Power; Influenceing/controling people and events.
This is an idea that I’ve been thinking about for a while now and I’d like to get your feedback on it. This theory was inspired mainly by Hobbs’s theory of Egoism, that human beings are incapable of acting outside of our own self interest. This theory of mine came about through careful observations of people I know in my life, and of my own actions.
It is my belief that there is only one thing in this world that all human beings, of all ages, races, creeds, cultures, and religions, people of all classes and backgrounds, strive to achieve, and that ultimate goal, that higher order, is power or to prove ones power.
Almost every action a human commits is in some way, shape or form, is done to gain power or prove that you have it. It is not for happiness, belonging, or piece of mind, those are secondary. Whenever given a choice, one will always chose power over anything else. It is the motivation for how we live our lives. It is the center point on which our civilizations are founded,the source of our greatest achievement, but it is also the cause of our turmoil’s, of death and suffering. Power is what we seek, whether concisely or not.
Power is finite, it, like physical matter, can not be created or destroyed, merely transferred from one to another. To gain power, one must first take it from someone, or something else. When you gain power, something else that previously had that power must lose it. This can easily be seen in the world around us; when man learned to fly we took power away from nature, when a criminal murders another they steal their victims power over their own body. Power may not be shared, but it may be peacefully, and willingly, transferred from one person to another.
I don’t know, maybe I’m a pessimist, but when I look around me and see the actions of my family, my friends, my neighbors, and people around the world, I see the strive for power. I’m not saying that seeking power is bad, to do that would be like saying it is bad for a tiger to eat a dear; its nature’s way. The only time when seeking power is wrong is if it is at the expense of another human beings rights; life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. Any other time people are free to seek power, to gain and lose it, as they best see fit.
This is an idea that I’ve been thinking about for a while now and I’d like to get your feedback on it. This theory was inspired mainly by Hobbs’s theory of Egoism, that human beings are incapable of acting outside of our own self interest. This theory of mine came about through careful observations of people I know in my life, and of my own actions.
It is my belief that there is only one thing in this world that all human beings, of all ages, races, creeds, cultures, and religions, people of all classes and backgrounds, strive to achieve, and that ultimate goal, that higher order, is power or to prove ones power.
Almost every action a human commits is in some way, shape or form, is done to gain power or prove that you have it. It is not for happiness, belonging, or piece of mind, those are secondary. Whenever given a choice, one will always chose power over anything else. It is the motivation for how we live our lives. It is the center point on which our civilizations are founded,the source of our greatest achievement, but it is also the cause of our turmoil’s, of death and suffering. Power is what we seek, whether concisely or not.
Power is finite, it, like physical matter, can not be created or destroyed, merely transferred from one to another. To gain power, one must first take it from someone, or something else. When you gain power, something else that previously had that power must lose it. This can easily be seen in the world around us; when man learned to fly we took power away from nature, when a criminal murders another they steal their victims power over their own body. Power may not be shared, but it may be peacefully, and willingly, transferred from one person to another.
I don’t know, maybe I’m a pessimist, but when I look around me and see the actions of my family, my friends, my neighbors, and people around the world, I see the strive for power. I’m not saying that seeking power is bad, to do that would be like saying it is bad for a tiger to eat a dear; its nature’s way. The only time when seeking power is wrong is if it is at the expense of another human beings rights; life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. Any other time people are free to seek power, to gain and lose it, as they best see fit.
12 comments:
I may be the antithesis to your argument ... I don't seek power over others; I don't want power over others; I avoid power over others. With power comes an overwhelming responsibility - a responsibility for the well being of each and every one you hold power over. The way I see it, if you can't make the lives of those you hold power over significantly better than they would be without you, you don't deserve the power that has been assigned to you.
My modus operandi is influence. I refuse positions of power when they are offered, yet they keep being offered because in the process of pushing my ideas those that are in power see their value and think that I could do so much more with them from a position of power. But I know myself better than that - in a position of power I become so wrapped up in fulfilling my responsibility to those I hold power over that I don't have anything left for creative ideas.
And so, I just sit at the bottom of the ladder and watch my ideas as they struggle to climb to the top. Some make it, many don't - but I get the chance to think them, and that's what's important. :-)
Mr. Chicken.
"I may be the antithesis to your argument ... I don't seek power over others; I don't want power over others; I avoid power over others."
Partly I agree with you; I too do not openly seek positions of power and deny them when they come. I don't being responsible for others. This was going to be the topic of another post, but I’ll just say here that everyone wants power, but few want responsibility, so people like me and you seek power that doesn't come with that responsibility. Here’s an example. Have you ever been in a really heated fight with someone you loved where you knew you were wrong but didn't want to admit it? Everyone has at one time or another. No one wants to be wrong. Why would you hold on to an argument when you knew you were wrong? Its because with winning an argument, or thinking you did, comes power or the illusion of power. When you win an argument you take power away from the person you were fighting with, and if you lose they take it from you. If you win, you don't have any responsibility to that person, you just get the power. See what I mean? At the same time, when you deny a position of power you really aren't giving up power, you are proving that you could have it if you wanted. You have power over power, if you see what I’m saying. You can deny it. That’s still power, although of a different kind (and yet another topic for another blog).
Fair enough ... but if the desire for power can be so easily overidden, how can it be primary and everything else be secondary? That is (for me, at least), the desire for power is secondary to the desire for happiness, belonging, peace of mind, etc.
Mr. Chicken.
"Fair enough ... but if the desire for power can be so easily overridden, how can it be primary and everything else be secondary?"
Happiness is definitely secondary, and I’ll explain why I think so. One can be perfectly content, have perfect peace of mind and be living happily, but unless you are livening for some greater purpose most people, maybe all, would want to do something with their blessings. Why do missionaries from wealthy families who have good lives decide to leave their homes to go to a third world nation? It’s because although they have happiness, they seek some sort of meaningful power, the power to half others, the power to make the lives of others happy, the power to bring others to Christ. Power isn't always a bad thing; on the contrary, power is very often a great thing to have if the right person has it. Also, making other peoples lives better makes people very happy, I doubt you'd be able to be truly happy all by yourself with nothing to do. To make someone else’s life better, you need the power to do so. So you seek that power. Peace of mind isn't really a goal if you think about it; if I could give you a pill that would make you totally content and happy sitting in a chair the rest of your life would you take it? No, of course not, you don't want to be sitting in a chair high the rest of your life. Why not? Because then you have absolutely no power over anything, and a life without any sort of power isn't really worth living.
also, and i just thought of this, you really can't be happy without power. that doesn't mean that if you have power you will be happy, but to be happy you need some control. to have no power would be to be under the complete controll of another, and no one can be happy that way.
Maybe we need to distinguish between power and control ... e.g., the ability to manage one's own life is control whereas the ability to manage the lives of others is power. And in that sense, I can agree with you - without control one can never achieve happiness; but I would argue that one can achieve happiness without power. Unfortunately, I've now devolved into the definition of terms (power and control) and, as Popper asserted, we could sit here and debate about that forever! ;-)
Mr. Chicken.
Perhaps a better way than "power vs. control" for characterizing the difference I'm trying to communicate is "power vs. liberty"?
Mr. Chicken.
"Maybe we need to distinguish between power and control ... e.g., the ability to manage one's own life is control whereas the ability to manage the lives of others is power."
I'd say that control is simply another form of power. We aren't born in control of our bodies, our bodies pretty much control us untill we can wrestle away that control as we grow older. To control yourself is to have power over yourself.
Fair enough ... if we lay down enough definitions of terms, you and I can have an interesting discussion, no matter how off of the beaten path our definitions of terms may be. Unfortunately, at that point we are bordering on jargon and anyone who happens upon the conversation will see the terms, try to interpret what we are saying using the mainstream implications of those terms, and get a totally incorrect idea of what we are talking about.
I guess what I'm getting at is that the mainstream implication of the term "power" is something entirely different than self control. And so when you say something like "Power for Powers Sake" where what you mean by power is a great deal more than the mainstream implication, you are bound to get disagreement - but it is not necessarily a disagreement of ideas; rather it is likely a disagreement of definitions.
I fully understand that you are trying to express your idea that holding power over others is the same as self control ... and I wish I had some words of wisdom for how to go about this without getting caught in useless disagreements of definitions - but maybe that's just the part and parcel of playing the philosophy game :-(
That said, I still am not in agreement with you that power over others is of the same stuff as self control. You're going to have to try harder to convince me. ;-)
Mr. Chicken.
Power over others is not the same as self control, they are both forms of power, but they are still VERY different. My next post is actually going to talk about this. I just made a post talking about four things we as humans are constantly seeking to control, death, nature, one another, and god, but I also said that there is another power that is very special that will get its own post probably tomorrow. I defined power as the ability to influence people and event, and I think your own body and mind counts as a person so that would also count. Control and power though seems like very similar terms, maybe even the same thing.
Post a Comment