The Purpose of Power

“A King, a priest, a rich man and a sellsword are in a room. Those three man tell the sellsword to kill the other two.
Who lives and who dies?”
~Varys, A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin

“You seem to have an interest in power, so let me educate you a little while I search for you. It’s sort of this thing I like to do sometimes, especially for learned wizards such as yourself. Power, it isn’t something that you put on or take off like a jacket. It’s something you just ARE.  If you can lose it by blowing two Will saves, you never really had any power in the first place, see what I’m saying? …I used to think spells equaled power, too, back when I was alive. I’ve learned a lot since then.You know what does equal power? Power. Power equals power. Crazy, huh?”
~Xykon, Order of the Stick, by Rich Burlew

Power is one of those interesting things; it can’t really be defined. It exists, but it has no substance. Sometimes appearance grants power. Other times, the one who appears powerful is used as a distraction from the person who truly holds power. Curtis Yarvin had an interesting discussion of power’s slippery nature in a recent post, which made me think of another question which one might ask: what is the purpose of power? To what ends ought we to use it?

But first, a summary of his post.

Curtis Yarvin’s Theory of Leaky Power

Many people have become frustrated with how powerful social media companies have become. Banning users, censoring information, determining which conversations can be had out in public and which conversations must be whispered – but are they truly the ones holding power? Yes, to a large extent, they have been taken over by the latest Protestant Heresy, the Cult of Woke – but as Karl Marx said, “Money talks, and bullshit walks.” Susan Wojcicki might feel a visceral disgust for the Incel community, but customers are customers. She’ll jank with the search algorithms (or rather, find somebody who knows how to code to jank with the search algorithms) – but she wouldn’t wilfully start messing with her revenue stream for the sake of her faith.

The Adpocalypse was driven by companies, worried that their content was being associated with voices who didn’t swear fealty to the Great God of Woke. But – did they care? Does Unilever care if Incels buy their products, or if their products are advertised to Incels? Presumably if they did then they’d stop marketing Axe body spray. And YouTube ads are targeted – meaning that it doesn’t matter what video you watch, the ads are based on you, not the video. If you recently bought a book on C++ programming, don’t be surprised to see an ad for striped femboy knee-socks on the next video you watch, whether or not it’s titled “How to order food like an Alpha Male” – and surely the companies know this – or at least, their advertising departments do – so why are they torturing the goose that lays the golden egg?

Well, now we get to the next layer of the onion. Who’s rocking the Unilever boat? Journalists. And who’s paying them to write? The demos.

It’s your average Joe and Jane, a million mosquitoes strong, each siphoning off their own milligram of power from the hulking beast.

Left to their own devices, the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world would prefer to rule their fiefdoms without interference; banning the occasional person for the sake of self-aggrandizement, but not banning so many that it threatens the stability of the platform. The problem is that these are ‘leaky’ power structures, in Yarvin’s words; structures which leak power out all the way down to the individual plebs. Much like democracy allows them to actuate a very small amount of power on the government, the media allows them to exert a very small amount of power on large corporations – just so long as the representatives and journalists provide this particular campaign as an optional button to push… but hey, like the BTO said, all buttons are good buttons, right?

What is Power Good For?

Like the question of “What is Power?” (or “What is Strategy? What is Beauty?”), this question could easily lead us off into the weeds. “The purpose of power is to organize society for the betterment of all.” Perhaps – but a Dungeon Master doesn’t require any power to run a game of D&D; so long as he’s got a well-organized campaign set up, the players will show up voluntarily.

Let us cut through the Gordian knot: the purpose of power is to enforce your will upon other people. You study martial arts to enact violence. You earn an income so that others will work for you. You network in secrecy to outmanoeuvre the competition. The goal of power is to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Which is where we leave the realm of economics and politics, and venture into the realm of religion. Sell your cloak and buy your sword. Live by the sword, die by the sword. The meek shall inherit the Earth.

As famously noted by Prof Jordan B. Peterson, ‘meek’ doesn’t mean what we think it means. It is not a synonym for weak – rather, it refers to the man who “has a sword, knows how to use it, but keeps it sheathed until the last minute.” Like power, honour and strategy are some of those ephemerals of life; break their laws and you will suffer (Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom). The man who lives by the sword, who picks a fight with every person he sees, who fights until the bitter end, rather than merely to first blood – he does not meet a good end.

Another story Peterson likes to tell is that of the top chimpanzee – the Alpha Male chimpanzee – the bully who rules the Troop. How does his story end?

After being a cruel despot for a time, a few of the lesser chimps team up, and take out the cruel overlord, replacing him with a chimp who might not be as strong, but who tempers his strength with justice, sharing the resources more equitably.

Be careful upon whom you step on the way up, they might just kick you on the way down.

Never corner your opponent; when they have nothing to lose, they’ll fight to their last.

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
~Gandalf, Lord of the Rings¸J.R.R. Tolkien

Power is something to be used sparingly – as Mr Miyagi says, “Only in self-defence,” (but should you use it, “Strike First, Strike Hard!” as Cobra Kai mandates). Power is necessary for survival – there is no virtue in being powerless – but it should be held in reserve until the point when it must be deployed.

A Society of Vicious Impotence

So how do we square these two takes on power?

Prior to modernity, gossip was recognized for what it was: one of the more vicious sins. These days they sell gossip magazines by the checkout aisle. Gossip is one of the more cowardly uses of power, minor in degree, but in nature no different from the power exerted by an armed thug.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Three, Section Two, Chapter Two, Article 8, III:

2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury.²⁷⁸ He becomes guilty:

of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;

of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them;²⁷⁹

of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.

2478 To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor’s thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:

Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another’s statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved.²⁸⁰

One million people, reading the venomous words of a journalist, whittling away at social media under the name of morality – each of them receiving a dollop of power and using it unjustly. In the current time, and in our current place, it takes the fashion of the Cult of Woke – but the slogan is just an excuse. You don’t have to look too far before you find an exception – another industry with a different customer base, being bullied, and bullying in turn, some identity group from the left.

This modern use of power has all the grace and wisdom of a school boy pulling the wings off a fly, and has done no more to earn it than the large schoolyard bully who was held back for two semesters.

It is both vicious and impotent; vicious, in the unrepentant evil, and impotent, since the power was never earned, only trickled down through various institutions, themselves vicious and impotent as well. No power to create – only power to destroy.

If you want to understand evil, look inside. Solzhenitsyn was correct: you are responsible for all the evil in this world.

Those at the top are vicious because those at the bottom are vicious. All around, on both sides, gossips, traitors, and scoffers. And you – and I – are them.

Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence.