Are there measures of Power besides that of those in Power? When we think of Power, it is mostly considered Political. Perhaps, Patriarchal. Even evil.
Why is this backwards? Politics is boring, and quite frankly not what makes the world go round. Men are no better than women at ruling- it should be a shared priviledge. And many of those who get elected as leaders fail us like angry little children.
Does anyone have Power of their own? Ever? Why are we always handing it over to those who cannot be responsibly Powerful?
Power is a multi-layered concept. There are different forms, such as political power and energetic, or ontological power. Unfortunately, many people have a penchant for describing power as something corrupting or evil. The cliché phrase, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”, is an example. Power is not the culprit. People and their lack of moral integrity, which is something already within them, prior to being in positions of power, is the real problem. Power is something meant to be employed by intellectually and morally mature individuals, by those who have a clear and profound understanding of things, such as justice. Philosopher kings are the ideal rulers. They are the ones meant to convey power for the brilliance that it, really, is.
Everyone has, initially. The world is just an auction place for it with a lot of neurotic sellers. By the age of 20 most people have sold all their power for comfort.
Who is this “we”? Respectfully. I think the answer to your question is hidden or hinted at in its formulation.
I have handed power to some unworthiness before, but never to politicians. Just people I had wrongfully trusted with it.
One can never give ones power away to someone and then trust that it will be handled “well”. Giving away power is to betray it, and it will come bite you for it.
The only possibility besides carrying it alone, is to be as fortunate as to find friends in this power. Power as a standard to friendship, his is the Aeons word.
The term “power” – i.e. the capacity to direct or influence the behaviour of others (Oxford) – is generally applied to economical, political, religious, military and other setups that thrive on power myths.
Power myths are fuelled by the powerless - i.e. those who admire, fear, desire the powers they attribute to their powerful - and are incessantly cultivated by the latter, in order to cover up that they are powerless too.
Power commands our destiny, releases us from restrictions, and dominates the chess board of mobilizing and effective strategies. To order, enforce, extinguish weakness, and ride the tidal wave of our highest future raises victory flags of conquest over every region of the globe, firmament, and extragalactic vistas to the very polarities and extremities of the nether regions of pure darkness.
Fundamentally, of course, power revolves around that which is applicable to all of us: subsistence.
In other words, those things that we must have in order to survive itself.
These things:
1] access to an adequate food supply
2] access to an adequate water supply
3] access to an adequate shelter
4] access to an adequate defense against those who wish to harm us
And, for the community as a whole:
5] access to an environment conducive to reproducing itself.
That’s why power in this sense would seem to revolve first and foremost around those who own and operate the global economy. And the states/governments that they command. Those folks that, among others, Adam Smith and Karl Marx tended to zero in on.
I merely point out that, by and large, in this day and age, they are nihilists. Nihilists in the sense that anyone who forges a moral narrative predicated on “show me the money” might be thought to be nihilists.
well played, biggs. you gave us an essential definition stripped of all the philosophical metaphors that have been employed over the eons to explain and describe ‘power’. you can do damn near anything with that word in a philosophical narrative ranging from something you’d find written in a fortune cookie to entire theses on the subject… and everyone one of them would be open to endless derridaen deference and displacement. not to say these aren’t magnificent feats in literature (N’s WTP is one example, obviously), only that they aren’t doing what they think they’re doing on account on the kind of language used to produce the intended result; inductive truths belonging to the natural sciences. i mean fuck i can write a post up and have you believing that power is ultimately expressed in giving all your shit away as fast as i could make you believe that power is expressed in a fascist coup.
i tend to stick with what i can’t ‘play around with’, and that’s the good ol’ fashioned scientific definition; applying a force through a distance. power is work, more or less. a capacity to act. now what you define as ‘work’ and ‘action’ after that is your business. it’ll prolly be nonsense, but that never stopped a philosopher before.