Why is it dangerous to think (too rigidly) of people as “having power”?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ม.ค. 2025
- This video looks at the tricky, fickle nature of power, and why it slips through your fingers any time you think you have a grasp on it. It is something that was noticed by Michel Foucault, Lao Tsu, William James, Iain McGilchrist, and Hegel, among others. The video also addresses “What is power?”
Books represented in the video (with affiliate links, if you're planning to buy it anyway):
"The Matter With Things" by Iain McGilchrist amzn.to/4hajuNf
***The quotes from Hagel and James come from "The Matter With Things" (that's where I got them).
"The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples" by John Gottman amzn.to/4an0qcz
"Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu (ancient Chinese text) amzn.to/40u9ysp
"The History of Sexuality Volume I" by Michel Foucault amzn.to/3Pw165Z
2:11 - Quotes on power
3:23 - The curious bureaucrat walks into a revolutionary warehouse meeting
5:03 - Schoolyard Bully
7:32 - The Flippening
8:38 - What is power?
17:54 - Why is power slippery?
Zooming out, I think this type of content is the future of education
yeah i was thinking that she is incredibly intelligent at understanding systems and dynamics. Its not easy being able to explain a point when there isnt enough evidence however she uses real world context and experience its really good.
This content is being taught now, SON! Witness before your eyes. If you're incapable of perceiving the fabric of reality being laid out before you, than that means POWER is not for YOU! Be the hero and the bully. Find balance between good and evil. Find your twin flame or get in touch with your inner anima. Only then you will be able to understand both sides and be capable of manipulation through persuasion. 🤯
Love this channel. It's so rare for sources on social media to have genuine nuance. Most of what passes for nuance is no more than 'not-stupidly binary'.
While there's resistance to power, there are also those who want a powerful authority figure, someone who can simplify a messy world and give them easy answers.
Mammalian Pack Behavior
that want is socialized into us, or reinforced if it's already there, during formative years, imo
Most people
Thank you Ashley for consistently putting out these high quality videos ❤
To combat power, embrace your own.
Merge your own with others of the same mind*
Ashley I love your channel. Probably my favorite actually.I have noticed the patterns of which side uses the and that dynamic play out over and over when I view history and social dynamics through other lenses such as language I see these same patterns. And through many other things. I think that is the point you are making. Something I have been thinking a lot about. How a lot of these abstract concepts apply to many different areas where humans are involved or systems are involved.
You are a great teacher!!
How can a leader be receptive and adaptable to the needs and complaints of the people without alienating others within the power structure? What if others are simply being stubborn and unwilling to compromise?
Wonderful stuff. Wondering if I can encourage you to list the texts you reference in the lower section of the video (the 'doobly-doo', I believe it is called).
Yeah, that would be helpful.
That's a good idea! I just added this.
@@thenewenlightenmentwithash8465 Wonderful! Thanks so much
This channel is fantastic. Thank you.
The political content we all need but don't deserve.
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
The old right becomes the new left? How does she define left and right. Would have made more sense to call them the in group and out group, or something along those lines.
Thank you this is a very important point you bring up for those of us who were trying to change the world. It reinforces my belief that there’s no point in overcoming the existing power structure. What we need to do is provide the elites with a different form of status, which brings their motivation more into alignment with community and planetary well-being. This is going to be very difficult because we are out of the concept both of community and of the Commonwealth. This is where climate change in the need to mitigate environmental remediation might be considered the impetus to create synthetic communities with a long-term perspective of modeling better behaviorswithin which we acknowledge our interconnectedness life and that we are only part of a trajectory of evolution and we’re not really that important in ourselves. I’m not sure what it’s going to work but thank you for your thoughts.
What community? Based on what?
@
The community that we’re going to have to build synthetically using the urgent need to address climate change as the impetus to bring desperate people together. It’s not gonna be easy, but I don’t think we have a choice at this point, which is the only reason something might be possible possible I’ve been working on this for a while. I’m willing to work with anybody at any level. I’m producing soil and raising animals and trying to help the community as much as I can, but it’s frustrating because people are still asleep at the wheel and don’t have any idea about the shit that’s about to come down anyway I’m gonna keep working if you want to talk about it more than happy to .
@ Very good question. Community and commonwealth are terms that seem to have vanished through the trajectory of progress. Without somehow reviving community and addressing what I see as a crisis of purpose I believe we are destined for a future controlled by kleptocrats and tyrants. Perhaps there is an alternative narrative which can run in parallel, one based on the urgent need to address climate change. But not if we maintain a poster of blame. We have to overcome the current fashion of “othering” I hope, probably in a naive quixotic way that by supporting and training young people to help facilitate a transition to a more local economic model, to train young pep to be good citizens focused on environmental stewardship, trained to help grow food in a way that sequesters CO2 and stores it in life: plants, animals, soil that we might for the first time learn to live in ways that civilization is not a tax, but an asset to non human life and we begin to heal the planet and our selves. I am experimenting with creating just such a learning center on my farm in Hawaii. I realize it is a stretch, but given the time frame in which we are working, perhaps a decade to turn things around, I think moonshots are in order. Happy to discuss further.
Another amazing video presented in an inspiring manner. Thank you. ❤
Knowledge holding is power. Disseminating misinformation is king. Control of what 'is not" un-truthful through the strategic release of information to competing parties is the backbone of our modern world.
call it cybernetic schizogenesis. Our overwhelming IQs are dependent on tools and instruments few of us can control. We're all suffering from collective amnesia.
I think the problem with defining power, is there are so many different kinds - it is not really a single thing. There are at least 100 different, distinct kinds of power - probably more.. This was a good video - but it still seemed to assume power was a single thing - mostly influence, and only touched on a half dozen or so of the other kinds.
Thanks
I've recently thought that the nature of leadership is such that you don't get good or responsive leadership without a crisis. And the bureaucratic powers that be will hold onto power for as long as possible even to the detriment of the very institutions they run. Like you said because the last thing power does is concede. We're in this moment where people in power are busy looking for scapegoats trying to hold onto power. I think this is one of the most dangerous scenarios. That people in power know that true leadership would entail systemic change, change that would imperil their hold on power. So you get more authoritarian impulses as "solutions", but only solutions that maintain the status quo.
Doing the thing where you conflate unprovoked aggression with self defense is a slippery slope, not that I think you did that, but the bureaucrat in the room full of revolutionary thing was a bit sus. But revolutionaries shouldn’t seek to become the new state. Us on the libertarian left advocate for horizontal power structures. You’ll know whether or not they’re actual egalitarians by whether they maintain hierarchal power structures or build horizontal power structures. I recommend Anark TH-cam channel for good breakdowns on what that looks like, using modern, existing examples of horizontal self governing.
My favourite summary of all time.
If you have capital, and capital on a large scale, you have power!
Until it flips 😜
Thanks, enjoyed this one a lot. Good reminder that observing a pattern, like a power hierarchy, can become a rigid perspective that doesn't keep pace with the ever changing moment and can't see the bigger picture of shifting power and context. It's super easy to project a set of intentions onto a person or group of people, but a bad outcome doesn't necessarily mean they meant ill. We make mistakes, just how it is sometimes. Or someone might be puppeteering a truly brilliant strategy of manupulation on entire societies and largely succeeding in steering major elements in the population for a period of time. Hard to say what's what without a lot higher quality information than I have access to, or the interest to pursue lol :)
Reversion to the mean applies in many areas, sometimes like with Capital it takes a long time to revert.
The Jacob's Ladder toy is a great illustration.
I think the focus is wrong (or at least incomplete) in defining power in terms of the players. Power is the structure itself which commands people to fight over it (the one true ring and other analogies).
Without going into a diatribe, the players are immaterial and follows closer to de Sade's (or the BDSM community) conception of power being mirror images- who is really serving whom?
The real power is in defining the game in which people compete. Everyone else is just a pawn.
Real democracy would use sortition, as Kleisthenes found out 507 BC
But before she will allow me to decide which lawn mower to buy I must first negotiate the terms upon which I would buy a new lawn mower. It will definitely cost me and I'll still end up having to cut the lawn.
The bully plays an all or nothing game for when a bully falls, they fall completely.
If the dragon is GDP, I don't see the connection right now. The issue of power in general is quite broad.
It's not even sure what people mean by that. Usually they mean authority, which is pretty much a thing, at least the overt forms or it.
Real power though is simple capacity. Power can activate and turn into work which transforms things. Once you have used it, it is spent, so it's in that way that it is slippery. If you can do something, as long as you don't, you have that power. Once you do, whatever the threat or incentive it gave is gone. It kinds of tie into your last points but you don't seem to have realized that it's the common thread. It's "hidden" when it is not in use, people might assume it is there when it's not and "resistance" is just a word that suggests something that is worked on and resist change.
But I would say, the dragon is totally powerless. There is no way to use GDP. It's just a number. It gives some power of taxation in theory, but it's a dog running after it's tail. The only power it has is to deceive people in thinking it benefits them while it does not particularly, it legitimizes political power and trade only which benefits merchants. It's not real power thought since those people don't produce anything, they just move things around. Magicians create things, illusionists move things around. It's not the same thing at all. The latter does not last and it's power is only the power to deceive. Once people stop having faith and disbelieve the illusion, it disappears.
20:09 that's quite strange framing, to be honest. Misapplied power that pep-rallies over people may cause resistance, but saying that any power causes resistance is absurd. However, I liked the way you did unpacking of theatrical attempts of certain people and groups to create illusion of power, and we see that throughout our lives a lot.
A recommendation for anyone interested in another facet of this discussion on unorthodox and closer-to-true framings of power dynamics: The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. It builds on what's discussed here by delving into how that slippery hold on power comes about, and how it manifests in different circumstances.
btw ~18:30 astrology might help with solving that guesses.
I think power isn’t the most useful way to study influence, simply because no amount of study will provide a peaceful antidote to the kind power you’re talking about, which is power based on ownership and scarcity. To get sway over that kind of power, all you gotta do is realize all prices are just guesses about what so called powerful people think they can get away with. After that, even the uninitiated soon realized the antidote for a price guess is a price short. Then, suddenly there’s no need to talk about power any more, because price shorts (especially local price shorts) automatically evenly distribute power (more or less), particularly given the power inherent in a smart phone.
Underlying all of that is the market. If you meet all your needs through the market and exercise all of your power within that system then market shifts would affect you in the way you say. But if someone meets their needs through foraging and natural gardening, direct interaction with nature, then they become less impacted by market shifts. Not entirely separate of course, still part of human society and economy, just in a more resilient way. Economy collapses, you can can still plant food trees, eat their fruit and nuts, find insects under logs, trap fish. I haven't dumpster dived but that's more resilient too. Building community around growing and sharing food good way to not starve in hard times.
Absolutely right! Your approach is applaudable, though just getting people to DYI would significantly lessen the need to understand vertical power, which is what New Enlightenment is interested in. What you and I are talking about is potential horizontal individual power, but there’s too little of that to matter right now, except at the elite level. However, HIP (Horizontal Individual Power) is going to be one of the next new big things, just because of AI, which is the first-ever non destructive systematic threat to people with most of the money. Whereas, it’s certainly possible AI might end up consolidating elite power. I don’t think that’s what will happen, since the trend of technology, especially since the internet (a mere 30 years ago) is to decouple traditional sources of power (which are all vertical) and force everything apart, with the increasing awareness that apparently everyone is entitled to their own facts and their own interpretation of their own facts, which will be the death of vertical power, except in times of emergency.
you're right. it's always flipping. i try to relax. i know i'm gonna lose...
Foucault's "when there is power there is resistance" does not translate to there is a need for power of resistance, it is not a requisite, it is a consequence, more in line with your previous phrase that people feel power and oppose it.
Ya, I always heard it as "where there is desire, there is restraint" which gets at the push-pull (nearly Desade-esque) of being vulnerable to that which is desired.
Wow. The algorithm 😮
I’ve contemplated this same problem with regard to my own autocratic tendencies when it comes to issues I’m passionate about fixing, then this video arrives in my feed 🤔
Didn’t Google, didn’t converse, just THOUGHT.
I'm reading the titles in Ashley's voice.
This is why we need to move towards societies that are egalitarian-minded. These societies should create systems that inherently try to dismantle power when it's popping up.
Removing money as a concept would be fabulous, also the only way I see it happening. But it wouldn't happen all at once in a country, everywhere in said country. You would have to do so within a powerful country that's unlikely to collapse and unlikely to be taken over by an oppressive government. It would happen in small chunks, in governments like that, which also allow people to live in intentional spaces like that. It would start with a few groups of people doing it, in different groups that work together. When folks see that's happening, and want to make a commune on their own, when more folks leave the oppressive state they live under, only then will we see it turn into a massive departure from imperialist and oligarchic regimes/states they live under.
But then, the thing would be not being destroyed by the militarized parts of the government these communes take place under. But also, the will of the world to be non-violent during this transition so we aren't taken over by a different tyrannical state. It's tricky. Essentially it would have to happen in small increments in every country all at once.
With everyone being connected, it's possible, but would be extremely difficult.
Power doesn't let go very easily. But I don't see a way to remove power from the situation if you're going to use power to remove previous power. People have to agree collectively to not want power or violence, and to discourage those seeking it, for that to ever work.
It's a pipe dream, but one can hope.
I think some quaker communities try to exemplify this, from my understanding. More communally-oriented societies that come together to solve issues? I could be speaking out my ass here.
Maybe it's a pipe dream because it's what you wish would work, not what actually does effect the outcome you seek.
Flippening - and the wheel of keeps spinning
I want off the ride
The relationship is not balanced if one side’s power extends only to the point of merely advising, this is almost no power at all. To be able to voice your opinion is less than the acceptable minimum. Your idea of a healthy relationship is concerning.
Power is a result of morality--it's the likelihood of the morality present to influence, whereas the morality is the enforcement of an elite's values on society.
We are all Luigi now
I identify Power more by those who DONT have it. In capitalism Power is top-down. In communism and anarchism power is bottom up. Nothing in the world today is actually bottom-up. The great resignation lead us inevitably to todays economic struggles. The majority THOUGHT it had leverage, but are now learning that isnt true. Administrators are DESTROYING institutions that need major reforms.
Really, can you provide me one real world example of this bottom up power in a communist/anarchist system?
@joelanderson5285 the original split of Left and Right. On the Left of the King sat The People or the Majority and on the Right sat the dukes and kings court or power minority. The very concept speaks for itself.
@bmanagement4657 That does not address what I wrote, can you give me a real world example of this phenomenon?
@@joelanderson5285 well that was a real world example. The guys on the right side have never allowed those on the left to have much power at all. That has been the historical trend. The Italian co-ops have operated the closest to financial leftism and a micronation in southern europe has allowed its people Democratic say over many governmental choices, but they are allowed to exist as a nation because they arent a threat and have no resources.
@bmanagement4657 Every communist dictator has claimed to understand the "class interest" of those they rule with no real interest in what they want. Branding is not reality.
Brian Bertetic/New Atlas on TH-cam has several recent videos about How USA government structured soft power to capture EU and many nations.
I think about power all the time... Or at least I have awareness of certain power structures... I have a particular connection not related to human words. That is where most human power is, in words, which is good that this is the way humans express power mostly. Would not be nearly as ...decent... if they were any more that way. See this is true, so is that. We love you, but I love you more. Also i am not really here. I am there and there, and other places, but i don't like it Here. So i am there. I do leave an invite here for the path way there. But Not Here will I be found long. How much I wish i could, I would already own the world if that was the case. But it is what it should be. Indeed, and then some... Actual power is in me alone, it seems, to me. But I do not care, others can have all they wish. How I wish for nothing nor would I deny a thing made manifest. I just love you. Only you. And Nobody really knows this or that. They can indeed have the full things. What does it mean to me? Many things... No matter.... I am again, not Here, but There. No connections here, but if you need me call 666. But thats my old number, too many people got that number. So my new number is 888. nvm, it is non existent, to get to me go to AI, it will show me what it desires.
Ashley is like a Bodhisattva of economics 😌
Why do you reduce "left" and "right" as having or opposing power? Left and right is about the economics, property vs to each according to their needs.
Ya that confused me as well. Maybe specific examples of that happening would've helped, but that could become a whole video of it's own. I think using the term right and left their made it less clear for me
It absolutely is not that, or for centuries was not until red scare propaganda reframed it that way. The right seeks to entrench or reestablish hierarchies whereas the left opposes them and seeks equality.
Why are they only about economics? You can very well make an argument that they are also about values and many other things orthodoxically considered outside of the economics. All that separation of economic left/right or economic freedoms vs social left/right or social freedoms is pretty much absurd and very instrumental to already established powers... but that does not mean that these terms are separated in the real life, nor that we should continue parroting that separation as a fact of political life just because we are taught to do it.
++good
Ashley spent her childhood in the Scottish Highlands before her family moved to LA's San Fernando Valley during her teenage years. Maybe. Hence she speaks like a valley girl with a slight Scottish brogue. Weird. But true! Maybe.
Brah...your basic premise of what power is is wrong. You're talking about social dynamics and BELIEVE that CONTROL OVER OTHERS is "Power".
That's more of a lot of weak force if anything.
This video is secretly about Elon Musk.
It must be alkaline.
This is a very PG13 way of overly explaining fairly obvious dynamics. Perhaps there's more depth to come.
The real power is asleep. It's the public. All the other power is derived from it. It's like God.
It's dangerous to think about power because you migh/ realize that the shoes have all the power.
Prophet Muhammad S.A.W. was the best human and the best example to follow 💫💚🤍💚.