3 - Short Primer on Power

[A short preface: In this post and many subsequent posts, there are academic references, both names and terms. If unfamiliar, they may seem intimidating. Please don't be intimidated. If they don't enhance understanding, but instead stand in the way, consider them like footnotes. Anything essential will be thoroughly explained.

Additionally, we are aware that a percentage of the posts may seem dense, especially in beginning as we establish concepts. We will attempt to mediate this, however this groundwork is unfortunately essential to the endevour.

And now onto some of said dense writing establishing some foundations for a concept of power...]

He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. (Philippians 3:21)

To understand the concept of power referred to in this passage, we first need a basic conception of what power is.

Though not acknowledged sufficiently, in the philosophical realm, power is as fundamental as ontology, epistemology and ethics. Yet power largely is ignored in discourse, taken as an assumed ground much like existence. This is especially true when the discourse involves religion, a space where it should be involved in every dialogue. Power is otherwise relegated to only surfacing in political discussion to be addressed on a macro-scale. Often referred to as political science or political philosophy, this has become misleading as the name refers to macro-scale relationships between nations and within their governments, to which the focus is generally placed. All power relationships begin on the personal between individuals.

At its most fundamental level, power is the ability to do things, usually intentionally though not always. When I stand, I exert power over my body to physically stand. When eating soup, I exert power over a tool, the spoon or directly over the bowl to bring the soup to my mouth. These are functional relationships.

Similarly when I buy my groceries from the clerk at the market, we both are using our power mutually to achieve different but interrelated goals, I to leave with my groceries and the clerk to collect money. This creates a power relationship between myself and the grocery clerk. This is once again a relationship based on utility. It is transactional as the ends define the relationship. However the desires and goals of individuals will not always line up.

Rene Descartes’ I think therefore, I am.[cogito ergo sum] was amended by Edmund Husserl to “I think of something, therefore I am”. Much like thought, where there is no such thing as empty thought, thought without thinking about something there is always an object of thought, power is exercised intentionally. Power is used to do, to make, to turn potentialities into actualities. The key is that power is directed towards an intentional actuality. Usually, though not always, the power is aimed in the direct interest of the individual exercising the power. And this is ultimately the issue…

When the desires and end goals of individuals in a power relationship conflict, the power relationship reveals itself, as parties compete to have goals met. Often one party will have more power to enforce its goal and desire creating a one sided transactional relationship that is a coercive application of power.

This is because power determines how we interact with the world. The subject-object relationship is based on power. The subject exerts power over the object. Whether an individual interacts with an other in the world as a subject or object is entirely based on the power relationship with that other. If the goal is an end without considering the will of the other then we have a pure subject-object relationship. It is transactional where the means lead directly to the end. This is often appropriate if the other is not sentient. In that case it is the use of tools. However if the other is sentient, this is complicated. Because if the other is sentient, the relationship changes. To use a sentient other as a tool to one's own end more often than not is the imposition of coercive power.

In coercive power relationships one party manifests its own goals over the intersts and often the will of the other party. Individuals are treated as means to ends. This may be explicit hard power (war) or implicit soft power (advertising and propaganda). Coercive power asserts itself over and above other individuals. It can be as blunt as brute physical force or as subtle as the manufacture of alternative desires and goals through advertising. Either way it involves the substitution of another's desire for one's own.

If one is interested in individual humans with dignity and compassion, we must pass beyond human interactions on a purely transactional basis. Instead the will of the other needs to be taken into account. The relationship transforms from subject-object to subject-subject. The end no longer is a singular goal, but now is a shared end. The relationship itself can be the end goal. The relationship morphs from transactional to relational, a subject-subject relationship. This is what Martin Buber would have referred to as an I-Thou relationship. This is the relationship God had with humanity in the garden.