(An anecdotal essay)
The word “power” is vague. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “power” has nine entries, and that’s excluding all subentries, synonyms, parts of speech, and other dictionaries. Perhaps the most widely spoken definition is that power is “the possession of control, authority, or influence over others” (entry 2a power n.) However, this definition concludes that power is the sum of many factors and not a quantity within itself. Such factors include wealth and control and authority and “armed men” and “physical might.” But does the entity in power have to qualify in all factors or just some? Is one enough? Where is the boundary: what is everything that is power and what isn’t?
The boundary is ambiguous and lurks outside conscious understanding. Is power a mere social belief? Is power that order that constructs structure from chaos, or is it the opposite, the chaos that breeds tyranny and destruction into order? It’s not so cut and dry. Power follows the theme that archetypal good and evil coexist rather than existing separately, which is best illustrated by the yin-yang in Daoism. There is good in evil and evil in good.
But if power wasn’t the mere compounding of factors and rather one single quantity, what would it measure? If wealth measures the total value derived from the material world, if authority measures the ability of a position to enforce commands, what is power? If power is “influence,” what does it even mean to have influence over others? My dog influences me; your child influences you. My car certainly influences me (takes me from point A to point B every day). Does that mean that these animals, humans, and objects have power?
It’s a logical fallacy that anyone has to be taught what power is. Psychologist Jordan Peterson points out that two-year-old children are the most violent variant of a human being. They bite, hit, steal. You don’t have to teach those gremlins how to be evil or dangerous, it is fossilized in their nature. This isn’t just for humans; Robert Greene, author of 48 Laws of Power and Laws of Human Nature explains that all organisms intrinsically seek to expand. In fact, society does the opposite of teaching evil and aggression. Society builds order. Builds rules. Builds norms. It is through the culturing of malevolent monster children that civilizations can continue without total barbarism.
Nevertheless, the kids are playing a game of power: Who can they attack? What can they get away with? Who can they control or abuse? Who’s going to hit them back? Through these games, the child can approximate their status, rank, and “power” in relation to everybody else. But the game doesn’t end there, and there are other principles of power that manifest themselves in human minds and behavior way before the realization of power in politics, economics, society, and culture– the so-called “real world.”
When I was six years old, I played King of the Hill. King of the Hill isn’t like war, it is war. The one standing on that narrow peak fire foot off the ground is the King. Everybody else is a loser (and should be shunned). The only rule is don’t crack anybody’s scalp open, everything else is allowed. This rule is unspokenly set into place not because of safety but because if somebody’s mom saw, the game would end. (I won’t tell you all the strategies on how to win because such sacred truths are worth more than your house and jewelry and kidneys combined.)
Power dynamics in the King of the Hill are the following:
- It is a lot easier to get power than it is to maintain it.
- The highest predictor of your success King depends not on external prejudice (like skin color or family income), but on skill and strength.
- To be king you need not the ability to take down multiple players at a time, but rather to win consistently against individual players.
The first principle is the same as described by Machiavelli in The Prince. Power must not only be captured, but maintained (hence Machiavelli’s blueprint on tactics for rulers to keep their power.) Suppose you’re a tiny twig-legged boy who serendipitously inherited the King title after knocking over two tyrannical big dudes. These guys have been fighting for a while and became weakened and fatigued. The little boy stands on top by pure luck. But will he be able to fend off all those in revenge and stand his ground? In the same way, if you won a 10 million dollar lottery, would you be able to protect from all the crawling businessmen and scammers and thieves? If one of your videos goes viral on social media, will you be able to retain attention and withstand the competition? In these scenarios, the gift of economic and social power means close to nothing because it is so easily lost. Therefore, maintaining power requires skill.
The second rule clarifies that the main predictors for success as King of the Hill are skill and strength (physical force) and not any external predispositions of wealth, status of family, or culture. This may seem obvious: how could a father’s income affect a child’s ability to play King of the Hill? While wealth, status, and culture contribute to the overall success in a hierarchy, it is a logical fallacy that these are the only factors that determine success. For instance, it is a misconception that power in social hierarchies is only determined by wealth, creating the rich versus poor class dynamic. In the previous example, the prize of 10 million dollars is a clear quantity of wealth that would move anybody up the social hierarchy quite considerably. But the mere possession of money doesn’t justify sustained power. A week later, the money is attacked, poorly invested, and essentially vaporizes, leading to bankruptcy. Despite this plummet into doomed debt, another businessman of 10 million dollars is able to maintain a spot on top of the hierarchy. How so? The only difference is skill. Strategy.
The synergy of maintaining power and acquiring skill results in the third principle, winning over individual opponents. King of the Hills is fought by many subbattles. When starting at the bottom, the player must first battle the middle ground and other players nearing the top. Each subvictory increases “power.” The power is directly correlated to winning. Within each battle, the amount of power is relative only between two opponents, and not the power of the entire hierarchy. This suggests that power fundamentally exists in the relative form and not in its absolute counterpart because total power can only be achieved by the ability to win over a single person at a time. Only then can the victories accumulate into absolute power, where you have won consistently and with skill.
Similarly, Robert Greene, proposes that power isn’t that tyrannical, complete domination stereotype but rather more subtle. Power isn’t the control of an entire state, it is the control of a single person at a single moment in time. Power is the ability to persuade someone to be on your side. If you can influence one individual, you can influence a thousand individuals. This skill of persuasion makes power more closely related to seduction than tyranny. Particularly in modern societies where economic, political, and social problems aren’t typically solved by brute physical force– because it can throw you into jail and ruin your reputation– the techniques for power are instead conveyed through communication. Power is in the hands of the one that can capture and maintain attention for the longest time. Body language, lines of reasoning, and deception become power.
One question is how can power be subtle and mere communication when violence “fixes everything” and millions of people have suffered from war and absolute tyranny? The first part of the question can be refuted by the logic that violence itself is a form of persuasion and communication– proving to be an effective tactic to control people via fear. Likewise, the second part of the question emphasizes persuasion because it explains the sheer quantity of people that an entity in power successfully captured and maintained.
If you want power, you have to become a persuasive communicator. Learn to speak. Learn to write.
