In Defence of Power
After World War 2, the world witnessed the devastating consequences of unchecked power. Therefore, it may not be surprising that throughout the postmodern era, the concept of power became a focal point for scholars and thinkers, emerging as a central theme for exploration and analysis.
Chomsky critiqued how power is wielded by institutions, such as governments and corporations, to influence public opinion and maintain control over the general public. His "propaganda model" of media, developed with Edward S. Herman, suggests that mainstream media often serves as a tool for the interests of the elites, disseminating information that aligns with their agenda. Moreover, Chomsky described his personal political stance, anarchism, as the doctrine advocating for the dismantling of illegitimate power structures, a truism in his own words.
Foucault's argued that power was diffused throughout society. His analysis highlighted the role of disciplinary mechanisms in institutions and the intimate connection between power and knowledge. He argued that power is embedded in the very language we use to talk about the world and that it is exercised even in institutions such as schools, prisons, and hospitals. In general, postmodern thinkers developed a critical view of power bringing attention to the experiences and viewpoints of those historically excluded or marginalized.
In these writings, we will not tangle much with the - sometimes quite involved - notions of power that have been discussed in the academic literature. Instead, we'll narrow our focus to a specific manner in which power is perceived by parts of the general public and academia, that historically leaned towards the left, but lately includes even parts of the populist and libertarian right. I should know something about the subject since I used to think about power in the same way.
Recounting the moment that convinced me to write this article might shed light on things: Recently, I Googled 'definition of power over someone' and was struck by what I found upon clicking the first link
The following, I thought to myself, was clearly mistaken.
“Using one’s power over another is unjust.”
The suggested definition of power evoked memories of how my progressive friends, fellow academics, most students, and my past self viewed power—a nebulous concept perceived as something negative, to be resisted and regarded with suspicion.
The truth is that there are plenty of cases where using one’s power over another is far from unjust: it’s the right thing to do.1
Consider parents: they possess the ability to control and influence their children's behavior. This power over them comes in different forms, both soft power—shaping preferences through appeal and attraction rather than force—and hard power, established through financial control and the legal authority to make decisions on their children's behalf. Parents should wield their power -both soft and hard- over their children, occasionally resorting to disciplinary measures like punishment as a form of guidance. Indeed, parents who refrain from utilizing their influence over their children often struggle to positively shape their development.
But let me give you another example of a just use of power: secluding violent murderers from society. When the judicial branch puts murderers in prisons, the state is exercising its power to keep a person forcibly detained -a just action aimed at protecting other innocent citizens and ideally rehabilitating the offender.
So, why do so many people come to perceive the exercise of power as inherently negative, to the extent that this feature is embedded in some definitions?
A possibility is that this conception of power may have arisen due to the historical trend of critiquing power and authority traceable back to Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau, Locke, and Voltaire. The Enlightenment was marked by a critical reassessment of power and its legitimacy, emphasizing the consent of the governed and the limitations of the rulers. Then, in the 19th century, the critique of power intertwined itself with the oppressor-oppressed distinction, that was born out of the writings of Marx (some might even say Hegel). The oppressor-oppressed distinction delineates a social relationship where one group or person, referred to as the oppressor, actively coerces, excludes, or controls another group - the oppressed- leading to their suffering or disadvantage. This framework was employed to analyze various social categories, such as race, gender, and class, examining their potential dynamics of dominance and subjugation within society. The ongoing analysis of power, particularly its more negative aspects, might have contributed to the mistaken mental association that power is inherently bad - a misinterpretation of the viewpoints of the thinkers mentioned above.2
To underscore the insidious and easily misinterpreted nature of these concepts, I played a small trick on you, dear reader. I provided an incorrect definition of 'oppressor,' that illustrates how some perceive of this notion - hopefully, you didn’t catch the mistake immediately.
To be labeled an oppressor, it’s a necessary condition to actively coerce, exclude, or control another group, leading to their suffering or disadvantage, but it’s not a sufficient one. In fact, teachers who grade students are not oppressors even though their grading will exclude some of them from being accepted by top schools, leading to their disadvantage. The judicial branch is not an oppressor when it coerces perpetrators away from the larger society, leading to their suffering or disadvantage. A bystander who is a black belt in ju-jitsu is not an oppressor when he uses his physical power to wrestle and control an active shooter to the ground, leading to his suffering or disadvantage.
To salvage the previous definition of oppressor we need to add some normative language to it.
Oppressor: An oppressor is a person, group, institution, or system that unjustly exercises power over others. They use their position or authority to coerce, exclude, or control individuals or groups, leading to their unjust suffering or disadvantage.
What sometimes happens is that, when normative language is removed from the definition of "oppressor," individuals tend to replace normativity itself with the oppressor-oppressed distinction, forming an oppressor-oppressed morality. In this case, the morality of actions is erroneously evaluated solely through these new lenses.3
To gain a deeper understanding of the oppressor-oppressed morality, we must discuss the two flawed principles that shape its foundations. The first is
The powerful is always the oppressor and the weak is always the oppressed.
The examples we have previously explored already show us why this is wrong. In many cases, parents aren't malevolent oppressors, nor is the judicial branch of government. But one can conjure up even more decisive cases: those where the weak is the oppressor and the powerful is the oppressed.
Consider a teenage individual from a disadvantaged ethnicity, hailing from a financially challenged family, who consistently bullies an affluent, physically imposing white male. The white male tries to ignore him, turning the other cheek, hoping the verbal harassment will cease, yet it persists, causing him considerable distress and anxiety. In this scenario, the powerful is being oppressed by a person who has less power than himself.4
Certainly, these cases are exceptional. Typically, the powerful are more prone to being oppressors than the weak. Nevertheless, they show that the powerful isn't always the oppressor, leading us to discuss the second erroneous tenet of the oppressor-oppressed morality:
The oppressed is always morally in the right, the oppressor is always morally in the wrong.
Again, we are facing a fallacy. Consider an employee who is pushed to work long hours against the terms of his contract by a demanding boss. By all accounts, he is oppressed by someone more powerful than himself. But if, in an act of retaliation, one night, the employee physically assaulted the boss, beating him to a pulp, he would not be performing a moral action. The oppressed does not have carte blanche to inflict whatever suffering he pleases on the oppressor.
Similarly, consider the oppressive employer; morally, he’s at fault for his actions on the job. However, if upon leaving the office, he volunteers to assist a charity, this specific action of his would be morally righteous. People exist within ethical shades of gray, navigating complex and intricate realities. Even though the employer acts badly in their professional capacity, they might exhibit goodness in other facets of their life. This is important to keep in mind because, hopefully, even oppressors can undergo a rehabilitation process and change for the better.
The oppressor-oppressed distinction, instead of being a useful heuristic - the powerful, with their heightened responsibilities and potential to oppress, should face more moral scrutiny, while the weak do not require the same level of examination and should be looked out for -becomes a moral dogma: the powerful are oppressors, and thus are morally in the wrong, the weak are oppressed and thus are morally in the right. The logical outcome of the two fallacious fundamental principles of the oppressor-oppressed morality leads us back to the starting point: exercising power is always unjust. Perhaps it is in part due to this mistake that many postmodernists argued that the state (the powerful) should not deny children under the age of 15 (the oppressed) the right to consent to sexual relations. Or why some believe that America (the most powerful country) can’t engage in foreign policy without being the oppressor -a stance humorously referred to online as 'America bad'.
It's common for our minds to simplify helpful heuristics into rigid, black-and-white rules to conserve cognitive resources (technically, this is called system 1 thinking). Consequently, it’s not surprising that the oppressor-oppressed distinction, with its moral nuances, is often interpreted incorrectly, leading to the kind of power-phobia we have been discussing. But power is not intrinsically bad or good. Power is a tool, capable of being used for good or ill. Individuals with benevolent intentions and a degree of rationality should hold more power in society. One should strive to become a more inspiring teacher to better manage the classroom, a more skilled plumber to impact the choices of their clients, or a more respected parent to earn the affection of their child. 5
Yes, there are problems. Unfortunately the very powerful frequently manage to avoid the consequences of their immoral actions, while the powerless can face repercussions for situations they didn't even cause, and often power and responsibility are decoupled, like in the case of rich heirs or untrustworthy influencers with millions of followers Furthermore, the powerful can become enamored with their own decisions, sometimes forgetting that using power for good often demands caution -so as not to become a Thanos or an Ozymandias- given the future's inherent unpredictability. We should not forget that power goes hand in hand with competence and responsibility.
But power should not be demonized a priori, even though it requires intelligence and a strong moral fiber to wield correctly we should not avoid these complexities by choosing to be weak instead.
We will be working with the following, widely accepted, definition of power
Power: Power is the ability or capacity of an individual, group, or entity to influence or control the behavior, actions, or decisions of others.
Few, for instance, remember (or perhaps understand) when Foucault argued that power was also productive.
I believe that the reason for the existence of this oppressor-oppressed morality comes from a technical problem concerning postmodern moral relativists and normative nihilists. They would like to be able to talk in objective moral terms but can’t, so to get around this problem they use ‘moralized words’, like oppressors, that have a negative connotation baked into them. This language trick betrays the need humans have for normative language and ironically constructs a moral framework that is far from nihilism and moral relativism.
At least, as physicists would say, when considering the two subjects in a vacuum.
Even Marxists align with this instrumental view of power, as evidenced by the concept of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat.' Postmodernists themselves must similarly concur, wasn’t Derrida powerful? wasn’t Foucault? Their writings continue to shape discourse and thought to this day.