ability in its interaction with the young animal. Thus, the lion’s action does not match his capabilities. Seemingly, his strength does not express itself as strength. This example led me to the point I kind of made in class, which is that this example and examples like this really have no bearing on whether strength expresses itself as strength. For if an animal or a person does not fully want to do something that he or she is capable of doing, he or she is not expressing strength as weakness. If the lion does not want to eat and kill the small animal, the lion’s not doing so would not mean his strength is not expressing itself as strength. On the contrary, the lion’s doing what he wants to do is a reflection of his strength in a way. He is doing what he wants or what he thinks is right. If a bird of prey had no desire to eat or attack the lamb, the bird’s not doing so would mean nothing. For an example actually about people, if a person doesn’t actually want to do something that he or she is capable of, then he or she would be expressing him or herself as none the weaker for it. To think of it in a different way, if every person and every animal who had strength acted on this strength just for the sake of doing so or expressing that strength, seemingly all humans and animals would be killing everything they could and destroying everything they could. Then the world would be in chaos, and it might even be the case that everyone would destroy everyone else until there was nothing left. The question of strength expressing itself as strength has to be about more than whether someone has in the past shown the ability to do something; it instead has to encompass what the person wants to do or what he or she thinks is right.

            I stand by this point, but I do have a little bit of uncertainty about it. This all seems to suggest that there is a subject that is desiring or thinking about an action or willing something into action. This confuses me a little bit because a major point Nietzsche is trying to make of course is about demolishing the concept of the subject, seemingly putting these two points at odds with each other. I would try to resolve this by saying that these two points are still compatible because for Nietzsche, there is no free will. Thus, while a person may desire something or think in a certain way, whether he or she does this in a certain way or not is not up to him or her. While he or she might desire to do x, he or she really has no choice in the matter of whether he or she wants to do x. Thus, he or she as a subject really doesn’t have any control over the action. However, I’m still a little uncertain about this. What do you guys think?