Years ago we visited a cottage resort, same time and same cottage each summer, reuniting with the same families in other cottages.
As was my habit I brought note books and papers to write and read. One day I asked each of the adults "what is power?". Their answers were varied:
- power is energy
- E=mc2
- power is what turns men into monsters
- love is power
So I pondered these answers, as throughout the years, the subject fascinated and troubled me.
My answer to the question would be - power is the ability to create, to influence the outcome of events. Humans certainly have wielded power throughout our time on this planet. We have created culture - opera is one example of cultural power. Language, story and education is another. People working together to create something memorable and inspiring. Cell phone technology is another magical example of technological power. Raising our children responsibly so they are able to find their way through the unknown future. Think of all the years of study and discipline that goes into building a beautiful temple. Think of the labour, the energy, the beauty of the design. Think of all the writers who have written books that sit in the library of most towns in North America and Europe. All the cars that jam our roadways, the drivers who learned how to drive, the planners who put up traffic light and signs to guide them. The sum of our power is so great that we have created terrible problems for the environment, and yet it has become too common for us to notice.
Dismissing the power we have has bred a different kind of power. The circus, clowns exploiting vulnerable people and animals. It clamours for attention in a way that makes humanity seem like a bunch of suckers. Consumer commercials, magical thinking, snake oil salesmen, political bloviators, astronomical greed, Punch and Judy shows, and celebrity gossip.
I call this fake power.
The only thing this power creates is alienation from society - it doesn't even try to represent anything of worth. It arises out of our failure to appreciate the life bestowed on this planet. It's a cynical race to see how quickly we can destroy decency, civility replaced with thuggery. Corporate media obsessed with evil, as though we are powerless to save it.
This culture is saying to young impressionable minds you are powerless to change anything. We laugh at the naiveté of the desire to care. By example we are offering them victims to bully with the glorification of brute force. Gang rape, racist slurs, intolerance to diversity, contempt for the fragile.
Bad enough that the young might display this behaviour, but even worse are the men who hold positions that would normally demand intelligence and leadership but who brag about making it a game, as though our universe is merely a casino and man's task is simply to take home the most chips.
This is not power. This is just capitalism. Turning the diversity of the web of life into a lottery where there is only one winner and billions of losers.
What dominates this culture is not power at all but a soul destroying pretence of power based on the universal contempt for all life as we know it.
If we want to have a future we need to build it on the real power we have to sustain the healthy community. Peace and a reverence for life is the ultimate profit from our efforts.
