1: Freedom, equality, power
So there’s freedom1. There’s equality2.
And there’s power.
Power is a narcotic.
Get some, you want more.
Get more, it starts to eat you up.
Too much power can drive you mad.
It’s not an original story.
2: Power’s not passive
Why is power so corrosive?
It’s complicated – most interesting things are. But I’ll hazard this:
– Power’s not static
– Power’s not an ‘attribute’, like hair colour or height
– It only gains real meaning when it’s in action
The exercise of power is what gives us the kick.
Try it. You’ll see what I mean.
3: Go
You experience the kick of power from driving a car or powering down a ski slope or beating an opponent at the game of Go.
Or overcoming any hurdle.
The exertion of power makes you feel strong. It makes you feel powerful.
Unstoppable.
It’s a thrilling feeling.
4: Getting addicted
The exercise of power is exciting, and you’ll want it again and again.
That’s one dangerous characteristic of power.
We like to revisit those feelings. We become addicted to them.
I’m powerful. I’m unbeatable. I’ve done it!
F*** me, that was good…
And once you’ve got a taste for power, it’s hard to give it up.
5: What a feeling!
Yet there’s a second characteristic of power which is even more dangerous. Because the biggest kick from power doesn’t just come from exercising power. It comes from extending it. From reaching further than you ever did before. From overcoming barriers and limits and constraints.
What a feeling!
6: The vicious circle
But that feeling is a problem. Because you don’t just want the same sensation again – you want it to be stronger. You want to feel even more powerful.
And that’s when it drives someone already in power mad.
They’ll always want more power – to get that extra special kick: the overcoming.
They’ll keep hunting for it. No matter what.
7: Weirdly perverse
So even when they have it all – the monarch, the emperor or the dictator – they’ll want still more, until the only ‘more’ left to them lies in corruption and madness, in the exercise of weird power, or perverse power, when there’s no further ‘normal’ power to be found.
8: The power to survive
But so what?
All I’ve described is a human trait – useful to hunter-gatherers or early, brutal civilisations.
To enjoy power over your environment and to strive to exert that power further will once upon a time have proved useful to survival and success. That’s why evolution left a taste for power in our genetic portfolio. And potentially this instinct can be useful even now – giving us ambition and drive – if controlled.
Uncontrolled, however, the addictive nature of power, and its inherent need to grow, are a danger to everything we hold dear.
9: We become slaves
Because who do the power-hungry, if unconstrained, take power from?
They take it from us.
And who do they exert and extend their power over?
They exert and extend their power over us.
And because of the nature of power, will they ever be sated?
No.
You know it’s true. You can see it in world leaders even now.
10: Social apocalypse
The power-hungry, addicted to power and unconstrained, will always want more – until they’ve wrecked our lives and the lives of our loved ones, until they’ve brought our nations, or even our civilisation, and perhaps even our entire biological world, tumbling down around our ears.
They won’t care if they wreck their own environments in the process. Their adaptability to cognitive dissonance will blind them to what they are doing. Addictions are often self-destructive, while the addicts rationalise away every risk.
11: The myth of the strong leader
That’s why power needs limits. That’s why any healthy and thriving civilisation needs checks and balances.
And that’s why the myth of the benevolent ‘strong leader’ is exactly that: a myth.
12: Corruption
….because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely3.
The strong leader – or the strong party, or the strong elite – will take whatever power you give them, and then want more. And the stronger they become, the less able you’ll be to stop them.
13: And then we’re f***ed
Strong leaders or elites will take their power and keep taking it until the bright and shining future they promised us turns irredeemably sour.
Power is addictive, its biggest kick coming from extending it further.
Our strong leader will keep taking power and keep taking power until everyone around them is utterly enslaved.
And then they’ll pass their power on to their children, too.
14: A brilliant idea
So, to control the power of kings, dictators and elites, someone came up with a brilliant idea.
Democracy.
It doesn’t always work as well as it should, and it needs a whole load of checks and balances to make it work effectively4 – but it’s the best system of controlling authoritarian power yet devised5.
It’s worth hanging onto if you possibly can…. You’ll never find anything better.
15: Tackling the threat
Why discuss power now?
Because human freedom and human equality require the restraint of other people’s power.
Because a thriving environment, a thriving nation and a thriving civilisation requires our ingenious and imaginative management of the human appetite for power.
www.ethicalintelligence.org “The ethics of common sense”
Twitter & Facebook: @EthicalRenewal
References/Notes
- See ‘A short conversation about why we’re all free’: https://lukeandreski.wordpress.com/2020/01/08/a-short-conversation-about-why-were-all-free/
- See ‘A short conversation about why we’re all free’: https://lukeandreski.wordpress.com/2020/01/06/a-short-conversation-about-why-were-all-equal/
- “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.“ John Acton (1834–1902).
- See ‘A short conversation about democracy’: https://lukeandreski.wordpress.com/2020/01/22/a-short-conversation-about-democracy/
- Winston Churchill, 11th November 1947: “…democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried…” I’d go further, and say a properly functioning democracy is the best form of Government we’ll ever be able to achieve.
© Luke Andreski 2019. All rights reserved.
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