What is the difference between power and control?
Showing posts with label Power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Power and Strength
A long time ago, when I was still in the Army, I got to talking with some of my fellow officers, and we soon wound up discussing terrorism. Someone claimed that the Russians were extremely tough on terrorists, that (for example) if you commit a terrorist act they will go after you and your entire family.
I have absolutely no idea if this is true or not, but I brought it up because it captures certain... how should I put it?
Beliefs?
Misconceptions?
Glamorizations?
There's numerous subtext going on here, and some of the subtext has been going on for a looooong time.
There's the belief that brute force is a sign of strength, that we're too 'soft', 'effeminate', etc... and so there's a bit of admiration there, for those hard-a$$es willing to brutally harm entire families in pursuit of their goals. (I said this has been going on for a long time, 'cause I remember reading something on Roman history, and this perception that they were growing 'soft' and 'weak', and it was strange to realization the whole notion of that civilization weakens men has been around for a very long time. Ummm, that's not how it's really put, but I can't remember the exact wording right now and I don't want to stop writing in order to figure it out.)
Sort of like a common 'myth' I heard growing up, where 'tough on crime' people seemed to admire Middle Eastern governments where thieves could have a hand cut off.
The Russian one bothered me, though, because I do what I normally do. I think about what I'd think/feel/etc if I was in that position.
Let's say I was a relative of someone who joined a group intending to commit a terrorist act, and the Russians found out and punished the entire family. If that were my sister or brother, well, if they truly took it out on the family I'd probably be dead. So let's say it was a cousin, and the Russians arrested and/or killed my aunt, uncle, and two or three of my cousins.
I would probably be furious (and scared), because I'd know that four or five of those people were absolutely no threat, completely innocent. And given what I know of human behavior, 9/10 would probably be cowed enough to just keep their heads down and say nothing (even though they'd probably hate the perpetrators, the harsh response would keep them from taking too many risks)... but that tenth person?
That tenth person is going to be passionately motivated, they're going to hate, and they're going to be even more of a threat then whoever or whatever got caught up in revolutionary fervor in the first place.
(As usual, take this with a grain of salt. I have no hard and fast statistics on whether it's truly 1/10. It's just a rule of thumb used to make a point... )
In other words, that harsh show of power may temporarily solve a problem, but it sows the seeds for further problems somewhere down the line. It also sort of sucks you in, in that once you start responding like that the solution to further problems often appears to be even more brutality, which also breeds even more anger and resentment, and determined opposition, and so there's a constant undercurrent of unrest that just takes the right (or wrong) circumstances to break through.
Same thing with people's admiration for those lone rulers... kings, presidents, dictators, what-have-you. There's an appealing simplicity to being able to just say "make it so", and have everyone obey. Not that, historically, it ever really worked like that... kings always had to deal with factions (whether it's powerful nobles willing to take over at the slightest sign of weakness, or guilds, or whatever), but the myth and the glamour and the appeal is to be the person who has enough power that they can just speak a command and everyone will jump to make it happen.
I know from my own experiences leading people that it can get very exhausting trying to get people on board with whatever it is you're trying to do. It's hard to be patient when they have questions (and more questions, and more questions)... and, of course, some of them are just asking questions to drag things out so they don't have to go to work any sooner. But dealing with that is just part of the job, and if you don't like it... if you're tempted to just bulldoze over all of it, and take it as opposition (when many of them really do have legitimate questions, and will work harder/better if you answer them) then you probably shouldn't be in a leadership position, tbqh.
I understand how, especially in times of turmoil, people think a strong leader can somehow help provide some sort of stability. It's part of why it's no coincidence that Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan during the English Civil War (and the challenges/problems with that are something I covered a long time ago, so maybe I'll post a refresher some time in the future). It's also part of why Saddam Hussein's brutal rule starting looking better and better as the situation in Iraq degenerated further.
It goes hand in hand with the way people seem to have an entirely different standard by which they judge the movers and shakers of an era. I don't know how much of that is the whole "he may be a bastard, but he's our bastard" sort of sentiment, vs how much is tied to the belief that 'good guys never win', wherein we think anyone trying to do the 'right' thing is going to lose to the bastards out there willing to play dirty.
I've been thinking a bit about that, actually. Thinking about Cardinal Richelieu, the famous French statesman. (Okay, and a clergyman... but this was back where it was common to encourage the sons who couldn't inherit to join the church, and often they gained political power... and from an outsider's perspective many seemed a bit more worldly than one would expect in today's day and age.)
He's the one who realized that a unified Germany could threaten French superiority on the continent, and played the political game 'well' in order to ensure his country dominated.
I say 'well', because after two bloody world wars France and Germany are now allies, and iirc Germany followed the French lead... though those sorts of things can always change at a moment's notice, and I'm not sure if that's currently true any more. Still, I have to wonder... could they have achieved that state sooner if Cardinal Richelieu hadn't been afraid, and had instead tried to encourage and develop Germany sooner? (And could we have avoided those two bloody world wars in the process?)
It's like... 'divide and conquer' is famous for a reason, and it's not an uncommon strategy when someone's afraid of the strength of another.
But... when I think of my own experiences, when I think of the things that give me warm feelings, a sense of loyalty, and the desire to work for someone...
Such strategies don't make sense at all. There's a genuine joy in helping someone achieve their full potential, and most of the people who receive such support feel the same way. There's a sense of connection, and it tends to build trust, and loyalty, and other things.
And there's the flipside, the anger and resentment when that doesn't happen. When people seem afraid of your potential to outshine them, and so sabotage your attempts to succeed. Or the way people start thinking selfishly when they see you're doing so, the way so many people now are willing to hop jobs... as corporations have proven over and over again that they don't really care about you.
Some time ago, I read a book that discussed the Soviet Union's spying efforts... it might have been The Sword and the Shield? It's interesting, because it gave me the impression that the United States had been losing the spying war... over and over again the Soviets appeared to do a better job of finding our spies than we did theirs. And yet...
And yet, the Soviet Union is the one that fell apart.
In some ways, I think too much focus on brute strength makes a nation (or organization) somewhat brittle. After all, there's all sorts of different ways to show power. (I know, I know... people talk about 'soft' power all the time, and maybe they even have a definition for what they mean by it.)
A baby has power - whether it's humans, or kittens, or puppies, or any other young animal. Their helplessness, the larger head/eyes of childhood, all of these tend to make people want to help. And people will go above and beyond to help babies.
That person you admire, who's opinion you seek out? They have power... and if it's in a specific area, like advice on fixing your car or repairing a wall, they have expert power, though that power probably doesn't just come from expertise... you may know someone who's just as much of an expert who's an a-hole, and you'd only go to them as a last resort.
There's a lot more to building a strong nation than brute force... and part of what struck me about the Soviet attempts at spying was that they had a culture where people were afraid to stand out. If you stood out too much, you got into trouble... so better to pretend to be a little dumber, a little less capable. Be just like everyone else.
It's hard to measure what sort of impact that can have, of course, but I think any organization that has such toxic disincentives is going to be at a disadvantage against the organizations that nurture and celebrate talent.
I feel like this post switched gears rather rapidly, but I'm about done typing for the day, so I'll just summarize the main point -
Don't think that harsh brutality and/or a willingness to ignore social norms about what's 'good' necessarily means someone is strong, or even powerful.
I have absolutely no idea if this is true or not, but I brought it up because it captures certain... how should I put it?
Beliefs?
Misconceptions?
Glamorizations?
There's numerous subtext going on here, and some of the subtext has been going on for a looooong time.
There's the belief that brute force is a sign of strength, that we're too 'soft', 'effeminate', etc... and so there's a bit of admiration there, for those hard-a$$es willing to brutally harm entire families in pursuit of their goals. (I said this has been going on for a long time, 'cause I remember reading something on Roman history, and this perception that they were growing 'soft' and 'weak', and it was strange to realization the whole notion of that civilization weakens men has been around for a very long time. Ummm, that's not how it's really put, but I can't remember the exact wording right now and I don't want to stop writing in order to figure it out.)
Sort of like a common 'myth' I heard growing up, where 'tough on crime' people seemed to admire Middle Eastern governments where thieves could have a hand cut off.
The Russian one bothered me, though, because I do what I normally do. I think about what I'd think/feel/etc if I was in that position.
Let's say I was a relative of someone who joined a group intending to commit a terrorist act, and the Russians found out and punished the entire family. If that were my sister or brother, well, if they truly took it out on the family I'd probably be dead. So let's say it was a cousin, and the Russians arrested and/or killed my aunt, uncle, and two or three of my cousins.
I would probably be furious (and scared), because I'd know that four or five of those people were absolutely no threat, completely innocent. And given what I know of human behavior, 9/10 would probably be cowed enough to just keep their heads down and say nothing (even though they'd probably hate the perpetrators, the harsh response would keep them from taking too many risks)... but that tenth person?
That tenth person is going to be passionately motivated, they're going to hate, and they're going to be even more of a threat then whoever or whatever got caught up in revolutionary fervor in the first place.
(As usual, take this with a grain of salt. I have no hard and fast statistics on whether it's truly 1/10. It's just a rule of thumb used to make a point... )
In other words, that harsh show of power may temporarily solve a problem, but it sows the seeds for further problems somewhere down the line. It also sort of sucks you in, in that once you start responding like that the solution to further problems often appears to be even more brutality, which also breeds even more anger and resentment, and determined opposition, and so there's a constant undercurrent of unrest that just takes the right (or wrong) circumstances to break through.
Same thing with people's admiration for those lone rulers... kings, presidents, dictators, what-have-you. There's an appealing simplicity to being able to just say "make it so", and have everyone obey. Not that, historically, it ever really worked like that... kings always had to deal with factions (whether it's powerful nobles willing to take over at the slightest sign of weakness, or guilds, or whatever), but the myth and the glamour and the appeal is to be the person who has enough power that they can just speak a command and everyone will jump to make it happen.
I know from my own experiences leading people that it can get very exhausting trying to get people on board with whatever it is you're trying to do. It's hard to be patient when they have questions (and more questions, and more questions)... and, of course, some of them are just asking questions to drag things out so they don't have to go to work any sooner. But dealing with that is just part of the job, and if you don't like it... if you're tempted to just bulldoze over all of it, and take it as opposition (when many of them really do have legitimate questions, and will work harder/better if you answer them) then you probably shouldn't be in a leadership position, tbqh.
I understand how, especially in times of turmoil, people think a strong leader can somehow help provide some sort of stability. It's part of why it's no coincidence that Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan during the English Civil War (and the challenges/problems with that are something I covered a long time ago, so maybe I'll post a refresher some time in the future). It's also part of why Saddam Hussein's brutal rule starting looking better and better as the situation in Iraq degenerated further.
It goes hand in hand with the way people seem to have an entirely different standard by which they judge the movers and shakers of an era. I don't know how much of that is the whole "he may be a bastard, but he's our bastard" sort of sentiment, vs how much is tied to the belief that 'good guys never win', wherein we think anyone trying to do the 'right' thing is going to lose to the bastards out there willing to play dirty.
I've been thinking a bit about that, actually. Thinking about Cardinal Richelieu, the famous French statesman. (Okay, and a clergyman... but this was back where it was common to encourage the sons who couldn't inherit to join the church, and often they gained political power... and from an outsider's perspective many seemed a bit more worldly than one would expect in today's day and age.)
He's the one who realized that a unified Germany could threaten French superiority on the continent, and played the political game 'well' in order to ensure his country dominated.
I say 'well', because after two bloody world wars France and Germany are now allies, and iirc Germany followed the French lead... though those sorts of things can always change at a moment's notice, and I'm not sure if that's currently true any more. Still, I have to wonder... could they have achieved that state sooner if Cardinal Richelieu hadn't been afraid, and had instead tried to encourage and develop Germany sooner? (And could we have avoided those two bloody world wars in the process?)
It's like... 'divide and conquer' is famous for a reason, and it's not an uncommon strategy when someone's afraid of the strength of another.
But... when I think of my own experiences, when I think of the things that give me warm feelings, a sense of loyalty, and the desire to work for someone...
Such strategies don't make sense at all. There's a genuine joy in helping someone achieve their full potential, and most of the people who receive such support feel the same way. There's a sense of connection, and it tends to build trust, and loyalty, and other things.
And there's the flipside, the anger and resentment when that doesn't happen. When people seem afraid of your potential to outshine them, and so sabotage your attempts to succeed. Or the way people start thinking selfishly when they see you're doing so, the way so many people now are willing to hop jobs... as corporations have proven over and over again that they don't really care about you.
Some time ago, I read a book that discussed the Soviet Union's spying efforts... it might have been The Sword and the Shield? It's interesting, because it gave me the impression that the United States had been losing the spying war... over and over again the Soviets appeared to do a better job of finding our spies than we did theirs. And yet...
And yet, the Soviet Union is the one that fell apart.
In some ways, I think too much focus on brute strength makes a nation (or organization) somewhat brittle. After all, there's all sorts of different ways to show power. (I know, I know... people talk about 'soft' power all the time, and maybe they even have a definition for what they mean by it.)
A baby has power - whether it's humans, or kittens, or puppies, or any other young animal. Their helplessness, the larger head/eyes of childhood, all of these tend to make people want to help. And people will go above and beyond to help babies.
That person you admire, who's opinion you seek out? They have power... and if it's in a specific area, like advice on fixing your car or repairing a wall, they have expert power, though that power probably doesn't just come from expertise... you may know someone who's just as much of an expert who's an a-hole, and you'd only go to them as a last resort.
There's a lot more to building a strong nation than brute force... and part of what struck me about the Soviet attempts at spying was that they had a culture where people were afraid to stand out. If you stood out too much, you got into trouble... so better to pretend to be a little dumber, a little less capable. Be just like everyone else.
It's hard to measure what sort of impact that can have, of course, but I think any organization that has such toxic disincentives is going to be at a disadvantage against the organizations that nurture and celebrate talent.
I feel like this post switched gears rather rapidly, but I'm about done typing for the day, so I'll just summarize the main point -
Don't think that harsh brutality and/or a willingness to ignore social norms about what's 'good' necessarily means someone is strong, or even powerful.
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Shounen Manga
With Japanese manga, they are generally categorized by who their target market is. Shounen manga, for example, is targeted at young teenaged boys and tends to involve coming-of-age stories with a lot of action. Shoujo manga is targeted at teenage girls, and tends to have a lot of high school drama, particularly romance.
I find it interesting that I'm mostly drawn to shounen stories (Naruto, Bleach, My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man ) and only occasionally stray into shoujo (Ouran High School Host Club, Fruits Basket).
I like the character development in shounen stories, I like the typical blend of action and comedy, and I like that there are often deeper underlying themes (Naruto has a number of them, though not all were developed as well as others - hard work vs. genius, how to make peace when all everyone knows is fighting, etc. My Hero Academia gets into what it takes to be a hero, as well as some interesting insurgency/counterinsurgency plots, and so on and a so forth.) I could do without most of the fanservice, and too much of it actually turns me off of the story... I couldn't really get into Seven Deadly Sins because I kept wondering why the girl put up with so much inappropriate behavior, but whatever.
But I also have some questions about the underlying messages conveyed to the target audience of young, teenage boys. Like, on the one hand I appreciate messages like 'work hard and keep trying'. I mostly think those are good messages. I sort of like how My Hero Academia shows the sort of dedication it takes to be the top hero, and also shows some of the darker sides of that sort of competition (the Number Two Hero's character, and how his pursuit of the top rank affected his relationship with his family is particularly interesting in this regard).
But there are times, as well, when I appreciate these stories make me really appreciate the fact that I'm a girl. Currently I've been watching/reading Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, which has some cool martial arts stuff. There's a lot to unpack in the story, though it's weak in some parts and has some messaging I don't actually agree with.
The one that got me writing today has to do with power, and strength, and what people do with that. That is, the main character in Kenichi was getting bullied at school and decided to stop accepting it, so he's training in martial arts. But winning a fight against one bully made others take notice of him, so that he kept getting sucked into fights against more and more skilled opponents. He wants to get stronger in part because he's realized that bullies aren't going to stop bullying unless you're strong enough to stand up to them, that you can tell them it's wrong all you want... but without the strength to back it up nothing will change.
It reminds me of international relations and realism, tbh.
There is some truth to that sentiment, I think. Hans Morgenthau's classical realism makes sense to me, in a way.
But there's more to it than that. (Again, I have a lot to unpack and I'm not really sure how much I'll be able to cover everything here).
First - organized cooperation beats any one person's strength. Sure, one good martial artist can take on multiple opponents, but there really is a time where even the most magnificently skilled individual will lose. This is especially true when you put in guns and modern weaposn.
This is the way armies work, after all. This is why discipline is so prized in the military. It's kind of boring, it's not nearly as dramatic as individual heroes, but a phalanx in formation can defeat a lone swordsman, and so on and so forth. (I can get into some interesting topics on that some other time, as it also relates to the growth of bureaucracy, that dreaded red tape, and some other things.)
I enjoy shounen stories, but I'm also glad I live in a world where I, personally, don't have to get into those sorts of fights. Really, the vast majority of us don't. The fact that so many people are able to peacefully get fat and out of shape is a sign of strength, it shows that we don't live in a society where you have to be physically strong in order to feel safe and secure. (I can unpack that a lot more too, but I don't feel like going on that tangent right now.)
Shifting gears to apocalyptic movies for a moment - the fantasy is that disaster strikes and you can become the hero of the day, kicking ass and taking names. Civilization dies, it becomes a wild world of open competition, and you're able to compete in a way modern society frowns upon... and the fantasy is that you will win. Tbh, if any of those events happened for real I know where I would most likely be - dead. Like trips to a Holocaust museum as a kid, where they hand out the piece of paper showing your likely fate... statistically making it match what happened. The vast majority die, and you only hear/read about the ones who don't because they survived.
I can enjoy those sorts of stories while fully acknowledging that I don't really want to live in such a world, because I'm probably not going to be the 'Number One Hero', or 'Hokage', or whatever.
So many of the villains seem motivated to show how 'fragile' concepts like justice or peace is, and yet I find that a boring motivation because peace has always been fragile. I mean, Edgar Rice Burroughs touches on this with his Tarzan books, racist though they were. He's basically pointing out that when you strip away civilization Tarzan (and others) easily become the animals we are underneath. Hell, you see that when you deploy with the military... how fragile social norms truly are.
Kenichi has this great little bit where his opponent wants him to join his organization, and Kenichi asks what the point of doing so is. Okay, so you get stronger... then what? Okay, you're strongest... what are you going to do with that power? What world will you create with the strength that you have?
In the back of my head, I recall a random tidbit from somewhere, where it described a young schoolkid who was impressive mostly because of the maturity he showed when it came to wielding his power/influence among his peers. So much of that middle school/high school drama is, in part, from people not knowing how to do that well.
'Well', I suppose, depends on your personal take on that, though.
Do you want to grow strong, do you want power and influence, so that you can lord it over everyone else? Got sick of being lorded over, so you're going to do what it takes to make sure you're on top... and then do the very things to everyone else that motivated you to get stronger in the first place? (I can sort of follow that logic, though I don't really agree with it. Just perpetuates the cycle pointlessly, to my mind. But I get that, if you buy into that way of thinking, then you start feeling like it's okay to oppress anyone weaker than you because might = right.)
We frown on the concept of warlords, consider past history brutal whenever we entered an era where physical force decided who was right, looked badly on Saddam Hussein and all the other wannabe dictators... and so it's worth asking how we got away from that. What parts of society allow us to live in a world where might doesn't equal right? And why do we value that so much, in the first place?
I don't have a solid answer, though I've got some initial thoughts. Why we value it, well... we all are weak sometimes. Whether it's because we're young, or old, or sick... every single person will be weak at some point in their life. The whole 'might = right, strength and power allow you to lord it over everyone else' mindset creates a world where the majority of people are constantly miserable. Even if you are lucky enough to make it to the top for a time, it won't last. Putting in social conventions that mitigate such a brutal world make everyone happier, ultimately. (But it doesn't satisfy that desire to prove yourself and compete, which is probably part of why we sometimes resent it.)
Which is why there are always at least a few people who grow strong in order to change that mentality. The 'heroes' in most shounen. The ones who fight to protect, or save. The ones who try to stop villains so that ordinary, every day (weak, sometimes stupid) people can live their lives without having to worry about such threats.
Spiderman's notion that 'with great power comes great responsibility.'
Of course, such strength isn't always physical. Often times isn't, actually. Since groups can beat individuals, leaders that can organize a group can often beat a single physically strong opponent. (Kenichi sort of gets into this, since his 'very bad friend' is horribly weak and somehow manages to lead an organization... in an unethical way.)
But... leadership is a two way street. People choose who they follow, and who they choose gives strength to that leader's worldview, allowing them to shape the every day world we live in. (Samurai Champloo had an interesting episode that sort of covered this. A 'good' yakuzu leader in a town was being challenged by a more malicious one, and the 'good' leader lost supporters who went over to the more apparently strong one. The 'good' leader never really changed his way of thinking, and ultimately didn't win on a personal level, but his way of leading inspired one of his former subordinates to change sides, so in a way it ultimately led to a 'win'.)
We are often easily taken by the notion that 'strength' is someone like Putin or Trump, and people who want to be on the winning side will follow that sort of 'strength'. But I think it's more important to ask yourself what sort of world that person is creating, and to follow the leaders who create the kind of world you want to live in.
I suppose that's my true grief with Trump, tbh. I don't like the world he's creating. I don't like the way he uses his power and influence. So I would rather do my part by supporting another type of leader.
Anyways. In a somewhat similar vein, the grief I have with the ultra-rich is that they are in positions of power and influence, they have resources to do things I can only dream of doing - and yet most of them are, well... to be fair just ordinary human beings trying to live their lives the best they can... but the result is that far too many of them don't use that power/influence in a knowledgeable way to consciously shape the world for the better. (Ugh, that sentence doesn't capture what I mean very well, but it's the best I can do without writing a whole other page... and this has gone on long enough already.)
All that potential to shape the world, and so few with any real idea of how to use it.
What a waste.
(Sucks to add more after what seems like a good stopping point, but I felt the need for this: I don't actually know enough wealthy people to say that they have no real idea how to use their power, and many do try to influence the world. It just seems to me that most of their attempts are in... let's just say conventional ways. It's part of why we seem to live in a world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Like a martial artist who gets strong in order to do what they want without repercussion.
Some do appear to be using their resources to make a difference, and I don't really want to dismiss things like Bill Gates and his efforts against malaria. I've always thought, though, that if I had the resources I'd try to test out a few specific ideas - one, finding 'tipping points' where the right resources can really help a community save itself, i.e. empowering people to find their own solutions, using results-based techniques to adjust as needed for success - and two, see how long term engagement on a local level can lead to larger changes on a national level. I dunno, when you've got people like Harris Rosen showing how much of a difference one wealthy individual can make to a particular community the idea that some wealthy person feels like writing a large check to their charity-of-choice is enough feels somehow... uncreative. Especially since so much philanthropy is used either to - perhaps not knowingly - support your own self-interest like the Koch brothers or to virtue-signal. It's just something to help you feel good about yourself without necessarily being involved enough to make a difference. And whew, there's a lot to unpack with that statement, too. But I'm tired of writing this post, so maybe another time.)
I find it interesting that I'm mostly drawn to shounen stories (Naruto, Bleach, My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man ) and only occasionally stray into shoujo (Ouran High School Host Club, Fruits Basket).
I like the character development in shounen stories, I like the typical blend of action and comedy, and I like that there are often deeper underlying themes (Naruto has a number of them, though not all were developed as well as others - hard work vs. genius, how to make peace when all everyone knows is fighting, etc. My Hero Academia gets into what it takes to be a hero, as well as some interesting insurgency/counterinsurgency plots, and so on and a so forth.) I could do without most of the fanservice, and too much of it actually turns me off of the story... I couldn't really get into Seven Deadly Sins because I kept wondering why the girl put up with so much inappropriate behavior, but whatever.
But I also have some questions about the underlying messages conveyed to the target audience of young, teenage boys. Like, on the one hand I appreciate messages like 'work hard and keep trying'. I mostly think those are good messages. I sort of like how My Hero Academia shows the sort of dedication it takes to be the top hero, and also shows some of the darker sides of that sort of competition (the Number Two Hero's character, and how his pursuit of the top rank affected his relationship with his family is particularly interesting in this regard).
But there are times, as well, when I appreciate these stories make me really appreciate the fact that I'm a girl. Currently I've been watching/reading Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, which has some cool martial arts stuff. There's a lot to unpack in the story, though it's weak in some parts and has some messaging I don't actually agree with.
The one that got me writing today has to do with power, and strength, and what people do with that. That is, the main character in Kenichi was getting bullied at school and decided to stop accepting it, so he's training in martial arts. But winning a fight against one bully made others take notice of him, so that he kept getting sucked into fights against more and more skilled opponents. He wants to get stronger in part because he's realized that bullies aren't going to stop bullying unless you're strong enough to stand up to them, that you can tell them it's wrong all you want... but without the strength to back it up nothing will change.
It reminds me of international relations and realism, tbh.
There is some truth to that sentiment, I think. Hans Morgenthau's classical realism makes sense to me, in a way.
But there's more to it than that. (Again, I have a lot to unpack and I'm not really sure how much I'll be able to cover everything here).
First - organized cooperation beats any one person's strength. Sure, one good martial artist can take on multiple opponents, but there really is a time where even the most magnificently skilled individual will lose. This is especially true when you put in guns and modern weaposn.
This is the way armies work, after all. This is why discipline is so prized in the military. It's kind of boring, it's not nearly as dramatic as individual heroes, but a phalanx in formation can defeat a lone swordsman, and so on and so forth. (I can get into some interesting topics on that some other time, as it also relates to the growth of bureaucracy, that dreaded red tape, and some other things.)
I enjoy shounen stories, but I'm also glad I live in a world where I, personally, don't have to get into those sorts of fights. Really, the vast majority of us don't. The fact that so many people are able to peacefully get fat and out of shape is a sign of strength, it shows that we don't live in a society where you have to be physically strong in order to feel safe and secure. (I can unpack that a lot more too, but I don't feel like going on that tangent right now.)
Shifting gears to apocalyptic movies for a moment - the fantasy is that disaster strikes and you can become the hero of the day, kicking ass and taking names. Civilization dies, it becomes a wild world of open competition, and you're able to compete in a way modern society frowns upon... and the fantasy is that you will win. Tbh, if any of those events happened for real I know where I would most likely be - dead. Like trips to a Holocaust museum as a kid, where they hand out the piece of paper showing your likely fate... statistically making it match what happened. The vast majority die, and you only hear/read about the ones who don't because they survived.
I can enjoy those sorts of stories while fully acknowledging that I don't really want to live in such a world, because I'm probably not going to be the 'Number One Hero', or 'Hokage', or whatever.
So many of the villains seem motivated to show how 'fragile' concepts like justice or peace is, and yet I find that a boring motivation because peace has always been fragile. I mean, Edgar Rice Burroughs touches on this with his Tarzan books, racist though they were. He's basically pointing out that when you strip away civilization Tarzan (and others) easily become the animals we are underneath. Hell, you see that when you deploy with the military... how fragile social norms truly are.
Kenichi has this great little bit where his opponent wants him to join his organization, and Kenichi asks what the point of doing so is. Okay, so you get stronger... then what? Okay, you're strongest... what are you going to do with that power? What world will you create with the strength that you have?
In the back of my head, I recall a random tidbit from somewhere, where it described a young schoolkid who was impressive mostly because of the maturity he showed when it came to wielding his power/influence among his peers. So much of that middle school/high school drama is, in part, from people not knowing how to do that well.
'Well', I suppose, depends on your personal take on that, though.
Do you want to grow strong, do you want power and influence, so that you can lord it over everyone else? Got sick of being lorded over, so you're going to do what it takes to make sure you're on top... and then do the very things to everyone else that motivated you to get stronger in the first place? (I can sort of follow that logic, though I don't really agree with it. Just perpetuates the cycle pointlessly, to my mind. But I get that, if you buy into that way of thinking, then you start feeling like it's okay to oppress anyone weaker than you because might = right.)
We frown on the concept of warlords, consider past history brutal whenever we entered an era where physical force decided who was right, looked badly on Saddam Hussein and all the other wannabe dictators... and so it's worth asking how we got away from that. What parts of society allow us to live in a world where might doesn't equal right? And why do we value that so much, in the first place?
I don't have a solid answer, though I've got some initial thoughts. Why we value it, well... we all are weak sometimes. Whether it's because we're young, or old, or sick... every single person will be weak at some point in their life. The whole 'might = right, strength and power allow you to lord it over everyone else' mindset creates a world where the majority of people are constantly miserable. Even if you are lucky enough to make it to the top for a time, it won't last. Putting in social conventions that mitigate such a brutal world make everyone happier, ultimately. (But it doesn't satisfy that desire to prove yourself and compete, which is probably part of why we sometimes resent it.)
Which is why there are always at least a few people who grow strong in order to change that mentality. The 'heroes' in most shounen. The ones who fight to protect, or save. The ones who try to stop villains so that ordinary, every day (weak, sometimes stupid) people can live their lives without having to worry about such threats.
Spiderman's notion that 'with great power comes great responsibility.'
Of course, such strength isn't always physical. Often times isn't, actually. Since groups can beat individuals, leaders that can organize a group can often beat a single physically strong opponent. (Kenichi sort of gets into this, since his 'very bad friend' is horribly weak and somehow manages to lead an organization... in an unethical way.)
But... leadership is a two way street. People choose who they follow, and who they choose gives strength to that leader's worldview, allowing them to shape the every day world we live in. (Samurai Champloo had an interesting episode that sort of covered this. A 'good' yakuzu leader in a town was being challenged by a more malicious one, and the 'good' leader lost supporters who went over to the more apparently strong one. The 'good' leader never really changed his way of thinking, and ultimately didn't win on a personal level, but his way of leading inspired one of his former subordinates to change sides, so in a way it ultimately led to a 'win'.)
We are often easily taken by the notion that 'strength' is someone like Putin or Trump, and people who want to be on the winning side will follow that sort of 'strength'. But I think it's more important to ask yourself what sort of world that person is creating, and to follow the leaders who create the kind of world you want to live in.
I suppose that's my true grief with Trump, tbh. I don't like the world he's creating. I don't like the way he uses his power and influence. So I would rather do my part by supporting another type of leader.
Anyways. In a somewhat similar vein, the grief I have with the ultra-rich is that they are in positions of power and influence, they have resources to do things I can only dream of doing - and yet most of them are, well... to be fair just ordinary human beings trying to live their lives the best they can... but the result is that far too many of them don't use that power/influence in a knowledgeable way to consciously shape the world for the better. (Ugh, that sentence doesn't capture what I mean very well, but it's the best I can do without writing a whole other page... and this has gone on long enough already.)
All that potential to shape the world, and so few with any real idea of how to use it.
What a waste.
(Sucks to add more after what seems like a good stopping point, but I felt the need for this: I don't actually know enough wealthy people to say that they have no real idea how to use their power, and many do try to influence the world. It just seems to me that most of their attempts are in... let's just say conventional ways. It's part of why we seem to live in a world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Like a martial artist who gets strong in order to do what they want without repercussion.
Some do appear to be using their resources to make a difference, and I don't really want to dismiss things like Bill Gates and his efforts against malaria. I've always thought, though, that if I had the resources I'd try to test out a few specific ideas - one, finding 'tipping points' where the right resources can really help a community save itself, i.e. empowering people to find their own solutions, using results-based techniques to adjust as needed for success - and two, see how long term engagement on a local level can lead to larger changes on a national level. I dunno, when you've got people like Harris Rosen showing how much of a difference one wealthy individual can make to a particular community the idea that some wealthy person feels like writing a large check to their charity-of-choice is enough feels somehow... uncreative. Especially since so much philanthropy is used either to - perhaps not knowingly - support your own self-interest like the Koch brothers or to virtue-signal. It's just something to help you feel good about yourself without necessarily being involved enough to make a difference. And whew, there's a lot to unpack with that statement, too. But I'm tired of writing this post, so maybe another time.)
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Utopia Hypothetical, Cont.
My last post described a situation where everyone was individually wealthy, but that doesn't necessarily make for a utopia. I wanted to explain why I put it there -
The definition of a utopia is "an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect." There are some things I don't think any society can make perfect -
People longing for something they don't have the talent for. Like someone who wants to be a famous artist, who doesn't have the skills or talent or what-have-you to become one.
Relationship problems (friends, family, lovers, etc.)
I could add things such as 'health problems', but it's hard to say how much can be solved with technology in some future point. So most likely there's still going to be something outside our control, healthwise, but it could be to a larger or lesser degree than we imagine.
These are things I don't think any society can ultimately resolve, though perhaps that's just my personal lack of imagination.
Having everyone independently wealthy, however, would lead to all sorts of 'perfect' possibilities. Assuming we've got the technology/resources to continue manufacturing desirable goods, and that people willing do the work that can't be automated, and so on and so forth.
How so? Mainly because everyone, and not just the few, would have the resources to do what they truly wanted to. They wouldn't be stuck in some mediocre, dead-end job just to pay the bills. Wouldn't be wasting 8 hours a day (and possibly an hour or two of commute time) doing something tedious and mind-numbing because it's the best they think they can get.
There are all sorts of frustrating things we endure on a daily basis, that we just accept as 'the way it is' because we don't see any other choice. N. N. Taleb (author of The Black Swan), had an interesting article discussing why and how businesses require employees...and use it as a form of control.
This has an interesting resonance with other things - the term 'wage slave', which sometimes differentiates the modern economy from our agricultural past where each farmer was essentially theri own small business owner. (There's a loss of independence, and consequences associated with that, which affect us all today.) The issue with modern slavery, and with businesses who exploit workers to make bricks, burn charcoal, and so on and so forth. There's even been some discussion/debate over whether Google and other Silicon Valley companies are re-inventing the rather disastrous company town.
I started with N.N. Taleb's article because he attributes this drive for control to business needs. That is, a business needs to be sure they can offer their goods and services on a consistent and reliable basis...and independent contractors may not be as reliable as a business could wish. (In the example he gave, a pilot was offered quite a lot of money to break contract and take a client on a unplanned trip.) This is a rather non-judgmental explanation for the incentives for controlling your employees...
And it brings up questions about power, control, and how we can have a modern society that meets our desire for fast, reliable service while at the same time creating a world where people can live their lives to the fullest.
The definition of a utopia is "an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect." There are some things I don't think any society can make perfect -
People longing for something they don't have the talent for. Like someone who wants to be a famous artist, who doesn't have the skills or talent or what-have-you to become one.
Relationship problems (friends, family, lovers, etc.)
I could add things such as 'health problems', but it's hard to say how much can be solved with technology in some future point. So most likely there's still going to be something outside our control, healthwise, but it could be to a larger or lesser degree than we imagine.
These are things I don't think any society can ultimately resolve, though perhaps that's just my personal lack of imagination.
Having everyone independently wealthy, however, would lead to all sorts of 'perfect' possibilities. Assuming we've got the technology/resources to continue manufacturing desirable goods, and that people willing do the work that can't be automated, and so on and so forth.
How so? Mainly because everyone, and not just the few, would have the resources to do what they truly wanted to. They wouldn't be stuck in some mediocre, dead-end job just to pay the bills. Wouldn't be wasting 8 hours a day (and possibly an hour or two of commute time) doing something tedious and mind-numbing because it's the best they think they can get.
There are all sorts of frustrating things we endure on a daily basis, that we just accept as 'the way it is' because we don't see any other choice. N. N. Taleb (author of The Black Swan), had an interesting article discussing why and how businesses require employees...and use it as a form of control.
This has an interesting resonance with other things - the term 'wage slave', which sometimes differentiates the modern economy from our agricultural past where each farmer was essentially theri own small business owner. (There's a loss of independence, and consequences associated with that, which affect us all today.) The issue with modern slavery, and with businesses who exploit workers to make bricks, burn charcoal, and so on and so forth. There's even been some discussion/debate over whether Google and other Silicon Valley companies are re-inventing the rather disastrous company town.
I started with N.N. Taleb's article because he attributes this drive for control to business needs. That is, a business needs to be sure they can offer their goods and services on a consistent and reliable basis...and independent contractors may not be as reliable as a business could wish. (In the example he gave, a pilot was offered quite a lot of money to break contract and take a client on a unplanned trip.) This is a rather non-judgmental explanation for the incentives for controlling your employees...
And it brings up questions about power, control, and how we can have a modern society that meets our desire for fast, reliable service while at the same time creating a world where people can live their lives to the fullest.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Business,Big Oil, Society, Etc.
I have moved on to another book, though since it is 773 pages of rather dense reading material I am not sure how long it will take me to finish it. It's called The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power.
I picked it up because I've heard over and over again about how the war in Iraq was over oil. I was always rather skeptical of the claim, but I figured I ought to read up on the industry before deciding whether it's true or not.
It starts with a history of the oil industry, Standard Oil, Rockefeller, the Rothschilds, etc. It brings up mixed feelings for me, so I'm blogging to sort it all out.
First of all, what I'm bringing to the table. I heard about the trust busters in American history. How monopoly was bad and stifled competition. (This wasn't about oil, specifically, but I knew there was an era of legislation aimed at monopolies. Broke up the telephone industry, as well as Standard Oil.)
Then, in some of my public policy classes, I heard the argument that monopolies weren't all that bad. That trying to break them up may not be such a big deal. Good or bad? I'm not entirely sure, that's part of what I wanted to think about when reading this book.
I also bring my own prejudice in favor of nested hierarchies, i.e. I think the best form of organization is layered so that the lowest levels make the decisions appropriate to their level, but within a coordinated whole. Decentralized to an extent, but not to the point that there's wasted effort and gaps.
I also know that uncertainty is painful, and systems to reduce uncertain are good. Up to a point. They can also become so rigid and limiting that it becomes harder for anyone to make change (like China around the time of Empress Cixi). It's like you may reduce variation in order to prevent some of the worst downturns, but you also generally level things out so that nobody has as much of an upturn, either. (And you can open yourself up to those 'Black Swans' of the financial crisis fame, where you reduce uncertainty 99% of the time, but that 1% is a total disaster.)
In short, I have some inclinations and frameworks for reading this, but my mind is not entirely made up on what's 'right' or 'wrong'.
So anyways. I sympathized with Rockefeller's aims initially. This whole crazy boom/bust cycle was insane, and inefficient. People would find oil, rush to develop it, destroy the golden goose in the process, glut the market, then go out of business as they were unable to turn a profit. I can see why that would be hell on anyone trying to build a business, and why Rockefeller would see to stabilize the industry. I can even, kind of, see why he would fight so hard to create Standard Oil.
But at what point has he succeeded at the original goal (i.e. reducing the uncertainty and wild craziness in order to build a profitable business) and started fighting to control the entire market out of more selfish and greedy reasons? Did Standard Oil really have to own 90% or more of the market in order to achieve his goal? Didn't he get what he wanted when they had 65% of the market?
(These questions, btw, are less about oil and more about our modern complaints against big business, and the way it crowds out small and more local businesses. And it ties in with the modern economy, where most of us are dependent on wages paid by others. Less freedom to do our own thing. Which makes it harder to speak with an independent voice.)
Then there is the question of tactics. At what point did Standard Oil cross the line from a reasonable pursuit of profit, and into (for lack of a better term) bad sportsmanship. In sports, you want to see teams play their best. Want to see them win by giving it their all, playing well, and maybe catching a lucky break here and there. You don't want to see a team win by cheating, by injuring other players when the referee isn't looking, or paying someone off to lose, or paying someone to break the leg of a competitor. Then winning is no longer about who is the better team, it's about who is better at cheating.
In the same way, businesses sell a product. And the company that can make the better widget, faster, and at a lower price is the company that is playing a good game. The one that isn't making a better widget, but decides to flood the market with widgets because they know they can survive the profit loss and hope it will drive the competition out of business is not actually a better business. It's not winning by making better widgets. It's winning by manipulating the game in order to drive out competition.
This was the rise of big business, where they had the big budget that allowed it to survive cutthroat competition. (On a certain level, it reminds me of biological eco systems. There was a void in the eco-system for large predators, and it got filled. Yet just because we now had wolves in the business eco-system, doesn't mean we stopped having foxes and other smaller predators. And perhaps it's not about good or bad so much as what makes for a healthy and viable system.)
All of this is even more interesting given the recent drop in oil prices, and Saudi Arabia's claim that they will not reduce production. Essentially it's their bid to maintain market share, just like what I am reading about from over 100 years ago.
I don't have any real conclusions right now, I just wanted to get some of this out of my head.
Two more things. First - it was kind of shocking to realize that 'Big Oil' got its start not with the combustion engine, but with the drive to get better illumination. We use electric light bulbs everywhere now, and it's hard to imagine how valuable kerosene was before electricity.
Second - so far the history of Big Oil is pretty much capitalism at it's worst.
I picked it up because I've heard over and over again about how the war in Iraq was over oil. I was always rather skeptical of the claim, but I figured I ought to read up on the industry before deciding whether it's true or not.
It starts with a history of the oil industry, Standard Oil, Rockefeller, the Rothschilds, etc. It brings up mixed feelings for me, so I'm blogging to sort it all out.
First of all, what I'm bringing to the table. I heard about the trust busters in American history. How monopoly was bad and stifled competition. (This wasn't about oil, specifically, but I knew there was an era of legislation aimed at monopolies. Broke up the telephone industry, as well as Standard Oil.)
Then, in some of my public policy classes, I heard the argument that monopolies weren't all that bad. That trying to break them up may not be such a big deal. Good or bad? I'm not entirely sure, that's part of what I wanted to think about when reading this book.
I also bring my own prejudice in favor of nested hierarchies, i.e. I think the best form of organization is layered so that the lowest levels make the decisions appropriate to their level, but within a coordinated whole. Decentralized to an extent, but not to the point that there's wasted effort and gaps.
I also know that uncertainty is painful, and systems to reduce uncertain are good. Up to a point. They can also become so rigid and limiting that it becomes harder for anyone to make change (like China around the time of Empress Cixi). It's like you may reduce variation in order to prevent some of the worst downturns, but you also generally level things out so that nobody has as much of an upturn, either. (And you can open yourself up to those 'Black Swans' of the financial crisis fame, where you reduce uncertainty 99% of the time, but that 1% is a total disaster.)
In short, I have some inclinations and frameworks for reading this, but my mind is not entirely made up on what's 'right' or 'wrong'.
So anyways. I sympathized with Rockefeller's aims initially. This whole crazy boom/bust cycle was insane, and inefficient. People would find oil, rush to develop it, destroy the golden goose in the process, glut the market, then go out of business as they were unable to turn a profit. I can see why that would be hell on anyone trying to build a business, and why Rockefeller would see to stabilize the industry. I can even, kind of, see why he would fight so hard to create Standard Oil.
But at what point has he succeeded at the original goal (i.e. reducing the uncertainty and wild craziness in order to build a profitable business) and started fighting to control the entire market out of more selfish and greedy reasons? Did Standard Oil really have to own 90% or more of the market in order to achieve his goal? Didn't he get what he wanted when they had 65% of the market?
(These questions, btw, are less about oil and more about our modern complaints against big business, and the way it crowds out small and more local businesses. And it ties in with the modern economy, where most of us are dependent on wages paid by others. Less freedom to do our own thing. Which makes it harder to speak with an independent voice.)
Then there is the question of tactics. At what point did Standard Oil cross the line from a reasonable pursuit of profit, and into (for lack of a better term) bad sportsmanship. In sports, you want to see teams play their best. Want to see them win by giving it their all, playing well, and maybe catching a lucky break here and there. You don't want to see a team win by cheating, by injuring other players when the referee isn't looking, or paying someone off to lose, or paying someone to break the leg of a competitor. Then winning is no longer about who is the better team, it's about who is better at cheating.
In the same way, businesses sell a product. And the company that can make the better widget, faster, and at a lower price is the company that is playing a good game. The one that isn't making a better widget, but decides to flood the market with widgets because they know they can survive the profit loss and hope it will drive the competition out of business is not actually a better business. It's not winning by making better widgets. It's winning by manipulating the game in order to drive out competition.
This was the rise of big business, where they had the big budget that allowed it to survive cutthroat competition. (On a certain level, it reminds me of biological eco systems. There was a void in the eco-system for large predators, and it got filled. Yet just because we now had wolves in the business eco-system, doesn't mean we stopped having foxes and other smaller predators. And perhaps it's not about good or bad so much as what makes for a healthy and viable system.)
All of this is even more interesting given the recent drop in oil prices, and Saudi Arabia's claim that they will not reduce production. Essentially it's their bid to maintain market share, just like what I am reading about from over 100 years ago.
I don't have any real conclusions right now, I just wanted to get some of this out of my head.
Two more things. First - it was kind of shocking to realize that 'Big Oil' got its start not with the combustion engine, but with the drive to get better illumination. We use electric light bulbs everywhere now, and it's hard to imagine how valuable kerosene was before electricity.
Second - so far the history of Big Oil is pretty much capitalism at it's worst.
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