Power vs. Empowerment

Posted on December 7, 2004 in Accountability Liberals & Progressives Reflections

                              …When Moses
broke the sacred tablets on Sinai, the rich

picked the pieces carved with
“adultery” and “kill” and “theft”
the poor got only “No” “No” “No”

— “American Tourist”, Ilya Kaminsky

I’ve touched on this briefly — I’ve been thinking about it a lot in the past month, ever since the election. And I feel that what divides me from far too many people in this swollen nut of a world of ours is that I am not so much interested in power as I am in forming systems which empower everyone.

What distinguishes the power hungry from the empowering types? Here are a few traits that I have seen over time:

• The power-hungry are ready to sell out their principles for a buck. The empowering type, while understanding the need to work to live, will not live to work. There is a fine line between the power-hungry and the fearful who man their organizations.
• The power-hungry cannot admit a mistake. They will go to great lengths to blame anything that goes wrong under their management on someone else. The empowering will readily admit them and move on. However, if a mistake hasn’t been made, the empowering will not apologize just for the sake of appeasing others nor do they expect others to capitulate.
• The power hungry destroy those who cross them. The empowering believe that everyone has a right to her or his opinion.
• The power hungry pass on orders. The empowering seek to persuade.
• The power hungry panic when discussions get long winded. The empowering see discussions and disagreement as a positive sign, that people care about the system.
• When frustrated, the power hungry go to more powerful people to get them to enforce their way. If this fails, they throw temper tantrums. The empowering seek to work it out.
• The power hungry see people are pawns to be used in their grand schemes. The empowering see them as equals who have a voice in setting the direction of the group.

I believe that conservatives as a whole and many so-called liberals are power-hungry. When I see African Americans heedlessly disenfranchised and few white liberals speaking up, I see that the power fixation has corrupted them. If you stand up for African Americans in this culture, you are called racist. When you say that the system needs to have more opportunities for the working class and checks that protect us against the excesses of the old boy/girl network, the power hungry say that you are starting to promote class warfare.

It’s their value system that causes them to misclass you. I have never, for example, hated George Bush with the virulence that some of my associates have. Quite simply, I do not feel he is competent to be president. That some of these same people have accepted the results of the election without question strikes me as a sellout: they are not standing up for people whose skin color or sex or ethnic background is the same as theirs. I can’t say I want to associate with them and if African Americans walk from the Democratic Party because of these repeated sellouts, if these most faithful of Democratic Party voters stay home because so-called liberals capitulate in the face of their disenfranchisement, then what happens to white liberals in the days to come will be well earned. Unfortunately, as a white liberal, I may also be singled out. But I doubt it. The poor in this country will suffer more. And white liberals will continue to merely mock rather than build effective coalitions.