Power

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Interesting discussion about power. I think that the primary type of power is physical power, which is to say the power to affect physical interactions in the objective world, which consists of concrete things. All other types of power are based on it and therefore its subtypes.

Drawing from my own experience, I have 2 dogs, and by the time I've gotten the second one as a puppy the first one was already grown.  The first dog asserted itself over the second dog while the latter was still young and physically weaker. Later on, even when the second dog grew to be physically stronger, it was still submissive to the first dog. The type of power the 1st dog exerts over the 2nd is psychological power, the secondary main type of power. It is initially dependent upon physical power to establish itself, but almost becomes a power in and of itself afterwards, possibly independent of further proof of physical superiority.

A type of psychological power is social power, it involves at least 2 organisms and works only on other living beings with the ability to, to some extent, perceive patterns and store them as memory. This is one of the reasons it is inferior to raw physical power - it is more dependent and thus applies in a fewer number of scenarios (only in interactions with other organisms, not the non-organic world). Aside from that, raw physical power is always guaranteed to work, while the psychological may not. An intelligent organism that is psychologically dominated but physically superior , may eventually become aware of the physical weakness of the one psychologically dominating them, and realize that they do not have to be dominated at all. For example, if the 2nd dog I have realized it was stronger than the 1st, it could easily physically dominate it. But typically only more intelligent organisms - humans, can break free from psychological domination. And then, only the more intelligent of humans.

Political, economic, religious, etc. powers are all types of social power and appeal to different parts of the human psyche, so some are more inclined to be persuaded by political, others by economic, others again by religious power.

By the way, when I speak of raw physical power, I don't necessarily mean only bodily strength. Neanderthal A may be less strong than neanderthal B, but if A is intelligent enough to realize that picking up a club increases its power, and B is not, then A may end up being physically more powerful despite having less bodily strength. So intelligence is also a type of power.

EDIT: To clarify, I consider intelligence to be the core psychological power. It can be applied in social contexts too, but it is also useful outside of social contexts, which differentiates it from social power.

Two immediate considerations:

1. Seniority, Age, Experience, these all have worth and high value. As an organism survives, lives, and thrives it eventually becomes worn down by age alone. Dying from age is *RARE* in nature. Most animals do not survive into old age, get to enjoy the golden years, or "retire". Retirement is purely an indication of previous social success. Just as handicaps and retards survive off the excess of a society, so too do disabled retirees or very old people. However obvious a retiree is categorically different from retards and handicaps in the sense that a retiree probably has contributed to society through a healthy life. Most very old people have lived a relatively healthy lifestyle (efficiency) in order for them to become very old.

Seniority Rules. There are legitimate reasons that older, more mature, and elder members of society or family 'deserve' their positions. They are not elderly for no reason. The reason is previous success. Success leads to a 'retirement' and senior position. Thus elders are naturally associated with social status, respect, and dignity. How 'ought' a society treat their seniors, grandparents, and elders? East Asians, for example, are very very respectful of elders and very much cater lifestyles to parentage, instead of directed toward children (like hedonistic westerners). Western anti-culture is very much aimed at infantilism and catering to children, acting like children forever, and praising immaturity.


2. Words don't have power, per se. It is only when combined with Authority, and backed by threat of force and violence, that words begin to "mean something" or "are meaningful". This is what is meant by 'Objectivity' on KT versus the 'Subjectivity' on ILP. Subjectivists never really "mean" what they say. The reasons are more obvious. An unreasonable, stupid, retard, is not taken seriously nor should be taken seriously. A stupid person or mentally ill is not respected. And so the words and commands of a retard, are impotent, compared to the rarer ones who are authoritative and 'serious'.

Reconsider this idea about power. Person A tells Person B to do something, to act. Person B then acts. So who has the power? Person A who simply told Person B some words, an order, a command? Or Person B who actually did the work, did the function, used force? What is not talked about enough, especially on KT, is the "power" of the authority of the words of Person A. Ideas do have "weight" when people begin to believe in things, and apply faith to their ideals. This is why objectivity is so important. When it comes time to act in life, take risks, then you want to do it on a solid ground and foundation of objective knowledge, facts, and superior insights. You want to listen to Reason and Wisdom, to Philosophers. And this will result in superior actions and interaction with life and existence then otherwise "guessing" or chancing every decision and idea throughout life.

If somebody tells you not to stick a fork into a light socket then ought you still do it? Must humans reinvent the wheel with every generation, with every individual? The answer is No. Much of humanity is built upon trust and faith, in the underlying (objective) institution. Humanity, overall, doesn't need to keep sticking forks in lightsockets in order to understand and accept its danger and painful, perhaps deadly affects.

However somethings are more unclear, uncertain, and argued about.

We can approach the concept of power from a body/mind divide, just as we can approach beauty.

Beauty
Body = symmetry (ideal), proportionality, symmetry in relation to world, imposing functionality (sexual).
Mind = demeanour (personality), flexibility, creativity in relation to flux (world of interactivity), or the unpredictable (charm).

Power
Body = strength.
Mind = intelligence.

In both cases what is described is excess of energies once the organism's automatic self-preservation processes take their share - breathing, digestion, cellular replacement, healing.
In the mind' case it is all about excess and directing excess energies.Emerging from brain, which is part of the nervous system, which evolved to direct and react to external and internal energies (patterned or not).
Hedonism is when the mind directs excess energies back to the body, addicted to the sensation of expunging them or fulfilling its needs, in both cases interpreted as pleasure.

So, power is excess energies, in relation to another organism/individuals.
Excess energies accumulated, preserved and directed by external energies, placed at the disposal of the organism, using institutions, or communally sanctioned automated, or not, processes, directed by traditions and laws, is power the organism inherits or attains through the overpowering of others using its own superior excess energies.
This is one problem with Capitalism, or any organized human system, seeking stability.
It, also, usurps natural processes, creating disharmony, when is sustains inferior organisms in symbolic positions of power, usually inherited and not earned.

Psychological power, or mental excess, may draw from physical power but is not totally dependent on it - sometimes a weak body imposes a need upon the mind that compensates by developing, cultivating, what mental power it has to a greater degree than another.
The Bimbo rule applies here.
If a girl is born pretty, if she inherits superior symmetry and proportionality, she need not cultivate her mind, though she may also have a higher potential than another.
The less attractive woman may be forced to cultivate her mind to compensate for what comes easy to the first girl and though she may have inherited inferior potentials she has developed them to a greater degree.

Genetics (nature) are about inheriting potential, and nurture is about cultivating this potential.

What cannot be inherited is intangible.
Empathy which is a property of imagination - higher creativity.
This is part of mind power.
If coupled with an ability to suppress and control ego (swallow ones pride), and to eliminate the natural tendency to sympathize with what is empathized (victim psychology), then this can lead to psychological manipulation.
The body need not be confronted, since you gain power over the brain that controls and directs it.


Asceticism, in the Hellenic sense, is about increasing control over your own body/mind, by exposing both to controlled stress.
Habituation with stress makes body/mind more durable, able to tolerate higher levels of it, and it also destroys, in a controlled methodical way, so as to thicken to make stronger.
Strength measuring degree of weakness, or how much world (interaction, flux) one can endure.
It broadens and deepens experience possibilities, where possibility=space.

There is a major categorical difference of Power in existence:

1. Physical power, the power of nature, the flood of a hurricane, a blistering lightning strike with a deafening roar of thunder, the deep and penetrating vibrations of a major earthquake. In this way nature is more powerful than life as a boulder can crush even the strongest of men, or any other animal. And so life respects nature and the physical elements, that which does not live. Life respects the power of Non-life. Non-life, nature, has no motive, and only acts in a seemingly random and chaotic manner to the unintelligent animals of the world. Because it is when an organism cannot predict, and fails to compensate for nature, that it dies and becomes erased by nature, made extinct. Intelligence is a direct and immediate function of all life forms.

2. Mental power is different, and something I'd hypothesize to the level of 'genetic' power. All life forms adapt, to an environment (nature), and so, all life forms no matter how small demonstrate some base ability of intelligence. ***INTELLIGENCE IS ADAPTATION*** That's as simple as it gets. The methods, behaviors, and actions that any and all organisms do and enact, in order to survive, is the sum of a lifetime. That *IS* life. And within all the actions, of all life, is its *MEANING*. It is the constant surviving, against non-life.

3. In order to understand power from the perspective of life, of a human, it is not enough to relegate and diminish all interpretations of power down to the merely physical. Because again, a man is not stronger than a boulder. And all the boulders on earth are countless powers above the strength of all humanity. Yet intelligence (mental) finds a different, indirect means of power. Rather than move a boulder himself, men use techniques, leverage, tools, heavy machines, dynamite, etc. Man uses earth against earth. And in this way, through knowledge and wisdom, learning and experiments, science and philosophy, man gains a far greater power than his own physical weight represents. A man is not just his weight, as a boulder is.

He is More.

The physical realm is where all power necessarily must manifest. Intelligence, psychological power, social power, economic power, etc... all ultimately based on their ability to affect the physical realm. Politicians are politically (socially) powerful because they have police and military backing them by fulfilling the role of mercenaries, of physical enforcers. In addition to physical power, politicians, as well as other authorities, also use psychological power (brainwashing, indoctrination), but it is less reliable, and generally only possible on those who have already been physically submitted, or the weak-minded. Intelligence too is only useful if it ultimately improves the performance of an organism concerning its interactions in physical reality. If one specimen is stronger and the other more intelligent, then the more intelligent one must find alternate ways of dealing with and overcoming the sheer bodily strength of the former. Perhaps it will use its superior intelligence to find/construct a weapon, or to form social bonds with other organisms and find power in numbers (social power), or it will simply strive to improve other aspects of its physicality, such as learning martial arts to counter strength with technique. All then use their strengths and weaknesses and participate in natural selection, which determines which types of power are more powerful, and which ones less so.

All forms of power are therefore ultimately tested in their ability to affect the physical. I do not consider this as reducing and diminishing the value of intelligence and other forms of power, rather, that all powers must manifest in the physical serves to connect and ground them firmly to the earth by providing a way to objectively measure such powers. It prevents the abstractions from floating away and becoming "skyhooks" and by doing that it also prevents every imbecile from just calling themselves "intelligent" and "powerful" without having anything to show for it, and it discredits their excuse of "it's all subjective".

And if I am not mistaken, it is also consistent with my idea of Objectivism, and with the scientific principle of bottom/earth->up/sky reasoning, which is to say, empiricism, and with evolution.

Yes, like a meme must ultimately express itself genetically or remain a theory people talk about for entertainment, and to fantasize - mind candy.
A noumenon must become a phenomenon, words must find a way to influence actions.

Nihilism, as a way of detaching from a world that threatens, must express itself within world by inverting it, not only in theory but in practice - which is way duplicity is so necessary to it.
This produces the Judeo-Christian Paradox: How can you justify power gained by exploiting and manipulating feebleness?
How can the chosen ones retain their distinction while selling universalism, or cosmopolitanism?
How does one survive in a world he has rejected or inverted in his mind?

Nihilism inverts the process from gene to meme - civilization emerging out of culture, which emerges out on a population relating to its environment.
Nihilism is gene emerging out of meme, culture emerging out of civilization, where civilization is environment.
It could have only existed within urban overpopulated settings.
Everything about it is the inversion of nature and natural processes - it is the ideology, the anti-nature ideal, that contradicts nature and then has to survive within it.
It idolizes "progress" which becomes, within its principles, a definition of "correcting", or nullifying nature - supernatural, surreal, extraordinary meaning lacking any reference in experience - not exceptional but counter-normality.

How would feebleness, forced to noetically invert world, to tolerate its place within it, express its "power"?
Through proxies.
It is a memetic virus that becomes viral when population explosions multiply mutations, and psychological pleasures, while prolonging lifespans.
It is a psychosis born of incarceration, where prisoners also maintain and need the safety of the walls that contains them and imposes regimentation and ennui.
It's only expression of physical power can be through feminine manipulation.
It uses female sexual specialization as method, its practice, while idolizing the masculine it has rejected, or placed on a pedestal - God, Humanity, State, (1), as a penis symbol, an erection.
It's only access to power is through association, standing behind the alpha, which is always an icon, or abstractions cleansed of all his worldly imperfections.
Reproduction is also noetic - it spreads through linguistic intercourse, it impregnates minds taking over their bodies.
Proxies - zombies, brains infected by a dis-ease.
only through proxies do they engage world.
Only through famous philosophers do they speak of the world that surrounds them, engulfs them intimately.

Nihilism memes wanting to become genes - or words wanting to convert to deeds....but in the conversion they contradict themselves, they must contradict their own ideal, their own principles, because the objective world cares not about subjective interpretations of it.
World is not changed by perspective. It is organism that changes in relation to world, and if the discrepancy between perspective and world is large enough this "change" means death.

Psychosis, as we find it on ILP, for example, is a result of mind coming in contact with world, after it has been cocooned, sheltered, for a long time - this forced contact breaks it, if it dies not kill it. Subjectivity so out of tune with objective world that a small taste is shocking, life-threatening, sanity at a balance.
This is why such minds need the protective shield of a herd - multitudes to create a flesh & blood cocoon, like schooling, or flocking.
I've talked about this elsewhere....how the ambition, the only goal, for such minds is to find their way to the center of a huge group, as far away from the world beyond as possible.
This is what they call "power". To be at the center of attention, of the herd, protected, sheltered,distanced from reality, in your own private world, which the others reinforce and participate in.

Two forms of power:

1. Natural. This form of power is non-living and refers to non-life: the four elements, earth, water, air, fire. Non-life is powerful first by Gravity. A boulder has more mass and weight than a human, can crush and kill a human by falling upon him. Earth = Nature. The foundation of life is Natural. Life relies and depends upon Nature, to live. Without earth, gravity, and 'natural' forces man cannot live. Thus all life is dependent upon non-life. Thus the "power" of nature has no ego, no self, no motivation. Man interprets nature as 'Cruel' in its objectivity. Nature is most deadly of all, to mankind, and all living organisms, especially those that cannot adapt, and are "in the way" of natural events. An erupting volcano does not "care" all the organisms in its way. Non-life is more powerful than life, in this fashion, in the sense that seemingly "random" natural events can spell doom for a wide swath of creatures who thought they were safe, but obviously, were not so.

2. Artificial. Eventually organisms developed intelligence, began to become conscious, and later on began to predict Nature to higher and higher degrees. Those organisms which predicted the most, furthest, and best, were "rewarded" by success, and success means higher fitness, survivability, and thriving (reproduction, hedonism). Humanity stands above all other creatures on the food chain, on earth, today. Thus intelligence represents an "overturn" of natural power. This is called "artificial power" when at some point, instead of mankind adapting to nature, an imbalance is created, and "nature adapts to mankind". Man creates civilization. Ants create colonies. Many species of life eventually regulate portions of environments to their own survivability. Can all the ants on planet earth go extinct? All the birds? All the fish? All the humans? Probably not.

Now nature lacks the ability to kill *ALL* the individuals and members of a specie. A volcano can wipe out some ants, some fish, some mammals, some humans, but not ALL. And because nature lacks the ability to kill ALL the individuals of a specie, its power becomes Artificial and Unnatural. Artifice is the point at which an evolving organism, and its specie (type), create a new feedback loop upon nature. Changing nature, environments, and even material elements "to our own liking", and perhaps changing nature so far as to become too uninhabitable for other organisms. This is the threat of "global warming", "climate change", and other "manmade extinctions". Mankind is "overcoming" nature on many fronts, or may have overcome nature on a metaphysical level.

Artificial power has a lot to do with nihilism and "Words". When mankind and humanity advance so far, there becomes confusion between natural power (objective world, in the wild) and artificial power (subjective world, of human civilization).

There are 2 additional divisions of power -

1) Genuine, independent power. This power flows from self and does not depend, or depends less on otherness to be effective.
2) Empowerment, dependent power. This power is based to some extent on self, but in order to be realized it is dependent on the presence of some otherness. This is why it is sometimes considered inferior, although it can overpower 1) in certain contexts, but not in the long run. All types of social power belong in this category.

I would say "genuine" power refers to a relationship between patterns or congruity of patterns.
Path-of-least-resistance indicates such a relationship, not requiring consciousness, or life.
No sense of self, no self at all, no awareness, is necessary. It's simply (inter)activity.

A river's power, in relation to the landscape, determines its coarse.

The second, as if I understand it correctly, is about focusing power. This implies life, and awareness.
It is how an organism directs its aggregate energies, focuses its congruity of patterns, towards an objective.
Because organisms are imperfect (absence of absolutes), it can never totally control or become aware of its aggregate energies, but only do so in degree, and with great effort. this is where Asceticism and athleticism fit in, as a method of becoming aware of your energies and focusing them.

For me 'self' is another way of saying spirit/soul.
Self as this past/nature manifesting as presence/appearance.
We must discover self, as it is unknown to us, beyond its appearance, and in reflection.
It is before other that we first become aware of self.

Self is a word given by a emerging consciousness, such as man, to this past/nature - Know Thyself.
It is memory holding together, as a continuity, a process of (inter)activities.
We cannot speak of self when referring to non-living pattern congruities. There is no memory holding patterns together, there is only (inter)activity (repulsion/attraction), flowing along the paths-of-least-resistance.
Only a living organism can will itself towards more resistance.

Self = past/nature manifesting as presence.
Ego, the Greek word for 'self', can be used to describe the conscious part of this emergent Self - self-consciousness.
Know thyself would mean to become aware of your memories, to make your past/nature lucid, placing them under some control - will.
Memory would be the genes - stored patterns directing behavior. Patterns directing patterns into particular (inter)actions.
Memory is what distinguishes life from lifeless existence.
From plants where memories simply direct patterns automatically, to human beings where knowing what is known is an uncovering a remembering - aletheia.
Know Thyself is a remembering of what is known - becoming lucid, conscious of automatic processes.  

Memory - A causal chain linking an organisms (inter)activities.
One cannot completely know self because the chain goes back to where memory fades and disappears - plants have no conscious memory, they function automatically, as recalling made present.
This unconscious automatic process is also part of the human experience. Most physical processes keeping a human alive are not conscious - they are automated.

Soul - usually referring the the immutable past/nature, continuously added to, and manifesting as presence/appearance.

Spirit - the unknown part of the self.  
Usually referring to the automatic reactions to stimuli, and to the automatic processes that the mind need not be aware of, yet is part of presence/appearance. Experienced as a vague sensation, as life's energy - it's aura.
Unprocessed data.

From ILP, in response to this post: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Psychological power. The ability to exploit a person by appealing to their emotions and feeding into their deepest desires.

You will notice that all religions and other methods of psychological manipulation feed into some fundamental human weakness/need. The God is the ultimate father figure, feeds into the human desire to be cared for and guided, makes one feel safe and gives a sense of purpose, absolving the individual of the responsibility of constructing their own purpose. Heaven promises eternal happiness for eternity - it doesn't get much more obvious than that, appealing to the satisfaction of all of a person's needs. And hell, its opposite - eternal punishment, appealing to fear of pain and suffering.

Those who are deluded themselves perhaps even make the best leaders because they are convincing, they don't have to consciously switch between their private beliefs (what they actually believe) and public beliefs (what they sell to the masses), for they are one and the same.

But those who are aware that they are just manipulating others have the advantage of not being manipulated themselves by the same bullshit, Jews are the example of this - they sell all kinds of ideological bullshit to others, whilst of course rejecting it themselves. The downside is that others may perceive and point out this hypocrisy, which opens them up for criticism.

Even fantasy is physical in that it is constructed and contained by a physical brain, and representations of these connections in the brain can be expressed using written and spoken language.

One picture, or in this case a video (which is really just a series of pictures with added sound), can say more than a thousand words. What power is about, at a fundamental level...

Morality:

Power can be defined in terms of Morality, or responsibility. A powerful individual, Man, is responsible for much in life, beginning with himself. To become responsible for yourself is actually a rarer feat, and not intended for many or most. Most people, humanity, closer to animals, are less responsible or least responsible for themselves. Children, disabled, mentally feeble, lower intelligent, etc. will never gain much self-responsibility in life (morally weak). Only some individuals can mature, with intellect and wisdom, and become morally strong. Moral strength is Artificial (Power). Thus religion is a crutch for the masses and majority, who require a leader, manual, and authority to surrogate their own moral weakness. This is the reason-cause-why the masses need pop religion. They cannot ever hope to become self-responsible (morally strong, Free). Thus the masses remain slaves, dependent, Victims, etc.

Moral strength is powerful in the sense of Causality. A mature, wise, and intelligent man becomes self-aware that he is part of a process of existence. He is Caused. And he Causes things and events. He is responsible for somethings, but not others. It is the process of discerning (discriminating) causes, their sources, how, why, and when to take responsibility for them. This leads into the essence and roots of majority theologies and moralities. Human history has a long backlog of monumental events and paradigm shifts with respect to self-understanding of cause, morality, and power.

Thus a powerful individual, man, who becomes self-responsible, is entitled as "An Authority" on such and such matters. Wiser men are more authoritative, and thus more and more (morally weak) people come to depend on Authoritarian rulers and dictatorship. After all, it is easy for people when other people clean up your messes, rather than having to clean up after yourself. Thus human civilization has many degrees of infantilism, by which the masses and majorities were never intended to "clean up after themselves".

Ultimately the matter of Morality progresses to the distinctions of Slaves (the majority of humanity, the morally weak) versus the Masters, who are capable of rising through the ranks of self-responsibility, becoming self-authoring, recognizing (objective) causality, and also becoming Free Men.

Individuals.

TL;DR Subsidize what you want more of, punish what you want less of.

Interesting... [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Power built on lies, and the psychological manipulation/seduction of others, through semiotics, is ephemeral; dependent on the quality of the others.
Power built on truth, and the relationship of self with world, is deeper and sturdier; dependent on nobody other than on one's self.
The difference between the subjective version - founded on dominating and exploiting weakness - and the objective version - founded on dominating and adjusting self, in relation to reality.

The way ephemeral power, however ephemeral afterward, is - or can be - sturdier, is through manipulating what's true about a species or race. One can direct it to internal conflict, like one can direct dogs or breeds to attack themselves.

Power is a reference to the relationship of 'I' to 'other'; a measurement of the subjective in relationship to the objective, from the subject's perspective.
The truest test of power is when it is brought in contact with that of another, because it represents the aggregate energies available to the organism - whether it is aware of them or not.

The absence of absolutes means omnipotence is not what the term 'power' refers to, other than as the subject's ideal, existing only in its own mind.

True power can only be attained via the objective world, even when dealing with concious subjects.
If it is based on manipulating and exploiting their ignorance, needs, desires, then this kind of power is entirely subjective and dissipates at first contact with reality, or when the subjects perish.

Power does not determine how many options the individual is aware of, but it does determine how many of them it can choose, because it determines the quality of 'resistance' that can be overcome.
Only life can choose to take a path-of-more-resistance, as a way of outperforming an adversary.
Non-Life always flows towards paths-of-least-resistance, because the non-living have no choice, and are unities only in the conscious mind or when the power of repulsion is overcome by the power of attraction - this state is also called harmony, and is the consequence of energies coinciding in kind, i.e. oscillation.
Similar to how two notes are in harmony when their vibration of the air agrees in rhythm, frequency, pitch,or when one note completes and complements the other, i.e., their oscillation meshing.

Power is Energy, and energy is not a thing; it is a oscillation/vibration of possibilities, i.e., projected as space.
Time is how it is experienced.
Matter/energy is probability within this projected expanse of possibilities.
Although 'energy' - the word - can refer to a kind of probability - i.e., patterns oscillations/vibrations - it can also refer to random oscillations/vibrations, or energies with no pattern: random, chaotic.

To will power is to will a higher degree of energy to break through a higher degree of resistance.
Will being the focus of an organism's energies - its power relative to other.

The non-living have no ability to focus - direct - their energies, and so the word 'will' cannot be applied to them.
Their unity is not a product of wilfulness, but a a product of balance, established coincidentally.
A conciousness projects its own wilfulness into such unconscious unities, like particles, or stones, or clouds, or rivers, or mountains, or planets, or stars.
Since man became aware of himself he has projected his own conciousness into the unconscious unknown that surrounded him; projected motive into the unintentional.

The very rare few are those who have a life that consumes them. Likewise, very few know how to stand outside all that makes them what they are, not for its own sake, but for the sake of ennobling thier abilities which were endowed to them as any physical trait is.

Two forms of power are the one which self-destructs and the one which overcomes its own atrophy. True power is not exercised; ideal power is.

On the pretension of leadership.

The concept of injustice, is the secular political euphemism for original sin. Therfore, it makes more sense for a ruler or political leader to proclaim a mission of God to more effectively subjugate others, rather than demoralize his aim with pragmatic intentions based on lies. It is best to arm themselves with an illusory message of holiness or religiosity, as has been the custom for ages past regarding the reputations of kings, as a pole of magantism for the will of a people to obey. Force, energy and hatred for ones enemies and even themselves, in the name of the divine, offers far more credibility and submission than the pretentious humbleness of merely being political and practical. The masses are blind and thus, they want blind emotion, blind belief, and unattainable power.

What the dissidents of the world want is self-justice. A chance to give themselves over to a power of punishment, so that their degenerate spirits may be flogged of thier spiritual impoverishment, purified and delivered into a life of purpose.

True power or superiority is about self-knowledge. This is exactly why it cancels out the need for it to be proven. In the world of human social interaction, power is defined by its basis in pretension and weakness. In nature, it is no more than a “dormant state” of being that has the capability to wield strength at will and overcome. There is no such thing as ‘evidence/proof’ in nature; only to the human mind requiring a point of reference to control its own fears and insecurities in the face of failure or death, does power from another need to be shown to them. A weak mind that needs to “see” something in order to believe it because it cannot reason it otherwise or trust in its own capabilities.

Power manifests on its own. If it is there, it will assert itself.

In the movie Tombstone we see this dynamic of power depicted between the Characters Johnny Ringo and Doc Holliday. I will use this cinematic portrayal as an analysis.



As was well known in history, Holliday was a sickly degenerate drunk, frail in stature and without remarkable qualities; that is, that anyone could notice. Ringo being a typical preening alpha with too much hot air, needs an audience to validate his quality. Holliday only responds with mockery and boredom, simply because the display of power in a superficial form, suggests its inferiority, its inherent pretension, and thus, it garners only a flippant reaction from him. This attitude is distinct to his character throughout the movie in other situations. Showboating, posturing are facades of superiority, the vulgar veneer it exudes dependent entirely on an audience to prop it up, because it cannot stand on its own, it requires surrogate energy to sustain itself, as any weak entity would. Holliday hints at his superiority by the use of academic dialect, which Ringo responds in kind, indicating that Ringo does possess some worthy degree of quality, but not enough to overcome its weakness. The separation of degrees of weakness and strength come into play here.



Here we have further unraveling of the facade of ‘superiority’ in Ringo. Holliday, despite his own penchant for drunkenness, has steady control over the situation and a seriousness that no one actually seems to really notice. Again, the power that is present, remains withheld beneath his own facade of ‘weakness’. The appearances go over everyone’s heads, but both contain the real elements beneath that will actualize their true form.



Then, after all the bombast, the threatening, the arrogant posturing, the final act of “proof” of who actually possesses the real power comes to a head. It is Holliday. This is when he chooses to finally unleash his power, in its raw natural form, without an audience needed, when nobody is around,  without praise, or approval, or empty gestures of validation; he had no need for any of that for the very fact that his self-knowledge was the spirit of nobility which enabled him to keep his power in check because, knowing what it was, he need not have proven it at all, until he had to. And we learn that this sickly, diseased, weak man, among all superior men, Ringo claiming himself the highest among them, was shattered from the one who had the real form of power which relied upon itself, its own center of value, needing no artificial support to bolster it. Holliday was the true incomparable gunslinger, drifting in the midst of the hierarchy, under the appearances of weakness and sickness.

This was the whole purpose of the custom of the monastic monks retreating into nature and solitude. The self-knowledge of power is the form of its indifference in nature. Its center must be immovable, solid and resilient, to retain its quality. The displays of it, are the slackening of this strong tension, causing it to become weak, even though some slight firmness remains.

Greatness acts like an incantation of strong or weak forces. There are those who will honor the noble parts of it, for the sake of honoring themselves, as opposed to those who cannot deny the power or allure of the noble parts, but internalize them as threats to their own absence of them and seek to dismantle them; to avenge themselves, in spite of themselves. There are also those subdued types who deride the imperfections but cannot help but be rationally drawn back to the powerful traits; being passively objective.

Absolution and resolution are the positive and negative energies in the collective mind. They come into conflict when exposed to a source of power that surpasses either. They place greatness on the pedestal of the absolute, then long to take it down, to resolve the discord. Human self-contradiction, is the artificial version of nature’s cruelty, finding its affirmation in the highest standard they cannot attain.

Power is an individual relational force, as the late sexual deviant claims, yes. However, it can manifest outside the sphere of individual interaction. Power is also an influential force, an element of nature. A mountain has power over one because of its size and mass. It produces an influence on the behavior of how one responds to whether or not they will have the courage to climb it, or cower in fear, it directs them, even dictates what they will do. Power is not about control, or dominance, good or evil, these are human weaknesses and trifles. Power is the potential for those things, or for something much more.