PAGE IN PROGRESS What you see here is a page of my hypertext book POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power. Initially empty, this page will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. Thank you for your interest and patience!
We do not choose to be born, to be brought to existence that is, according to Buddhists is filled with suffering. In this way, we are all equal.
According to Buddhism, the "self" that we think of as ourselves is not in control. It does not have power (we don't have power over our bodies, our feelings, our thoughts). Thinking that we are in control and trying to be in control (e.g., trying to stop ourselves from thinking a certain thing or feeling a certain way) brings suffering. Liberation lies in acknowledging that we are not in control. Paradoxically, acknowledging our powerlessness brings us power (although it is not the kind of power that we might have imagined as wanting or needing). Buddhist ideas might seem bizarre and little to with reality of our selves as we imagine it. Yet, modern psychology supports these claims. For example, the idea of modular mind. What we think of as our selves is modular and these modules do not always work in concert with each other. This modular nature can be explained through insights from evolutionary psychology: our brain did not develop to its present state the way it is now. Different what we can call "modules" were added over time. More on these insights in Why Buddhism Is True and Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind - https://www.amazon.com/Why-Everyone-Else-Hypocrite-Evolution/dp/0691154392
Extreme displays of power come from those who dread powerlessnes( by not always recognize it)
Out of extreme powerlessness, desire may come to assert one’s power in extreme ways. And if means are supplied by circumstances, results can be disastrous (kings of the past were brought up in powerlessness)
Our brains are supposed to focus on specific and subjective. Connection to survival of the species (each person is supposed to focus on themselves and their immediate community). That might be the reason why many people have little interest in general, abstract issues.
We think of some of our qualities as virtues and othes as vices, but what if we cannot blame or praize ourselves for them? What if they are all connected to the human nature (human condition) that is inescapable. There is some wiggle room in this nature, but it is inescapable as a whole, and it's hard to say when, acting within this wiggle room, we are solving problems or creating new ones (probaly we are doing both)
We are all powerless: double bind of nature (biology) and culture (society), exacerbated by our lack of understanding where one ends and the other one starts.
Each individual's uniqueness exists on the intersection of three main groups of factors (each group outside of individual's control): 1- human nature (common physiological traits, how body is structured, how mind works, common needs (Maslow), etc.), 2- individual traits and idiosyncrasies, 3- one's life circumstances (we have common experiences with others but each individual's circumstances are unique)
Accepting our powerless is a form of power (“I cannot control everything”). Some people react to their powerlessness by asserting their power. But their powerlessness is not going anywhere. Asserting one’s power to fight one’s powerlessness only reinforces our powerlessness.
Society needs order. But order is not natural. The social order in one place and time is just one of many possible orders. Order does not exist just through violence, although it is always partially supported by it. Order has to be also supported (and it is usually largely supported) by people’s acceptance, consent - hegemony. System justification. Changing the order is difficult not because of the violence but because peoples beliefs
When I say that everybody is powerless, I am not talking about some kind of absolute powerlessness. Same way like when I talking about how everybody is powerful, I am not talking about some absolute power.
Everybody is powerless in a sense that everybody is inevitably is experiencing some amount of powerlessness, but it is always in a combination with some amount of power. Power and powerlessness are not absolute, because they are mixed in every situation, in our every action.
Fighting with entropy: we all the time have to put things in order because the universe is naturally inclined to go from less entropy to more entropy we spend a substantial amount of time to maintain a certain physical order (starting from our own house or apartment). law of entropy: entropy will always increase over time [see We Have No Idea for a discussion]
Nature has power over us (but it's not the social power, it's about limitations of social power)
to clarify: I am not talking about absolute lack of power; absolute power, same as absolute lack of it, does not exist
since there are different kids of power, we are powerful in relationship to some of them but powerless in relationship to others
individual power: we have some of it while lacking other it’s not having or lacking one whole category (ability vs influence vs may); witching each of these forms, there are many possible instances of power or powerlessness; we have some abilities but not others, we influence some people, but not everyone, we are allowed to do some things but not everything macropower is how other people influence us
emotions: like waves in the ocean, always rolling
Limits of self-awareness A person can theoretically agree with a principle (it's important to act a certain way) but not notice when they themselves do not follow it emotions prevent from noticing? we are all emotional rather than rational beings (elephant and rider) cultural narratives are filled with examples of these principles, and ideas are becomming more sophisticated (now more narratives about empathy)
Terrible twos - reaction to the first realization of powerlessness
nobody has absolute power [add link]
so when people do get to have some power, they try to keep it for as much as they can this takes many forms and can happen to any individual or group of people
although we can see some groups of people historically trying to keep their power, it can happen to any group of people, so it’s important not to essentialism (e.g. « only this group of people can have people and try to maintain their power)
when people get to use more power, they can get clingy. They are clinging to this power exactly because they feel (often subconsciously) that having more power is temporary.
Is there absolute power? I don’t think so. how about unchecked power? This is different. Unchecked power is means actions that are not controlled or restrained. It is not the same as absolute. Unchecked power is not absolute.
if you want to know how powerless you are, try to make a real big change abother option: experience bureaucracy psge about bureaucracy: Brazil by terry guillism, my experience with British visa
cupture requires constant maintenance (at least the most technologiezed cuoture) Dr binocs - what if all humans disappeared spaces where we lead our lives need constant maintenance our bodies need maintenance we need to repeat many everyday routines in order to live our lifes
Amy Winehouse "Back to Black": "life is like a pipe//And I'm a tiny penny//Rolling up the walls inside"
My power starts where the other person's power ends
enthropy us always increasing: from We Have No Idea: ” Whenever you create any sort of localized order—stacking books, making marks on a sheet of paper, or running your air-conditioning, you are simultaneously creating disorder as a by-product, usually as heat... Until [“the heat death of the universe], creating local pockets of order by making compensating pockets of disorder is only possible because the universe has not yet reached maximum disorder, so there is still wiggle room.”
Survival of the species is the most important thing from the biological point of view. This is bad news for an individual. Our brain works to maintain the order, not the biological but cultural one (norm). But for the survival of the species, we also need to be flexible. Many individuals are born with the impulse to conform. Some are born to innovate. One type is not better than the other. Both are necessary for survial of the species - flexibility + order. Many innovators struggle because they fight against everybody else's impulse to conform. But this individual suffering is irrelevant for the species as at the end it helps society/culture to stay flexible. In the grand sceme of things, individuals are powerless faced by these laws of survival of species.
We think of creativity as an ultimate example of power. As a creator (writer, poet, painter, sculptor, etc.) I can create whatever I want. But... Embracing powerlessness as creative practice, from The Great Work of Your Life: « In the process of his deliberate practice, Keats had had moments of exhilaration. At regular moments during his work, he had experienced a surrender to some greater power. He would later say, “That which is creative must create itself.” He discovered, as all great artists do, that there was something impersonal at work. Something at work that was not him. And to surrender to this larger force gave him a new kind of freedom, and a new sense of faith in the process itself. » [also see the quote from The Poet's Mistake]
Main goal: survival of the species Sub-goal: survival of individual (does not mean thriving or not suffering) Body/brain is meant to help an individual survive Hence, mechanisms of the brain that work the way they do, in an ingenious yet imperfect way (cognitive biases) Hence, body or brain compensating for deficiencies in way that the person does not need to think consciously about (which is great, less work) but can be problematic because we don't know how the compensation works and how it can backfire. E.g. if we do surgery, the body starts puts less pressure on the weakened muscles and more pressure on muscles around those, which might mean some new problems along the way. That's why we supposed to be working with physical therapists who know how these processes work.
Chapter 15 in History of Arachaeology: The Oxford Handbook of the History of Archaeology https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-the-history-of-archaeology-9780190092504?cc=us&lang=en& "Looming large within studies of the development of archaeology in nineteenth-century Britain, for example, are wealthy and societally prominent figures from the “Darwinist community.” ... They did so, however, based on tangible things often selected by others, in places and under circumstances outside of their control. The intermediaries that made such collections and claims to knowledge possible are rarely as visible within archaeological histories as these prominent figures. Sometimes these intermediaries are left out of these histories because their presence in archives is fleeting. More commonly, they have been rendered invisible because their labor has not been taken into serious consideration. Attitudes to race, class, and gender all conspire to render the role of certain individuals opaque in distribution networks. ... etc. ... Anthropologist Nicholas Thomas (1991), meanwhile, has demonstrated that the artifacts acquired by Europeans in the Pacific were entangled within local cultural norms and systems of exchange, meaning that it was local people that pre-selected what material was available for collecting."
Same chapter, Add to Everybody is Powerful: "Irina Achim (2017) highlighted that while Latin America has often been viewed as a source of specimens that would be gathered and studied in Europe and the United States, overlooked have been the Mexican statesmen, cultural elites, and local guides who were not simply passive conduits for material but “pursued their own strategies for collecting, exchanging, studying, or impeding the exportation of objects” (Achim 2017, 9). In so doing, Mexicans laid claim to certain objects to legitimate nationalism and resist external competition for collectibles. " [see further: Achim, Miruna. 2017. From Idols to Antiquity: Forging the National Museum of Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.]
"What these examples further highlight is that while agency can be conferred on a broad range of actors within networks, this is not commensurate with the idea that all of those involved were of equal importance, or that power was evenly distributed across systems" etc.