Stoicism argues that power is a preferred indifferent for individuals. If you can get it honorably, then get it. Otherwise, it is of no value. Power is not good or bad. It is neutral. It is the use of power that is moral or evil. Stoics are suspicious of power, because it tends to corrupt. Therefore, the virtues of wisdom, courage, love/justice, and self-control are categorically more valuable than power. However, power is necessary for social organization. We are social being with a social duty. Therefore, we must play a role in helping our community according to our interests and skills. Marcus Aurelius took up the responsibilities of being Emperor because he felt responsible for his people, and he probably felt that he could do some good. Less successfully, Seneca tried to direct the young Nero to be a benevolent ruler. Given the later history of Nero’s reign, perhaps this was an impossible task. The absolute rule of the Roman Emperors was in conflict with justice and liberty. There were no self-correcting mechanisms in that system other than assassination. The history of the United States and England charts a unique role as the best system so far for governing in liberty, mediating the exercise of power, and organizing the most just system possible through a structure of controlled democracy with checks and balances for self-correction. Power becomes evil is the exact proportion that it diverges from the goal of the happiest result for the most people.
Power is necessary for the very functioning of our society. We could no more do without power than we could do without oxygen. But power must be exercised with justice. According to the observations of primatologist Frans de Waals in his book Our Inner Ape, power dynamics are intrinsic to all chimpanzee and human social interactions (de Waal, 2005). The moment two or more humans are together, power dynamics begin. This is not a bad thing if we are cooperating together. The substance of social competition is individual strategies to determine rank. Our culture seems to have a taboo against discussions of power. In researching for this project, the majority of articles I found portrayed power as negative or in reference to abusive relationships. In our culture power has a negative connotation. It is as if we were in denial about social dominance. Power dynamics are in fact a survival strategy. Power has gotten a bad reputation unjustly. Why is this? First, we have many examples in history of horrific abuses of power. Second, I think that human beings want to have an idealized model of ourselves. Also, it is inherently abhorrent to recognize that someone has power over you. But competent leadership is necessary for survival. It is a version of the truism that if one wants to enjoy sausage one should not see how it is made. As brutal as some histories can be, much of historical writing is still a “white wash.” We want to separate ourselves from the savage garden of the Nature we came from. We want to delude ourselves that we are not like other animals. We want to fantasize that we do not have the capacity for cruelty and violence. Third, we as a culture belief that all authority is oppressive. But the reality is that power dymanics have a positive aspect. We inherited this notion that the natural "uncivilized" state of human beings is the ideal human condition from the thinking of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and then adapted it to the counter-culture of the 60’s and 70’s. As stated by Frans de Waals, “in the 1970s human behavior was seen as totally flexible; not natural but cultural. If we really wanted to, people believed, we could rid ourselves of archaic tendencies like sexual jealousy, gender roles, material ownership, and yes, the desire to dominate.” The error in this thinking is that we are completely discounting the relevance of 70,000 years of human experience. I do not think I am more intelligent than 70,000 years of human experience. Its current incarnation is in politically correct ideas. This is naive thinking. What is necessary is leadership that is virtuous and motivated toward the common well-being and liberty. With no leadership there is anarchy. Nothing can be accomplished without leadership. Thus, the answer from Stoicism is that power is good when it is exercised for the common good, with virtue, and with the goal of liberty as in the example of Marcus Aurelius.
Our collective reluctance to have honest and insightful communication about power is what makes Frans de Waals research so relevant and useful. It is often easier to discuss power matters in reference to other primates. Chimpanzees do not try to hide their “will to power” as recognized in humans by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The truth is that each and every one of us has a power drive. Chimpanzees will transparently compete for position without any of the institutions or ideologies that humans use as an excuse for power struggles. All the chimps need is honest self-interest. As observed by Frans de Waals, maybe Capitalism was not the problem in the 60s. He states, “my chimpanzees demonstrated the same archaic tendencies, but without a trace of cognitive dissonance. They were jealous, sexist, and possessive”
Human beings are elegant products of evolutionary engineering. Our behavior cannot be fundamentally understood without taking into account our evolutionary directives. Whether we admit it or not, much of our behavior is driven by the impulse toward reproductive success however convoluted. Power dynamics are the means by which we gain access to the best possible reproductive partner and assure the success our progeny. As observed by Frans de Waals, many “human” reactions such as jealousy, scratching our heads when we are confused, or the mating ritual, are shared by our close evolutionary relatives.
Frans de Waals states that chimpanzees are very hierarchy conscious. However, there is a strong difference between how females and males navigate power dynamics. Among his research, the alpha female, Mama, was respected without physical competition. Mama's partner, Kuif, gained power by association, but this relationship was fundamentally different from that seen in male coalitions. In chimpanzees, females become dominant because they are recognized as the leader, and therefore among females competition is counter-productive. Female status is mostly due to character and seniority.
In contrast, male power is all about competition among primates. Chimpanzee male status is not gained by age or any other single characteristic, but is transacted by physical struggle, and is consolidated against all opponents. Males form strategic coalitions because they need each other in the struggle for power. Position is determined by the outcome of these struggles as a group dynamic. Power is positional and not individual. In other words, power resides in the individual’s position in the power structure, and not as an attribute of the individual. It does not help a male that he can defeat any rival, because the group can attack him all at once. To maintain the top position, a male must have physical strength and followers when the battle is joined. Thus, female power is more collectivized, and male power is factional and competition based.
Power exercised non-virtuously is to be condemned. No outwardly powerful person is truly great. A small person is tall when standing on a mountain. We make the mistake of measuring the individual when standing on a pedestal. Take Stalin, he was a cruel and cunning mediocrity. And it was his very lack of aptitude that helped his rise to power. It was literally beyond the imaginations of his colleagues that he would ever seize power. Was Stalin a man of virtue? No. He was a deeply amoral, unhappy, deformed, pockmarked, paranoid, sickly, murderous, damaged, fanatic, and sociopathic monster. His power was based solely on absolute control of the security and personnel apparatus of the Soviet state. However, there was no one around him who really cared about him. Previous to his absolute power, Stalin’s wife committed suicide rather than stay with him. He allowed one of his sons to die in German captivity rather than be exchanged. He was estranged from all of his surviving children to a greater or lesser extent. Once he was brought down by a stroke, his power collapsed. This is seen upon his death; he did not receive medical care for two days after his final deadly attack. Most likely, he was poisoned by one of his minions. The poorest person in the United States today would receive better care than Stalin did as arguably the single most powerful human at the time. What greater example could there be of an individual at the heights of power falling to utter wretchedness? Power can be seen as transactional and positional. Stalin’s incapacity removed him from his position. Then his cronies scrambled to transact the new power dynamic. Meanwhile, the supreme leader lay dying. Superficially, Stalin had everything. He had several dachas, access to all the resources he could ever use, all the people around him catering to his every need, and all the power of the government. Stalin was a man who had sent tens of millions to their deaths or slavery by the nod of his head, and then laid in agony dying in his own urine while more and more of his brain shutdown. He is perhaps one of the most extreme illustrations of the problem with valuing externals more than the virtues and Will. There is a dichotomy of power and powerlessness that is like a switch. One moment Alexander the Great ruled an empire, and the next moment he was a ghost on the throne while his generals divided up the territories. One moment Stalin had life and death power over millions, and the next he could not even control his bowels.
We are surrounded by power dynamics every day. The arithmetic of relative dominance is constantly being calculated in all of our social interactions. Power denial not-withstanding, we humans are extremely perceptive and sensitive to social dominance. I postulate that any time two human beings are communicating; a key message is sorting out relative position. We could not survive without our knowledge of power. However, psychologists, academics, politicians, and the general population obscure the fundamental motives of the drive for power. Therefore, anyone, especially a scientist like Frans de Waals, who breaks the taboo against communicating about power honestly, hazard their reputations and social opprobrium. But I would venture to say that it is precisely the subjects that are most taboo in our culture that are in the greatest need of open discussion. We do not want to be called power seeking, even though many of our efforts are ultimately motivated by power. I believe that the will to power within directed by the virtues is healthy and contributes to our progress outside of such aberrations as racism, sexism, or authoritarian systems. Who does not want to have an excellent education, a good job, a nice house, a fancy car, and social status? But these are preferred indifferents that we may seek as long as we do not comprise our values. Power underlies all these desires. Maybe we are not so different from our primate cousins. I believe that social hierarchies have allowed us to survive as a species to this point. Power is not good or evil; it is intrinsic to the human condition. Power must be exercised with justice.
