What is power?

Power can be many different things to many different people. Power to one man living on the street can be a five dollar bill. While power to a father of unruly kids would be the ability to ask them once to clean their room and have it be done in minutes. But it all comes back to mental. What I mean is, the poor man having money is mental for him because he can control having food. Money just helps A LOT of people A LOT of the time to feel powerful.

Re: What is power?


Capability of producing an effect.
Something or someone influential is powerful.

Re: What is power?
Human power is control. Control of other people actions, emotions, ideas. In the most extreme cases, the power of giving death.

Power is contentment, and serenity---

We may never, never meet again
On the bumpy road to love
Still, I'll always, always keep the memory of

The way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you changed my life
No, no, they can't take that away from me

--Ira Gershwin

That's an excellent song, greyfan. Here's a follow-up: Are all those other types of Power (e.g., Carbon's Money scenario) just a front for physical power? In other words, are all other types of influence just the velvet glove over the fist of brute strength?

A very complex question. Max Weber, the social theorist, defined power, as most political scientists and political anthropologists do, as the capacity to impose one's will on others even when they resist. This kind of definition focuses on the physical ability to exercise control over people and resources. Nietzsche's Will to Power, as I understand it, is much broader, even though people tend to understand it narrowly as physical force. It can also include "softer" phenomena like the artist's power to create beauty or the ability to exercise control over oneself.

I like that, JL; power as a passive, creative ability. You're right, most people do see power as physical ability, but one also has to admit that it's the type that gets exercised the most often. So then here's a question: what are the types of power?

In nature we see "power" as growth, expansion and appropriation. This seems to be descriptive also of corporations. Humans exercise power in the forms of physical domination, mental persuasive capacity (influence) and the occupation of political office which afford their incumbants with authority to exercise power over others under formally defined circumstances (e.g., the limits of jurisdiction). Then there's the power of wealth: the ability to buy compliance or pay enforcers to exact compliance. This is, of course, no attempt at a comprehensive typology.

We might understand a central feature of power to be "ability". This can include (in addition to the political ability to coerce others or the authority to expect compliance from others), powers like the ability to create an expressive poem or painting, to sing or play a musical instrument, to talk in a language (or multiple languages), to create a baby, to raise a happy child, to make and maintain friendships, to forgive, to understand something, to contribitute to and learn from members of A2K. This list can be expanded indefinitely.
Christopher Reeves (Superman) would have included, I'm sure, the abilitly to walk.
Power, like entropy, is ubiquitous. Nietzsche said that life is will to power and nothing else. I would add that reality includes at its base power (symbolized by the Hindu diety, Vishnu) and entropy (symbolized by the Hindu diety Shiva).

I'm glad you brought up domination and persuasiveness; this leads to the assumption that power is really the exploitation of others' weaknesses. That power might be to weakness what nothing is to something: the absence, or the existence of less, weakness. So which is dominant: Power or weakness? Everyone has weaknesses, but not everyone has power.
But, as you said, my theory still doesn't include passive powers, like creation.
Side note: weren't Vishnu and Shiva the anthropomorphications of preservation and destruction, respectively, not power and entropy? And where does Brahma (creation) fit in?

Tallesin, as I understand Hindu mythology, Brahman symbolizes Ultimate Reality itself, and Brahman combines both Vishnu (construction) and Shiva (destruction). Together, Vishnu and Shiva constitute Change, the core characteristic of reality.
Back to power. We must observe, as you suggest, that power is relative. My 240 pound step-son was once amazed when a 300 pound pro-football tackle picked him up and shook him "like a bag of potatoes." He learned how relative was his own considerable physical power.
And it does seem that power and weakness are two sides of a single political coin. I mentioned the power of wealth earlier. A man wilth X amount of wealth is not more powerful (in this regard) than another man with equal wealth. Not only that, his wealth may not serve him politically if people, no matter how poor, will not take his money in return for compliance. To say that possession of a million dollars constiltutes power in an absolute sense is meaningless.

Power-- The ability to cause someone to do something they would not have done otherwise.

JL: I just double-checked: I was right about their original purposes, but in later times, Brahma transformed into a symbol for reality, and Shiva transformed into the "creation that comes out of destruction," thus making you right, also.
You bring up an interesting point: Do you need all forms of power (money, influence, physical strength) to be truly powerful? I think that having all three might make you the most powerful, but any combination of two or more will do, e.g. money and influence, or money and physical strength, or influence and physical strength. Though it's interesting, as I wrote "influence and physical strength," it didn't seem right to me. Is money the ultimate form of power? Most people (myself reluctantly included) seem to think so.

Tallesin, it seems that the various supports for power (wealth, physical strength--your own or that of your supporters--influence, etc.) may function together synergistically. Wealth may not be enough, and the same can be said of physical strength and personal influence (persuasive capacity). There is one support for power that can suffice by itself. That is the authority of politifcal OFFICE--even though it may take wealth and influence to attain it. Authority and raw power differ. A brief example will indicate how: an armed robber has the RAW POWER to coerce cooperation from you, but he does not have the legal right to do so. An armed policeman has (under the right conditions, defined by law) both the raw power and the legitimate right to coerce cooperation from you. He has AUTHORITY, the legimate or "assigned" power, to exercise force. He is an OFFICER, meaning that he holds an office. But it should be noticed that the authority, or legitimate power, he enjoys is not his personal property; it is the property of his office, as symbolized by his badge. Obviously a politician, in practical terms, is likely to have used various forms of power to attain the power of office, and often politicians use that power of office to gain or intensify their other forms of power after leaving office.

JL, I was re-reading a book of mine yesterday, and there was a quote in there that I feel illustrates the nature of power exactly. "Power lies where the people believe it lies...power is a shadow on the wall." This came out of an interesting discussion between two characters about why a King has any power, since he's only one man. All his armies and generals and whatnot only follow him because they believe he has the power of life and death over them. This can be applied to all kinds of power, I've found. Money is only worth something because we think it does, something is only beautiful if most people agree, etc. So could the "real" power lie not in money or strength, but in persuasive ability, namely...lying?

Tallesin, what a wonderful expression of the subjective dimension of power: "Power lies where the people believe it lies...power is a shadow on the wall."
This suggests a continuum between objective and subjective poles in which specific expressions of power lie. The magical power of an african chief differs from the power of an armed robber. If I do not belief in the reality of the chief's magic, I weaken his power; if I do not believe in the reality of the robber's gun, I do not weaken his power, unless, of course, he is unwilling to use his gun. I recall the famous moment on the Jack Benny radio comedy. The nortoriously thrifty Benny is acosted by an armed robber who threatens "Your money or your life." This is followed by a long period of silence in which the audience begins to laugh, figuring out what's happening in Benny's mind. Eventually the robber says impatiently "Well?" and Benny responds, equally impatiently, "I'm thinking, I'm thinking." This indicates that even objective coercive power has its subjective dimension. Objective power cannot always (absolutely) force compliance if the object of coercion prefers to die rather than comply.

For Greyfan:

The way you wear your hat,
The way you sing off key,
The memory of all that,

NOOOOOOOOOOO

They can't take that away from me,
They can't take that away from me.

Power is simply the option one has of giving life, or taking it away,Tal.

JL: Awesome. That's hilarious. I do agree with that, but in the end, the thief can just take what he wants off your corpse, which would validate Letty's view. However, Letty, if you re-read the rest of this thread (whoa...a little bit of alliterative rhyme there), you'll see the inclusion of passive forms of "power", i.e. artistic power, persuasive power, etc. If you truly believe in the "mind over matter" bit, you can even include physical power in the list of passive powers. However, since we're not living in the Matrix (or...are we?) Should we just agree that Power is a subjective form of persuasion that one person is better in some way, with empirical proof backing it up, i.e. lots of muscles, graceful brushwork, oodles of cash, that, in the end, really requires your permission to work?