Ability and Influence in Social and Non-Social Power
Language can give us some ideas about directions of exploring power. But language does not give us any specific answers. After looking at a an (admittedly small) sample of languages, I asked myself: Why do people talk about power as related to themselves, but also to many other aspects of their world? We saw that word “power” and many words related it to it (e.g., “authority” and “competency”) describe people and their relationships. I decided to call this “social power.” But we also saw plenty of words that describe some things that are not people and their relationships: for example, electricity, magnification, and deity. I decided to call this “non-social power.” So, I wondered, what hidden assumption does language reveal by suggesting that power can be social or non-social?
One example of pervasive reference to power—that you constantly encounter and use without realizing it—is the word “can,” which is directly related to the idea of power (I had to used it even in this very sentence!). We use the word “can” to talk about ourselves, other people, other living beings—and also about inanimate objects (“Be careful, this stone can fall!”) and a whole range of phenomena. We can probably use the word “can” to talk about practically anything. Moreover, we cannot not use it.
People are preoccupied with many aspects of the world they live in. For practical reasons, they want to make sense of the relationships between elements of the world. For practical reasons, because our survival (as individuals and as species) depends on it. In this contexts, understanding abilities and capacities is crucial. Can this tiger eat me? Can I throw a big stone to make the tiger go away? Can I eat this strange-looking fruit? We can assume that proto-forms of the word “can” helped our ancestors make some crucial decisions and communicate them to each other (“You cannot eat this mushroom!”). And modern forms of the word “can,” with its different forms and nuances, help people navigate the world today.
This also explains why, in English, we can add the suffixes “able” or “ible” to about anything. This allows us to talk about things we can do (as in, we have this capacity or we are allowed to), and about what different elements of the world can do to us. In other languages, other grammar forms have the same function. For example, Spanish has suffixes “able” and “ible” (e.g., “realizable” = doable and “disponible” = available) while in German we have suffix “bar” (e.g., “lesbar” = readable).
In addition to abilities and capacities, people have always found it crucial to make sense of influences, impacts, and effects. The fact that our brain is constantly looking for cause-and-effect relationships is a manifestation of this preoccupation. Indeed, when we talk about abilities, we also often talk about influences at the same time. And when I talk about abilities and influences separately, I do not mean that they really exist separately. These are just two aspects of the same coin—a very complicated “coin,” for sure. That’s why a sentence like “I can influence you” makes perfect sense. In other words, it is possible to talk about having an ability (or being allowed) to have an impact.
So, to remind you I asked myself this question: Why do people talk about power as related to themselves, but also to many other aspects of their world? Using my own conclusion that when people talk about power, they essentially talk about abilities and influences, I suggest that people are perpetually preoccupied with abilities and influences not only when it comes to themselves, but also to every aspect and element of the world they live in. To check whether I am on the right track with this reasoning, I am now going to see whether the themes of abilities and influences consistently come up when people talk about social or non-social power. And when I say “people,” I mean both lay people but also scholars who study different aspects of the universe.
Because I have been trying to understand the idea of power for a few years now, I started noticing how often I see the word “power” and words related to it in my everyday life. I am confronted with the “power” button every time I turn off my computer. I often notice “power” or the related on/off symbol on many appliances. Is the on/off button related to abilities and effects. I would say yes, because when an appliance is on, it can do stuff (or we can do stuff with it, we are able to). The appliance can create an effect—for example, an electric kettle can make the water boil, or a vacuum cleaner can suck in some dust from my carpet.
Electricity is often called “power.” If I say that there is a power outage in my neighborhood because of storm, you will easily understand that many houses lost electricity. Power as electricity is related to the on/off (power) button because appliances that have this button are usually electric. You will not find an on/off button on a broom (although one can image a non-electrical mechanism with an on/off switch). The meaning of power as electricity is connected to the ideas of abilities and influences in a way quite similar to the on/off button that I described in the previous paragraph.
It appears that various non-social meanings of power can be reduced in one way or another to the ideas of ability and/or influence. For example, magnification is defined by Merriam Webster (as its second meaning) as “the apparent enlargement of an object by an optical instrument, called also power.” Here we can see an optical instrument producing an effect, making an object appear larger. We have power in a mathematical sense, “the number of times as indicated by an exponent that a number occurs as a factor in a product”--for example “5 to the third power is 125.” Here we see an effect as well, and also, incidentally, an effect of enlargement. Magnitude itself (and also scope, size) is related to power in the eyes of human beings because of the potential impact. The word “magnitude” refers to size but also to importance.
In a very different cultural reals, we have “Powers” as an order (or type) of angels in Christianity. Powers are angels who maintain cosmic order and execute divine justice. These are warrior angels. They fight evil spirits and oversee the distribution of power among humans and other angels. In fact, the name of this type of angels comes from the Greek word “exousiai,” which means “authorities” or “powers.” Here, again, we see a reference to the power as influence as in authority and control.
If you pay closer attention to the instances when you encounter the word “power” not as directly describing people, you should be able to notice the themes of ability and influence. You can see it on a package of laundry-detergent, which boast to have a “stain-lifting power” or in a street sign inviting you to subject your vehicle to power washing. You can see it in a text that describes a certain city as a major economic power in the region (this example is closer to social power, but it describes a city as a whole rather than specific individuals).
One example of pervasive reference to power—that you constantly encounter and use without realizing it—is the word “can,” which is directly related to the idea of power (I had to used it even in this very sentence!). We use the word “can” to talk about ourselves, other people, other living beings—and also about inanimate objects (“Be careful, this stone can fall!”) and a whole range of phenomena. We can probably use the word “can” to talk about practically anything. Moreover, we cannot not use it.
People are preoccupied with many aspects of the world they live in. For practical reasons, they want to make sense of the relationships between elements of the world. For practical reasons, because our survival (as individuals and as species) depends on it. In this contexts, understanding abilities and capacities is crucial. Can this tiger eat me? Can I throw a big stone to make the tiger go away? Can I eat this strange-looking fruit? We can assume that proto-forms of the word “can” helped our ancestors make some crucial decisions and communicate them to each other (“You cannot eat this mushroom!”). And modern forms of the word “can,” with its different forms and nuances, help people navigate the world today.
This also explains why, in English, we can add the suffixes “able” or “ible” to about anything. This allows us to talk about things we can do (as in, we have this capacity or we are allowed to), and about what different elements of the world can do to us. In other languages, other grammar forms have the same function. For example, Spanish has suffixes “able” and “ible” (e.g., “realizable” = doable and “disponible” = available) while in German we have suffix “bar” (e.g., “lesbar” = readable).
In addition to abilities and capacities, people have always found it crucial to make sense of influences, impacts, and effects. The fact that our brain is constantly looking for cause-and-effect relationships is a manifestation of this preoccupation. Indeed, when we talk about abilities, we also often talk about influences at the same time. And when I talk about abilities and influences separately, I do not mean that they really exist separately. These are just two aspects of the same coin—a very complicated “coin,” for sure. That’s why a sentence like “I can influence you” makes perfect sense. In other words, it is possible to talk about having an ability (or being allowed) to have an impact.
So, to remind you I asked myself this question: Why do people talk about power as related to themselves, but also to many other aspects of their world? Using my own conclusion that when people talk about power, they essentially talk about abilities and influences, I suggest that people are perpetually preoccupied with abilities and influences not only when it comes to themselves, but also to every aspect and element of the world they live in. To check whether I am on the right track with this reasoning, I am now going to see whether the themes of abilities and influences consistently come up when people talk about social or non-social power. And when I say “people,” I mean both lay people but also scholars who study different aspects of the universe.
Because I have been trying to understand the idea of power for a few years now, I started noticing how often I see the word “power” and words related to it in my everyday life. I am confronted with the “power” button every time I turn off my computer. I often notice “power” or the related on/off symbol on many appliances. Is the on/off button related to abilities and effects. I would say yes, because when an appliance is on, it can do stuff (or we can do stuff with it, we are able to). The appliance can create an effect—for example, an electric kettle can make the water boil, or a vacuum cleaner can suck in some dust from my carpet.
Electricity is often called “power.” If I say that there is a power outage in my neighborhood because of storm, you will easily understand that many houses lost electricity. Power as electricity is related to the on/off (power) button because appliances that have this button are usually electric. You will not find an on/off button on a broom (although one can image a non-electrical mechanism with an on/off switch). The meaning of power as electricity is connected to the ideas of abilities and influences in a way quite similar to the on/off button that I described in the previous paragraph.
It appears that various non-social meanings of power can be reduced in one way or another to the ideas of ability and/or influence. For example, magnification is defined by Merriam Webster (as its second meaning) as “the apparent enlargement of an object by an optical instrument, called also power.” Here we can see an optical instrument producing an effect, making an object appear larger. We have power in a mathematical sense, “the number of times as indicated by an exponent that a number occurs as a factor in a product”--for example “5 to the third power is 125.” Here we see an effect as well, and also, incidentally, an effect of enlargement. Magnitude itself (and also scope, size) is related to power in the eyes of human beings because of the potential impact. The word “magnitude” refers to size but also to importance.
In a very different cultural reals, we have “Powers” as an order (or type) of angels in Christianity. Powers are angels who maintain cosmic order and execute divine justice. These are warrior angels. They fight evil spirits and oversee the distribution of power among humans and other angels. In fact, the name of this type of angels comes from the Greek word “exousiai,” which means “authorities” or “powers.” Here, again, we see a reference to the power as influence as in authority and control.
If you pay closer attention to the instances when you encounter the word “power” not as directly describing people, you should be able to notice the themes of ability and influence. You can see it on a package of laundry-detergent, which boast to have a “stain-lifting power” or in a street sign inviting you to subject your vehicle to power washing. You can see it in a text that describes a certain city as a major economic power in the region (this example is closer to social power, but it describes a city as a whole rather than specific individuals).
Image credit: Author. Sign for “power washing” in downtown Chicago.
Some time ago, I was walking around the city of Cambridge in the United Kingdom when in the store window I spotted a book that prominently featured the word “power” its cover. It turned out to be a collection of essays (published by Cambridge University Press) based on Darwin College Lecture Series. Cambridge University scholars talking about power; this should be worth looking into! Would the themes of ability and influence be present in a collection of essays endowed by such an influential (power again!) academic institution? It turns out that they are.
Here is how the book is described on the official website of Cambridge University Press: “In this book, first published in 2006, seven internationally renowned writers address the theme of Power from the perspective of their own disciplines. Energy expert Mary Archer begins with an exploration of the power sources of our future. Astronomer Neil Tyson leads a tour of the orders of magnitude in the cosmos. Mathematician and inventor of the Game of Life John Conway demonstrates the power of simple ideas in mathematics. Screenwriter Maureen Thomas explains the mechanisms of narrative power in the media of film and videogames, Elisabeth Bronfen the emotional power carried by representations of life and death, and Derek Scott the power of patriotic music and the mysterious Mozart effect. Finally, celebrated parliamentarian Tony Benn critically assesses the reality of power and democracy in society.”
What is remarkable about this book, from my perspective, is that it shows that power is a very complicated and vague concept that can be applied to people and their relationships (social power) but also to other things that are not directly related to people (non-social power). The first chapter talks about power in the sense of electricity. The second chapter talks about power in the sense of magnitude. We already saw how electricity and magnitude are related to ability and influence. The third chapter talks about how ”simple ideas can be astonishingly powerful” which means that they are “truly earth-shattering”—again the reference to impact (i.e., influence). The last four chapters are directly related to social power: narrative power (on how people create and tell stories through media), emotional power of representations (created by people), power of music, and power in society (on how some people have more power than others--i.e., can do more things and have more influence).
This page is by no means an exhaustive overview of all the ways we talk about power. The main thing that I wanted to draw my readers’ attention to is that, whether we talk about power as directly related to people or not, what we talk about is essentially abilities and influences. Clearly, power as ability and power as influence need to be further explored. But this is just one way to look at power. Another way is to ask ourselves: What are the different ways we talk about power? For it is one thing to take the concept of power and explore its meanings, and another one to start noticing when we talk about power without even using the word. For example, we saw that the word “can,” which is directly related to power (both semantically and etymologically) is an inseparable part of our language. Yet, before reading this book, you might not have thought about it as related to power. Using what we have learned about the meanings of power, we will look into different ways we talk about power without naming it. Here, I will be mostly interested in the way we talk about social power, that is power as directly related to people and relationships between them.
Here is how the book is described on the official website of Cambridge University Press: “In this book, first published in 2006, seven internationally renowned writers address the theme of Power from the perspective of their own disciplines. Energy expert Mary Archer begins with an exploration of the power sources of our future. Astronomer Neil Tyson leads a tour of the orders of magnitude in the cosmos. Mathematician and inventor of the Game of Life John Conway demonstrates the power of simple ideas in mathematics. Screenwriter Maureen Thomas explains the mechanisms of narrative power in the media of film and videogames, Elisabeth Bronfen the emotional power carried by representations of life and death, and Derek Scott the power of patriotic music and the mysterious Mozart effect. Finally, celebrated parliamentarian Tony Benn critically assesses the reality of power and democracy in society.”
What is remarkable about this book, from my perspective, is that it shows that power is a very complicated and vague concept that can be applied to people and their relationships (social power) but also to other things that are not directly related to people (non-social power). The first chapter talks about power in the sense of electricity. The second chapter talks about power in the sense of magnitude. We already saw how electricity and magnitude are related to ability and influence. The third chapter talks about how ”simple ideas can be astonishingly powerful” which means that they are “truly earth-shattering”—again the reference to impact (i.e., influence). The last four chapters are directly related to social power: narrative power (on how people create and tell stories through media), emotional power of representations (created by people), power of music, and power in society (on how some people have more power than others--i.e., can do more things and have more influence).
This page is by no means an exhaustive overview of all the ways we talk about power. The main thing that I wanted to draw my readers’ attention to is that, whether we talk about power as directly related to people or not, what we talk about is essentially abilities and influences. Clearly, power as ability and power as influence need to be further explored. But this is just one way to look at power. Another way is to ask ourselves: What are the different ways we talk about power? For it is one thing to take the concept of power and explore its meanings, and another one to start noticing when we talk about power without even using the word. For example, we saw that the word “can,” which is directly related to power (both semantically and etymologically) is an inseparable part of our language. Yet, before reading this book, you might not have thought about it as related to power. Using what we have learned about the meanings of power, we will look into different ways we talk about power without naming it. Here, I will be mostly interested in the way we talk about social power, that is power as directly related to people and relationships between them.
