Thinking Out-loud #6: Does Power Corrupt?

By Andrae Smith · Aug 9, 2015 · 883 · 1
  1. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - John Dalberg-Acton

    When I think about what's going on in society right now, this quote comes to mind. But now I wonder if it is the power. Any vision for which you need power over others in order to achieve is no vision at all. Like the saying, "If you need violence to enforce your ideas, then your ideas are worthless." From that perspective, it stands to reason that someone who sought power was already corrupted by the illusion of control, and deceit of ego.

    Some people have good intentions. Their ego-mind tells them, "if I become this, I will have the power to stop that." But this too is false. For example, if it takes aggressive policing to bring peace, then that peace is fragile because somewhere the police presence breeds distrust. Somewhere, someone is growing unsettled.

    Also, one cannot rule out human fallibility. People have a natural tendency to get used to certain states and circumstances, even authority. Some people will simply get used to getting their way, especially if the system allows for them to be privileged.

    This entry isn't about police officers or privileged people, but power and the human relationship to it. Does power corrupt, or does it take a corrupted mind to seek power? Is a blend of both? Can any power be lasting?

    As I see it, the only true power is creative power. The innate ability of a person to create himself or herself in a way that suits them. It is the same force that enables them to reshape their lives, to build constructs, to expand horizons. It draws on primal creative energies more potent than will power. And I think this power is non-tempting, non-corrupting. I think the pursuit of this personal power is vital. But wouldn't my previous postulations make people who seek this also corrupted?

    Perhaps it is as Marilyn Manson said, "Corruption and enlightenment are no different." Hmmm... Under this premise, power could lead to enlightenment. But what, then, is the relationship between enlightenment and power over others? What can come of that? And why would an enlightened mind seek something so illusory? Huh... Just food for thought.
    Hubardo likes this.

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  1. AspiringNovelist
    Power corrupts, but worse -- we (citizens) allow it...

    My take:

    Individual sovereignty, the concept of self-ownership and ones commitment to individual rights, is not divisible. The individual is the alpha and omega absolute and affirms that he or she stands above government, alongside government, but never beneath government. The whole of sovereignty is not divisible and no part is divisible.

    Yet governments attempt to divide an individual’s sovereignty as they lay claim to the individual’s sweat, intellect, and empathy. Liberal governments attempt to break the individual apart and assign portioned and equitable control to other individuals, politicians, states, and nations -- stateism. All done in the name of equality or fairness. But this equality of fairness doesn’t apply to those who sacrifice, only to those who the sacrifice benefits.

    Stateism is a deadly illusion. It’s a cruel magician’s trick that acts as if it is possible to alienate the inalienable. One could no more divide an individual’s sovereignty than one could naturally breathe under water and any claim to the contrary is an illusion or worst yet, a delusion. The delusional captivated by the illusion disregard the magician’s other hand, and all the while, the slighted hand holds their head under water in a baptism of control.

    In that life-giving divide of air and liquid, the burden of the magician’s deceit is one sided and the delusional will sense the urgency of a drowning man. They’ll sense suffocation and it will bolt through every muscle in their body. It will jump from their lungs and leap into their throat as they thrash about grasping for firm ground on an illusionary plane, and then they will slowly, surely, sink. Then they will die.

    But it matters not. They died the moment they clapped for the magician and allowed their sweat, intellect, and empathy to be appropriated. They died the moment they believed the illusion. ― On the Statist Division of Individual Sovereignty,- Aspiring Novelist
    AspiringNovelist, Aug 14, 2015
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