Victoria / Tory -IT SEEMS to MEWe did try pretty hard to get our assumptions above the table. I realize we might have come up short. I am defining power as the capacity to have an effect on something outside of yourself. For the most part, in this discussion, it has been used to talk about power over other people. I would invoke, in (mostly) descending order of crudeness, Physical Control (pick someone up, throw them over your shoulder and carry them somewhere), Physical Intimidation (strike them and threaten to continue to strike them if they do not do what you insist upon), Emotional Intimidation (similar to the above without necessarily and striking, but possibly the literal or implied threat of it it), Persuasion (Begging, Charming, etc.), Promises, Seduction (a bit of the combination of Promises and Charm perhaps)... I'm open to other definitions of power that *cannot* be used for such, but I think that might not be possible. On the other hand, I complete agree that we use our power with the *intention* of doing great and wonderful things, and when asked will insist that we have no intention to force or harm or ... but I also contend that this might be a self-deluding trick. You and I have had conversations many years ago about "Will" that touched on this and I think we did not converge then... I think you believed that willfulness could be positive while I feel that it cannot (except insomuch as it is part of a larger equation which balances out to positive, but the willful actions themselves, I submit are corruption). I'm not sure what you mean here. I agree that the brush is broad and that there may be some loose ends that we are not attending to... can you help us pin them down (or pull them up) a little more? I also believe that some of my definitions do come dangerously close to tautological, but I'm not sure that is what you are pointing to. I (think) I am talking more about definitions of terms and the logical consequences of the application of those definitions than I am about the intentions of people (any/all of the 6B). I know it sounds like I'm (maybe) I question this. I agree that Power has been claimed to be used otherwise, promised to be used otherwise, and especially *intended* to be used otherwise. I'm just not sure it ever turns out that way (or that it can). I often find myself aspiring to various forms of power and I almost always imagine that I am aspiring to it, so that I can wield goodness with it... but I deeply, fundamentally question that this is even possible. We may not have our definitions of Power aligned well enough... you may very well have a contrasting definition of Power that I'm not clear on that makes sense in this context. I still hold that the power itself is where it starts, where the "potential evil" resides and that it is the channeling of it via a willful action that channels it into "kinetic evil". I do not disagree that often (most often?) our quest for power is motivated by some higher desire (at least consciously) to "do good". What I question is if this is actually possible. My personal experience, if viewed with enough wishful thinking, suggests that I in fact do good with some of the power I have managed to obtain over the world and over others. I don't know if it it ever actually works out that way in fact... I have plenty of wishful thinking to maintain me in my pursuit of rightous application of power. I know this sounds rather negative, but that alone is not enough reason for me to discount it. I assume that the women on this list will weigh in (as you are doing here) with their own ideas and opinions. I acknowledge that my statements in this regard are sweeping generalizations and even if they have some merit (though they may not) do not likely apply well to any given individual. Let me then convolve my generalization into a specific question (actually a whole stream of them). Do you, as a woman, believe that you (and perhaps by extrapolation, many women) generally consider, experience and exercise power (which we do not have a shared definition of yet) differently than men? Are you as likely to use direct physical control as a mode of power as men are? Are you as likely to have that form of power exercised over you? Are you as likely to use various forms of persuasion as men are? Do you feel that you have any power over men or women based on the (presumed by my statement here) differences in men's and women's sexual natures? Do you ever use that knowingly (or unknowingly upon careful reflection) to assert power over men (or women)? Do you feel that you have a "right" to use any powers that are unique to yourself individually, as a member of a gender, of a class over others who are of a (presumed) class, gender or personal circumstance that gives *them* potential or exercised power over you? Or at least doused liberally with various libations assigned to be Irish in origin. He asserts (in my paraphrasing) that the key is careful deliberation over consequences. I think it is important, but I suggest that it may not be enough. Absolutely. And I hope we can even agree that there are people with amazing capacity for framing their selfish and abusive acts as acts of generosity and kindness. The question (for myself) is where the threshold of awareness goes from willful ignorance to rightous, aware, intention. I never doubted that. I don't think anyone here would say that (but I could ask them). I think that a healthy respect for power and it's consequences (intended or otherwise) is paramount. I don't know that it has to be fear. If we are to act willfully at all, then we must either believe the exercise of power *can* yield goodness, or that we are willing to accept the risk of bad consequences. My willful actions are moving from the former catagory to the latter. I think this is a very good extreme example. My appraisal of the Dalai Lama and his "power" is that there is little if any power that he wields beyond persuasion, and I think he uses that with the utmost care. I have found that very little of his talk is of the persuasive kind, meaning that his intention is not (directly) to persuade. I believe his intention is to bring clarity to the ideas and experiences he is talking about and trusts that the individuals receiving them will assimilate them the best they can and take action in their own lives accordingly. I would claim that he is walking a very fine line where he might not wield any of what I am calling power. When he came to Santa Fe around 1990, he impressed me in many ways. During the Q&A after his talk, someone asked him if he came to the US to ask the US Gov't to place economic or political sanctions against the Chinese who were occupying his country and oppressing his people. He said roughly, "economic and political sanctions are forms of violence and I do not promote any form of violence for any reason". I would say that he was declining to use his "power" in a situation where most, if not all of us would feel almost completely righteous in using our power to right a wrong. He was also asked if he was going up to LANL to urge the leaders of the lab to disarm. He (roughly) said "The Laboratory's mission is to create weapons of unthinkable destruction, I have nothing to talk with them about". And when asked "But what about the peace of 40+ years that has been kept by Mutual Assured Destruction", he said (roughly) "if you come across two men grasping eachothers' collars with their fists drawn back to strike but have not yet struck the other, would you call that peace?". My point of relevance to this discussion is that while his words were very illuminating, I did not find them to be "persuasive" in the most literal sense of the term. In all both cases, he was declining to use the "power" the questioners presumed him to have (and encouraging him to use). Or to decline to use his power. If one includes in their definition of Power, his spiritual and intellectual acuity that allows him to split the finest of hairs in ways that allow him (and us, if we use his example) to avoid any willful acts of power, then we have another kind of power... Is this the difference between my use of "power" and yours? I did not know that he was predicted to be the last of the Dalai Lamas. I'm not sure how this is a source of power for him? Not to my knowledge. But we do not know what (all) he does with his money or other forms of his influence. The "evil" often ascribed to him fits mostly in the catagory of unintended consequences fading into willful ignorance. He might not understand the implications of the dominance of his products in the world, or he might feel that the negative side effects of this are balanced by the presumed "good" that his products bring the world (better documents, better spreadsheets, better e-mail (no, scratch that one), better web browsing (scratch that one too)... better STUFF!), or he might not care, and might believe that the success in the "free" market proves the goodness of his products. Absolutely... wonderfully true... a cause for great celebration. Also absolutely true and a glorious and horrible thing it is. Perhaps we cannot separate the glory from the horror. Perhaps that is the crux of my arguement... no amount of glory in our wielding of power will be free of the taint of the horror, and perhaps by symmetry, even the most horrific acts of power might have some smidgen of glory in them. It is a good question to ponder. Thanks for weighing in. I hope my response helps us to converge or at least understand where we are not. We may have moved from Irish Whiskey to Kentucky Bourbon territory... - Steve |
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