« God's blessings shared | Main | more on surprises »
February 17, 2005
on power
how do people come to power? how do people give others power? why does it seem so easy to lose sight of those "below" as soon as people have power at their fingers?
looking at power today, our government has been given authority and power in order to protect the citizen's inalienable right to pursue life, love, and have property (Locke). All are willing to sacrifice some of their power (taxes, submission) to give birth to and feed the great leviathan in order that it may guard those within from their neighbors (Hobbes). The role is primarily security, maintained through police and military. any other role is just a bonus.
power has certainly been an issue since the beginning. the mislocation of power is the root of evil. in eden it was taking choice into personal interest instead of trust in God.
later the hebrew people initiatially wanted a king "to be like other nations." why? with their chariot-driving neighbor philistines along the coastal plains, it's likely that they felt inferior and threatened and wanted their own leviathan to defend their shaky union of tribes and judges. so they gave up trust in God for some more earthy power.
in the past power was mantained mostly through might or religion. either someone could force someone to submit, or they convinced them that that was what God or gods wanted. but i'm not sure how much we are different today. might and religion are joined by knowledge, racial or social status, demographic balance/imbalance, and problem other points, but the issue remains essentially the same.
what has blown me away in the past few months and what causes me to ask these questions of power is that i have seen that power plays don't just happen on a big level, say governments or corporations, but even on the small scale: schools and churches. is there something we can learn from the big scale and the small scale issues to help understand why power is so quickly assumed and abused?
it seems to me that the assumption of power is a spiritual and social issue: people desire to be or be like gods. maybe we don't say it like that, but we take our own agenda before God's and others. because this power comes first in denying God's power, it is an extremely blinding thing and it is very difficult or even impossible to pay attention to God's will and concern for the individuals' and common good.
Posted by Derrick at February 17, 2005 09:23 PM