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..:: Authority ::..
By
Alan Schneider
Power tends to corrupt, and
absolute power corrupts absolutely. The truth of this famous observation
has been demonstrated repeatedly throughout history. How, then, can
authority be wielded wisely and auspiciously? Rethinking the ancient
concept of a balance of power is the subject of this
Searchlight article.
Why do some among us exhibit
the will to power? Certainly, the ego is naturally addicted to
power and control in consequence of its primary function of the
preservation of the organism. Both accumulated power and accumulated
control tend to improve the overall likelihood of survival for the
individual, in turn improving the likelihood of successful reproduction
and transmission of those characteristics that garnered that
power and control to the next generation. But, certain individuals
demonstrate and abnormally acute instance of power addiction even beyond
what is customary for our species. These people seek out positions of
influence in society and culture with focused and determined intent. Let
us attempt to surmise what internal dynamics motivate this behavior.
In the case of those
lamentably few persons who had their developmental needs adequately met
through the course of childhood into maturity, a demonstrated balance of
characterological traits can be observed. The adequate nurturance they
received allowed them to develop psychologically without carrying
forward significant trauma or fixations into adulthood. They neither
excessively seek nor pathologically avoid social power and influence
over others. And it must be emphasized here that this is true without
regard to the literal social roles they play. There are business people,
executives, politicians, military officers, and police officers who are
constructively adjusted to their roles in society and do not display
significant abusive pathology. So the occurrence of abusive, maladptive
behavior must stem from the presence of unresolved trauma, probably
occurring in childhood, that drives the behavior forward. What can this
trauma be? What are the underlying root causes of power abuse?
One factor that is very
probably involved is personal insecurity. Children are frequently
confronted with many types of frightening phenomena, both real and
imagined. To the child, there may be little distinction in the two – the
child may not yet know one from the other – all threats are as real as
all injuries. If the adult significant others present do not adequately
respond to the child’s fears and injuries, a condition of background
uncertainty and insecurity will begin to develop within the child. This
is the first root of the pathological will to power – the fear of loss
of control as demonstrated by lack of adequate intervention by the
adult agents of control in the environment. The child has little or
no control of its own – this must be provided externally by adults. If
such provision does not take place, the child can become obsessed with
personal security issues and seek to resolve this obsession by resorting
to manipulation of the adult social system. If that social system is
itself fundamentally flawed or otherwise imbalanced, the child’s
manipulations may be successful, and the embryo power addict has been
created! Once established, this fear-driven psychological imbalance can
be very difficult to restore into valid, manipulation-free behavior,
particularly in the presence of dysfunctional adult environments.
When this pathological
tendency to manipulate is coupled with what amounts to genetically
predisposed sadistic inclinations, another dimension of power addiction
is created. Many so-called experts in the field of human behavior do not
believe that this inherent sadism exists in human nature, but claim that
it is itself the result of childhood pathology. This is a difficult
question to resolve – to my knowledge, the “sadism” gene has not yet
been isolated in the human genome. But history’s evidence of conquest,
and conqueror’s behavior toward the vanquished, points to an inherent
barbarism in many cases. The Assyrians, Huns, Mongols, Romans, and Nazis
(to name a few, but certainly not all, specific cases) were
notably excessive in their brutal treatment of subordinated populations.
It would seem that natural selection has clearly had some role in the
development of cruel tendencies in the human species.
The combination of latent
insecurity and inherent sadism is almost certain to produce an
individual prone to power-seeking, and the abuse of power once it
has been attained. Since there is some reason to believe that
evolutionary precedents have influenced this situation, it is therefore
doubtful that much can be done, apart from a yet theoretical permanent
world-wide reeducation campaign, to prevent this phenomenon from
manifesting. We must seek other means of preventing the onset of power
imbalance and abuse in the world.
One methodology known to be
effective in controlling power abuse is the structuring of the
socio-political mechanism into competing branches. Even though the
migration of power and influence addicts into positions of authority may
still take place in a given branch, and across all branches, the net
effect will tend to be the cancellation of the negative effects present
in any one branch through inter-branch competition. Since this approach
has demonstrated effective results in government, it should, in theory,
also work in any other area of society, including business, educational,
religious, and recreational organizations. The concept here is the
establishment of inter-competitive groups within the organization in a
system of checks and balances much like the original American
government. Again, in theory, such a modified organizational structure
would at least prevent the emergence of careening corporate and
governmental autocratic juggernauts propounding large-scale social
injustice around the world. Focused social pressure originating in the
most enlightened, progressive sectors of society, coupled with political
activism, has the best chance of succeeding in the attainment of the
proposed restructuring, but the desired result is still far from
large-scale achievement! As the battle of life goes on, and we can but
struggle forward with love and hope in our hearts.
There are, of course, also
long-term stability and promotional issues present here. It can be
extremely difficult to convince an incumbent power addict to abdicate
even a small amount of influence over a constituent population. And
once this is accomplished, the question of recurrence arises, as new,
ascendant power addicts begin to vie for position in what they perceive
as a power vacuum. The old phrase “Nature abhors a vacuum” is nowhere as
relevant as the political arena! Furthermore, following the introduction
of the competitive system advocated here, the problem of long-term
viability rears its ugly head. We are essentially advocating the
establishment of a democratic system of checks and balances, and the
life span of the average democracy is known to be approximately two
hundred years, based on historical examples, with or without elected
representation included as a feature. The establishment of elected
representation and term limits are additional effective measures for the
control of power abuse, but I have not advocated this here because I
simply felt that the creation of the suggested competitive group
structure was, by itself, a quite sufficient challenge, given the
current world situation!
The world of today is a turbulent place filled with discontents and
injustices of every kind and degree. In the Post-Modern condition
today, the tendency for the Law of the Jungle to predominate has
become ever more prevalent, pitting nation against nation in the
political sphere, corporation against corporation in the economic arena,
institution against institution in the social environment, and groups
and individuals against each other at the grass roots level of cultures
and societies everywhere. It might seem paradoxical to suggest that
more competition would constructively influence this situation, but
what I have advocated in this article is the introduction of a balanced,
organized competitive structure to offset chaotic power addiction and
subsequent abusive behavior. As the world population continues to
expand, it will become critical to create some form of social
counter measures to combat the rising tide of corruption that is already
proliferating around the world. Since we have evolved to be an
aggressive, combative species, the intelligent structuring of society to
create fair fights may be our only real option for survival in
the twenty first century.
- With Love, Alan -
(CR2008, Alan Schneider)
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