The Love of Power
I see drug addicts every day. I know most of them by name and many of their stories. For many of them, their life is singularly focused on one thing – their next hit. They might think of something else for a little while, but their thoughts, their attention, their desire always goes back to that one thing.
People can be addicted to almost anything – addictions that society looks down on, like alcohol, sex, drugs, or gambling. And then there are the addictions that society will praise you for like being addicted to work, achievement, making money, or exercise. Every kind of addiction twists and destroys you, but some addictions that a person might have are more useful and beneficial for others, and so they’re excused or even smiled upon.
The most damaging addiction to human existence is one that almost no one ever talks about – the addiction to power.
These people shake inside with their craving just like a drug addict and like a drug addict they are also singularly focused on their next hit, but what they long for isn’t a substance, but another moment of control over someone else or more control over more people. The hard core power addicts want someone, maybe hundreds, thousands, or millions of someones, to belong to them; body and soul.
You might think, “Oh my goodness! I don’t know anyone like that. These people sound like monsters.” But, you do know people like this and to varying degrees they are monsters.
The power addict is the mom or dad that you think are the best parents ever and their children are so well behaved. What you don’t see is all the ways they psychologically, emotionally, and physically twist and abuse their kids to make them afraid of them and afraid to be without them. They milk their children’s souls for little shots of power the way a farmer milks her cows.
The power addict is the charming boyfriend who at first seems overwhelmingly amazing, thoughtful, and attentive. You fall so fast but soon you find the relationship is this disorienting roller coaster of surprising meanness and creepiness mixed with romantic gestures and tender moments that leave you feeling crazy and trapped. The power addict is making you dance and getting the charge out of it they crave as the vitality, strength, and freedom is drained from your own life.
These are all the low-end users of the power addict scene that you can bump shoulders with at dating scenes or PTA meetings. Where do the heavy addicts go, the ones who have a larger appetites for power and the charm and intelligence to get it? What would draw you if the central craving of your life was to gain as much control over others as possible?
Business, religion, professors, or policemen? Possibly. There are little tyrants that feed their appetites for control and power in big and small ways throughout these professions, but look higher.
The shiniest lights of power in our society are politics and media. Politics is the easiest one to see. Politicians control. Politics to a power addict is what an all-you-can-eat buffet is to a food addict. There are hundreds of small and big games of power and control that can be played constantly in politics. Ignoring someone or something that needs your attention or won’t progress without your attention, using your power to get your way, putting people in situations they can’t do anything about, breaking a law just because you can get away with it, or passing petty laws and ordinances that other people have to live by are all examples of political power moves, but the list really could be nearly endless. However, the most important move for a power addict in politics is and will always be to gain more power through currying favors, getting things done, raising money, teaming up with others, controlling a narrative, or putting on a show.
Good hearted competent people might show up in politics every now and then but they will always be an outlier. It is a feature of the human condition. As a rule, good, competent, well-meaning people will never be able to out-compete power-hungry competent people. The power addicts will always want it more. The further up you go in the political power structure the more concentrated the political version of the sick parents or the twisted boyfriend things will become. What makes it worse is that they are sick and often don’t even know it because they are praised and encouraged for their way of being and they are surrounded by friends, colleagues, and political rivals who are Just. Like. Them.
The less obvious shiny object to power addicts is media. There is just as much power in media as there is in politics, and arguably more.
There are six media companies in the United States that control 90% of the media Americans are exposed to. They control and curate what gets seen and what doesn’t, what gets heard and what doesn’t, what gets remembered, how it gets remembered, and what is forgotten. They can cover for politicians or smear them without cause. They can make the guilty look innocent and the innocent look guilty. They can make enough of the American people think, believe, and feel almost anything through repetition, rhetoric, herding, appeals to authority, and selective footage.
If you think power craving people don’t use this power to their own end, you don’t know people very well. If you think you are some special kind of human that isn’t susceptible to the heavily researched, studied, crafted, and perfected techniques of mass manipulation – your faulty beliefs put you at the greatest risk.
In media, just like in politics, the higher up you go, the more rare it is to find good, well-meaning people. It’s human nature. The power and control addicts will always want it more.
So what do we do? If this is a feature, not of a particular political system, but of human nature, how then do we live and where then do we put our hope?
Awareness is key. For the small, everyday tyrants, we can learn to recognize their tells and stay away from them. We can also help other people escape their grip. School teachers, counselors, social workers, police officers, and church people have a great opportunity to bump into, recognize, and help liberate children and adults who are under someone’s psychological and physical tyranny. We can all sharpen our skills and open our eyes to the hidden worlds the people around us might be living in.
Awareness is key in understanding politics too. At the very top, especially with career politicians and un-elected bureaucrats, they are all power addicts. You don’t get to that level and you certainly don’t stay there if your the desire of your heart, your obsession is anything but control and more control. You wouldn’t fit into the club and you certainly wouldn’t rise to the top otherwise. Remember where it is they get their power and control from. They only have two main sources – they can take power and control from each other, or more often than not, they can extract it from regular people, the people they supposedly “serve.” The Rs and the Ds are most frightening when they are working together to extract power from regular people – the Patriot Act, police state, surveillance state, the in-their-control-spending, the war on “fill-in-the-blank,” etc.
We have to elect people to political offices, but we should never trust them or believe them – it doesn’t matter if it is me or your own mother in office. It doesn’t matter if the person has a D next to their name and you really love Ds and think Ds have the best ideas, really care about people, and are the obvious “good ones” – don’t trust them or believe in them just because of their letter. Same thing applies to Rs. Don’t give up your critical thinking and mindset. Holding onto that is the most patriotic thing you can do.
For a fun experiment, go to an internet search engine other than Google – they curate and sensor what you see and what you don’t see because they can, it’s an extremely powerful ability, and a lot of powerful people value power more than truth or freedom – try Duck Duck Go, and research the wrong, bad things that your favorite modern president did. Did you know about these things already? How would you view these things if this person had a different letter next to their name or spoke differently? Remember, words don’t matter much – it’s all one big show.
What do we do about the power that media has on our lives? That is a trickier one, because even more so it is a carefully crafted, tested, evaluated, and retested multi-front mind game bent on honing the power of mass manipulation. Learn more about how this game works and the things your mind is most susceptible to. Learn about the power of establishing heroes and villains, “othering,” the power of narrative, the power of establishing what is normal, the power of herding and group-think orthodoxy, how your brain processes images and videos, emotional content and language, and how your brain processes repetition. Most importantly perhaps, look into the power of silencing – if the media ignores something very few people will know it ever happened – that is an incredible power!
Listen to all media, both news and entertainment (they overlap a great deal), like a manipulation piece. Ask yourself questions like, “Why did they pick this to tell me and not all the other ones they had to choose from?” “Why did they tell it this way?” “Why did they show me those particular images or video clips?” “Why did they pick that expert or authority figure to bring on and what are they trying to get me to believe because of them?” “What did they talk about in a way that assumes everyone or at least everyone who is good and intelligent believes, thinks, acts, or talks a certain way?” “Who did they present as the hero and who as the villain – and are those categorizations justified?” “What is this piece telling me they want me to think, believe, and feel?” “Where can I find an opposing view and how hard is it to find?”
Learn and think critically. Learn and think critically. This is how we build and preserve a better world.
The love of power and the tendency of those who lust for control of others above all things to rise to the top in the most powerful human institutions is a feature, not of a particular political system, but of human nature, but all is not lost. There is hope. In John 10:10, Jesus is telling his disciples about the devil, about evil, when he says, “The thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy; I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.” In John 16:33, Jesus had been teaching his disciples about God and how life works and ended by saying this: “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
There is good news in that. Be wise about the world and how it works and put your hope and trust in the God who loves you and wants to give you life, love, and a good future.
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