Other Views of Power

I'd like to spend some time tomorrow before the presentation discussing the contents of this post, meant as a reaction to the student posts this week, before we get into the presentation.  B&D are quite comprehensive in their views of power and its sources, but many other people, myself included, take a more limited view, in part because I distinguish "agency," the ability to do things for oneself including in a social context, from power, defined here as getting others to do things for you on your behalf.  Not everyone makes this distinction.  But I think it helps here.  In the process I'll mention some things to read, simply to be well read, not really for the course.

First, there is the animalistic view of aggression, as exemplified in On Aggression, by Konrad Lorenz, where he develops a notion called territoriality.  This is for intra-species competition.  As most of you are aware, I'm sure, there is a related concept called the alpha dog, which implies dominance in a social setting.  Much of this dominance works through intimidation qua posturing, rather than overt acts of violence.  So dogs growl and peacocks strut.

This view of power as aggression translates in a pretty straightforward way to thinking about military power.  Clausewitz, the well known military theorist, wrote On War, around the time of Napoleon.  He is known for having said, "War is the continuation of Politik by other means."  With that it, it is again straightforward to extend aggression into the political arena.  The TV show Hardball, on MSNBC, has its name to reflect that politics can be like baseball.  In baseball, sometimes the pitcher throws at the batter, to get the batter to back off the plate.  (Getting beaned, the batter having the baseball hit him in the head, can be quite dangerous.)  That type of pitching is an act of aggression.  There are analogous actions in the political sphere.  (Think about last summer before the Debt Ceiling limit was raised.)

There is a related source of power that you might call Judo, which uses the strength of the other person to achieve your own ends.  One example to illustrate, after the birth of their first child new parents are anxious about the baby's welfare.  The baby, almost helpless but not fully so, can have power over the parents in certain situations.   Can you figure out how that works?  Incidentally, some of my Facebook friends are moms with pre-teen children so I get to see their posts about older kids trying to play the same game and the parents steely resolve (I don't really believe that) not to let the kids do that.

Let me switch gears and talk about power in a collaborative setting.  Though B&D mention it, it's not really their focus.  For my own edification, I'm now reading a rather old book called Creative Experience, by Mary Parker Follett.  It is freely available online (as page images).  Chapter X is on power, and when that is a legitimate concept.   Follett distinguishes between "power over," which is what we've been talking about above, and "power with" which she believes is integrative, accounting for the welfare of all parties and identifying a solution that incorporates their interests.  She distinguishes such solutions from "compromise," which she treats as a type of surrender.  Some of the posts this week were in the spirit of Follett, though in the examples I don't believe the preferences of the participants were opposed.  If we all agree at the outset, then it is not possible to identify from the example who has the power.  By the way, Follett denigrates power over and refers to it as pseudo power, because the solution it generates tends to fracture eventually.  The Arab spring is an obvious example to make her point.  So she views power with as the only true power.

On a normative plane (how things should work) I agree with Follett.  But from a positive perspective (how things actually work) I have to say much of the exercise of power is power over.  It remains prevalent.  Though Follett's book was originally published in 1924, not everyone has learned their lessons from her.  Alternatively, power over can endure quite a while until the fracture happens.  Many of us have a rather short time horizon to consider our behavior, so power over can seem quite effective.