Suffering can, and does, develop the latent evil that there is in humanity, as well as the latent good. A stoic would probably resist the extension of the concept of power to cover the mere infliction of suffering. By not caring about physical pain or external conditions, he might say, one can remove oneself from the power of another human. A true Christian is free because no outer things can touch one at any significant point. It would seem that what characterize a power situation of this kind is not just the ability to make someone suffer, which after all a dentist possesses, but rather to do him harm—that is, to attack his interest. Thus, by revising the notion of a man’s interest, and therefore the notion of harm, the stoic of the Christian can deny the reality of one man’s power over another, since nothing that another man can do to me can affect my real interest; I am always free, if once I see what those interest are. This little argument is a little odd, because the concept of power generally implies a restriction on choice; however, according to the stoic or Christian view, one can always choose to make the restriction insignificant, and therefore one can choose whether to be in the power of another. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8

I have had enough of someone else’s propaganda, I am for truth, no matter who tells it. I am for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I am a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole. Power is the perception of what passes in one’s own mind, and in that case, there could not be any real restriction, and all power would be illusory. However, then, what would power be like if it were real? However, it has been demonstrated that whether one man has power over another depends not merely on what he can do to the other, but also the importance to be attached to his action and on whether the subject can reasonably be expected to disregard it. One would not say that X was in Y’s power if one thought that what Y could do to X was trivial—Something that X could or should readily ignore. It takes no one to stir up the sociological nitroglycerine mixed with an absorbent material that stems from the unemployment, bad housing, and inferior education already in the city. This explosively criminal condition has existed for so long, it requires no fuse; it fuses itself; it spontaneously combusts from within itself. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8

Again, although threats of real harm are an exercise of power, bribes or promises of reward are not, unless some special feature of character or situation males them irresistible—that is, unless no one so placed could reasonably be expected to resist them (although some in fact might). This is not to say, of course, that a man cannot exercise power by bribery. However, it need not be power in situations in which a man could either successfully determine another’s actions or do him harm. An ability to do him some good is not in itself power over him, although the threat of withholding a good that he has come to count on may well be. I am not surprised when violence happens in any of America’s ghettoes where people have been packed like animals, wrapped or tied together for easy handling, and treated like lepers. Power may not be a relation between people, but between a person and a thing. There is a nonsocial kind of power that is simply an ability to produce an intended result, like a tenor’s power to smash a tumbler with a high C. And even in a social context, the financier’s power to destroy a government comes very close to this, for in this instance too power is manifest merely in the active achievement of an intended result. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8

Although the financier no doubt works by initiating actions on the part of others, the relation between him and his object (the government) is that which exists between agent and patient. This case can be distinguished both from that in which power is exercised by punishing a subject for noncompliance and from that in which power is used to inflect deliberate injury. For in the present case the object of the exercise may be only to remove an obstacle. The manifestation of power does not consist in the government’s being made to suffer, for it would be just as much a manifestation of power if the financier had chosen instead to prop it up of if the government welcomed its downfall as a blessed release from responsibility. There has already been too much misinformation manipulated by those who would perpetuate fear to control the emotional growth of humankind. Power is manifest simply in that what happens is the result of the financier’s intentional action, just as the tenor’s power is manifest in his being able to break a glass whenever he likes. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8

The power seeker must find human beings who value the things [he or she controls] sufficiently to obey one’s orders in return. Power implies a successful initiative and even perhaps in those instances in which power tends to injure its subject. To set about hurting someone, one must know how to get the right kind of response: there is no point in depriving nonsmokers of tobacco. It is not so clear, however, that the financier’s power is of this type, for he does not secure a response from the government; he merely makes something happen to it. Although his agents respond to his initiatives, one mist distinguish the power he has over them for the power he over the government. These powers would not be the same kind only if he were able not just to destroy the government, but to use it as he wished. However, it is presumably because he cannot so that he uses his power to destroy it. In cases where power depends on threats or on physical coercion, the subject’s acquiescence amounts to no more than that he continues to value whatever is being as a lever against him—an acquiescence that only the stoic, perhaps, would regard as a matter of choice. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8

However, political power cannot be entirely coercive. The few can rule the many because the many believe that the few are entitled to do so or that they could hard them if they disobeyed. But they would not think that coercion were possible if they did not also believe that most of the people were prepared to obey without coercion. A political power situation, therefore, must always contain some elements of acquiescence as well as coercion—almost always because it is at least theoretically possible that a reign of terror might enslave a whole people simply by sowing such mistrust that its opponents could never know their own potential strength. Like a field of force in mechanics, power is a potential for creating disturbance, like the potential of a stone cast in a pond for creating ripples. However, this has some odd results. Instead of summering a loss of power, the crashing financier who brings down thousands with him in his fall would be exercising power that is perhaps greater than ever before. Admittedly, it is a mark of power is a man’s actions cause disturbances, even if he is careless or ignorant of them. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 8

Nevertheless, if powerful men cause incidental and unintended disturbances, they do so in the course of getting what they want. For instance, the man Sean Thompson, age 32, who threw a pie in Mayor (of Sacramento, California USA) Kevin Johnson’s face, finally got his voice heard nationally about how it was not just that Kevin Johnson forced the use of public money, in excess of $255 million to build a sports complex, which cost about $700 million, when we have people sleeping on the streets, cannot afford to pay teachers. Of course, Sean Thompson was punished by his actions when the Mayor jumped on top of him and punched him in the face a few times, requiring him to get nine stitches and is now in jail facing criminal charges, but he finally got his voice out because the media is not really voicing the concerns of the citizens, and the general welfare of the city is suffering because they were not allowed to vote on this expensive sports complex, when the money could have been used for other things that are desperately needed. Some might call Sean Thompson powerful. This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourself. If you only think of yourself, you will only destroy yourself. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 8

To possess power or to be powerful is, then, to have a generalized potentiality for getting one’s own way or for bring about changes (at least some of which are intended) in other people’s actions or conditions. Influence, it is true, is used in a more general sense. Influence, it is true, is used in a more general sense. A writer’s influence on succeeding generations is rational influence. For a writer may have influence only to the extent that other writers recognize his merits and choose to imitate him. Although such influence may not be intended, still it is not a case, at least in the sense that climate is a possibility cause of national character. To use influence usually implies actively and intentionally working through or on other people, and one who can do this recurrently has influence. Of course, people who have power (that is, who can do many things they want and induce many other people to accept their initiative) are likely on that account to influence (that is, to have effects on) other aspects of society in way that neither they nor their social inferiors necessarily understand. Other classes, envying and admiring them, may imitate their taste and practices, and in this sense they may be influenced by them. However, this influence is not a manifestation of power; it is only one of its effects. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8