Power, in terms of powerful people, is an interesting topic, but I don’t believe anybody really knows what it means to be powerful. We often attribute power to politicians, and heads of state, to prime ministers, and presidents. I don’t think it’s quite that simple. I believe that powerful people often become politicians, but I don’t believe politics, which is simply the exercise of power, necessarily makes a person powerful. Was, for example, Ted Heath powerful when cabinet, parliament, and the unions were walking all over him? I don’t think anybody would have described Heath as powerful, not in a million years, but all this begs the question, what is a powerful person?
I remember being at an afters around a year ago. I was punched to the ground by one of the attendees, he began to kick me in the head, blood was pouring down the side of my face, as his mates watched in horror, or perhaps awe. Eventually one of them pulled him off me. As he was held back by three people, I clambered up, and we made eye contact. I gazed at the assailant for what could only have been a few seconds but for what felt like hours. I watched his eyes glint in the light, he was smiling from ear to ear, arrogance, and joy radiated from him - he could feel power pulsating through him. I sprinted out of the flat, and, not waiting for the lift, I ran down the stairs at full pelt, not stopping until I reached the courtyard. I collapsed on a bench, and cried for at least an hour before leaving that wretched accommodation, never to return (for another week at least).
I could list a number of similar physical assaults, with similar assailants, but I don’t believe that to be necessary. What I can extrapolate is, however, that central to all these altercations is a fundamental power imbalance. On paper, it would seem that I have more power than those who have assaulted me. In terms of economic, social, and cultural capital, there is no competition, I win, on every count. But, I could grow up to be director of public prosecutions, or on the executive board of Deutsche Bank (both incredibly unlikely) - and yet still, each and every one of them would still have more power than me. The issue here isn’t the act of assault, but rather what the act of assault represents. I picked an example of power imbalance that is distinctive, clear, and extreme because it makes my point for me, but the issue is not than any of these men and women hit me, but rather that they felt able to hit me. I can be made a target, but why?
The same point can be fleshed out in less extreme cases, in non physical altercations. A brilliant example of this can be seen in an experience of mine in school. Surrounded by very different people to the ones mentioned before, I had similar experiences, or at least experiences which represented the same principle, of social weakness, of power imbalance. There was a girl who I used to share a class with, who semi regularly made horrible remarks directed toward me. We got on well enough, we didn’t hate each other, but there was a clear power imbalance, in that we both knew that she could be as horrible as she liked to me, with no recompense, whereas I wasn’t in that position. One day she raised her hand and said ‘Can we finish this lesson early because he's [me] really annoying?’. Tears welled up in my eyes, and for the first time I responded. ‘Leave me alone insert name here’ I retorted ‘You’ve got nothing going for you anyway’. I was lynched (metaphorically) by the majority of the class. How dare I say this to her? ‘But’ I reminded them ‘she says things like that to me all the time’. A girl in my class said, with a scowl on her face, ‘Yes, we know she does, but the difference is that you are annoying, and you do have nothing going for you - those are just facts - what you said about her isn’t true - when she says them, they are true’. I was flabbergasted, or perhaps I wasn’t. Me and the girl who called me annoying have more in common, in terms of social, and cultural capital and future life prospects than the boy who hit me in my previous example, but even so, there is still a massive, and wide gap in terms of her social power. She could say anything she wanted to me without opposition, and I could say nothing to her.
To get ahead in a party machine, to be picked either by a central or local constituency party, you must be valued, and liked - you must have that social power - but it is merely a proxy. The reason the tories picked Ted Heath, a leader with less social power than they would have liked, is the fact that the Tory Party needed a working class grammar school boy to compete with the Labour Party (though clearly Heath still had a great deal of such power, just less than is expected of a prime minister).
I believe being a powerful person is not defined by intellect or intelligence, nor is it defined by one’s bank balance, or one’s social standing in terms of class - but rather in terms of something immaterial. Some men and women are just respected. They can be stupid or intelligent, middle class or working class, poor or rich - all of that is largely irrelevant. Clearly, a president who is socially weak is more powerful than a socially powerful individual living on a council estate who has social power - and the socially powerful attendee at the aforementioned afters will likely end up no further than prison - but only because of circumstance, only, perhaps, because of stupidity - in terms of actual power, in terms of individual influence - once you strip back the position - that power is also stripped away.
Interesting analysis.
My view of power is much different than yours though.
To me a powerful thing, person or otherwise, is one that does a lot of work in a short amount of time. Of course, work is the product of a force and the displacement it causes.
This is the same kind of power that hauls your body out of bed, and flings a car down the street. I'm talking about pure wattage. The type of power the sun screams out into space which falls to the earth and makes my fingers bounce around on this keyboard, among other things. By that reckoning, all people are fairly equal. There are variations, but not even an order of magnitude variance I'd say in the amount of work one could do in a given time. Whether they actually do or not is a different story.
Any other 'power' is a pale illusion by comparison. Social influence, prestige, and respect are as tenuous and ephemeral as love, unicorns. Mickey Mouse, or one's identity. Which is to say they do not exist, or at least not as the moon or the biosphere exist.
It's just a silly game we play with each-other, not something that is concretely manifest in the universe, no matter how immersed we get in the role play.
I wish I could see things in the same empirical sense as you do. From the "wattage" perspective, it certainly makes sense and the disparities in power between all people indeed have comparatively little variation - it makes me think of Dragonball Z (ever watch that?) - but at the same time, having this immaterial power that I speak of can also effectively multiply the amount of "work done" with respect to your pursuits.
Yeah, I have seen Dragonball Z. I like that parallel too. It's amusing and basically captures what I was talking about.
I recognize that seemingly multiplicative effect as well. However while you could certainly see more force applied over greater displacement in a shorter time by exercise of this immaterial power, it's highly contingent and not really 'your' power.
I could almost certainly do essentially nil to upend a car alone, but a dozen or so of my friends cooperating at my direction could roll a car like a powerful tornado. Yet that depends on being able to communicate, schedule a meet up, motivate everyone, not having inclement weather, etc. etc. etc.
In short it's flimsy and unreliable.
On top of that I'd only ever really have my own power under my control, not the power of a dozen people. They all remain firmly at the helm of their own personal wattage, able to withdraw or deploy it in this pursuit or any other at a whim.
In terms of focusing and multiplying material power, tools alone are much more effective and reliable than immaterial power alone.