The Ways of Power

Power is something we have to deal with on a regular basis, in almost all our interactions. When we work in organisations, the awareness of power is very real, strong and intense. I have had to deal with it and in it in many ways, both as a subject and an object. The idea of Power is of great interest and relevance to the understanding of the human condition and social systems. Power manifests at the level of the broad social systems and is exercised more locally and regularly between people. What is the nature of the power relationships and strategies that most people try to play out and implement all the time? How, or through what mechanisms, does 'power' shape the ongoing relationships among us? How are the sources and expressions of power changing?

A key aspect of power is the way it is exerted. Power is exerted implicitly by the way in which our conversation (or discourse) is formed (Foucault's analysis), and it is often exerted by denying its own truth, or by myths that misrepresent the source of power by pointing to the so-called 'systemic' or 'natural' sources which are actually less powerful in that context. Power thrives on pretension of non-existence or innocence, continuously pointing at or deriving legitimacy from the larger forces or the ways of the world, always hiding its own implicit choice, its will to control. It always sets up systems and processes that facilitate its manifestations, while making itself invisible. There is power that depends heavily on certain exclusive, elitist symbols and spaces, like the illusions, which for centuries were staged by the royal entourage, the emperor's clothes, crown, and jewels; his mystical significance. Though some people still keep the illusions in place, and even approve of them, the overall trend is changing.

Now there are more of the sneaky forms of power that avoid special symbols or spaces, to stay consistent with today's so-called 'liberated', democratic', ideals that put a premium on being 'one of us' or 'with us'. Even the monarchs can't display their hubris in the same way as they did once upon a time. The same holds true for others in power, the executives, the teachers, the husbands, the political leaders, and all of us. Pretending to be powerless helps the agenda of power, again by making it less visible, by creating and spreading myths of the 'equal', the 'similar', or the 'friendly' power. The staging of power is undergoing a change. The 'divine' connection doesn't help now as much as it helped the Pharaohs and other such 'God-incarnates', and it is difficult to convince people of it, thanks to the ascent of science, which might not have completely defeated religion, but has almost decidedly de-linked the human from the almighty, forever reducing the possibility of a human getting away with the claim to divinity. Behavioral symbols are becoming more important. Fear as a source of power continues to hold sway, but fading continuously. The smiling candidate is better than a brooding one. A CEO who eats with the employees is more acceptable. This imagery thrives on the indifference of the masses to the details of the manifestations of power. Even in earlier times, a friendly, generous monarch was more popular, but didn't necessarily derive his/her powers from this attribute. These attributes didn't shift the power away from or to someone, because the source of power was elsewhere.

The chameleon-like change in the symbols is enabled by knowledge. Power is strengthened by knowledge of how people react and how their behavior can be affected. This knowledge helps Power thrive by providing favors or helping the objects of power, or making them feel powerful by allowing limited or fake participation (co-opting). These mechanisms (or presentations) of power help sustain it. The understanding of how people react and behave also enables power to create obligations that are relayed through so many different points and become so deeply ingrained in us, that we no longer perceive them as the effect of a power that constrains us, but instead it seems to us that these obligations were always lodged in our most secret nature, only to surface.

Power is also fueled by some resistance and without resistance, all power fades or collapses under its own weight, because it usually exists against something. Still, the resistance cannot be allowed to overrun power, and power tries to diffuse resistance if it becomes too threatening, again by trying to hide, usually behind the cloak of 'reason'. The sources of tense resistance are eliminated or sidelined by citing reasons that relate to the entity's behavior or competence, presenting them as threats to efficiency, effectiveness or even existence of the system or order that the power is presumably protecting, and never talking about their posture against power itself. This is another change in staging. You (and the spectators) may be told you are being destroyed for being a threat to world peace, while all you would have done is speak truth to power. Though, power still makes 'examples' of its opponents, it does so with less pomp, show, and noise, since the sustainability of this approach is becoming more and more difficult. It attempts to explain its actions by playing to people's fears and hopes. Thus, naked, raw, visible power is increasingly getting replaced by a clothed, sophisticated, almost invisible one, but we need to examine if there has been any fundamental shift in the nature of power itself, or in the way it affects and corrupts individuals. That's another question and analysis.