Question Three

So...

...if the idea that power cannot exist without a need within the subject is making sense to you, then you are acknowledging that your previous mental programming about power is not accurate.

Now you want to understand how power really works.

So you ask the next question...


Q III. WHAT IS THE DYNAMIC OF POWER?

Power is about Choice.
Power is about the Control, Influence or Seduction of that Choice.

The Actor has a Need the Subject can impact.

The Actor sees the Subject as a part of the Circumstance they must respond to.

To create Power the Actor identifies the Needs of the Subject.
The Actor applies a Mechanism of Power to help or hinder the satisfaction of the Subject’s Need.

As a result the Subject experiences feelings of Power - Control, Influence or Seduction.

Also, the Subject experiences feelings of motivation – Fear, Anger or Excitement.

Just like the Needs that create it, Power Dynamics are Complex, Compounding and Competing.

The Subject responds with a Choice.




Power is an interpersonal thing. Although we want to see structures and organizations in our society as powerful, in truth they are just groups of people. Sometimes they act on the directions of an individual who is a leader or an authority. Sometimes they act in some group-think fashion with no real single mentality. But in truth they act and it is the people who act.

Power is a people thing.

Everyday we all walk around saturated in needs. Some are requirements - absolutes that must be fulfilled or our survival is at risk. Some are simple desires, wishes or wants. Things we do not require but we want in some meaningful way.

They may not be so simple. They may be complex. The strategies we use to obtain our wishes will need to be just as complex.

We feel attachments. In truth we probably experience more attachments than anything else. We can turn survival into an attachment to a way of life. We can turn our simplist desires into something that we must have or we are not who we want to be. Thus they become attachments.

We are attached to people or things or ideas and we believe that if we release them, if we allow them to be breached, we are somehow violating our deepest self. We have so many attachments - and we show them in our actions and words - that it is hard for them not to become the source of someone else's power.

Very little of what we do in a day is not about some kind of requirement, desire or attachment.

And we are surrounded by people living this out.

In the pursuit of our desires and attachments, we find ourselves with opportunities to assist or be assisted - inhibit or be inhibited - in the satisfying of our collective needs. We collide with others who could help us or hinder us in any number of our needs. And they collide with us.

If we could use some help, we look around to find someone who would be willing to help. Sometimes that is easy. It is easy because we have friends and family that care for us - that are attached to us.

Sometimes others are not freely willing to help us.

So to motivate them to chose to help, we use power. We may offer them some reward - seduce them - into helping us. But to do so requires an understanding of what they want - what they need.

We may not be able to recognize something about them we could use to seduce, so we may use something to control them. We may threaten their well being by imposing or withholding something they need or want. Again we must first spot the need.

We may have nothing that can help or hinder them. So we may turn to others to do so for us. Others that are attached to us or others we can influence in some way using their unique set of needs.

In the end, what impacts the choice of others is our ability to help or hinder them in some Requirement, Desire or Attachment that they have.

The ability we have is a mechanism. It is the thing that releases the power that lies dormant within the need. It is not itself a thing of power. For power exists within people not within things. It is a mechanism that can release power if there is a need it can speak to.

For example...

The ability to have spend or give money - in large amounts - is an incredibly effective mechanism of power in our world because there is not much you cannot buy. However if there is no need for money in the life of our target subject, it is no longer powerful. Money does not create a lot of power in rich people. They already have it.

The power is not in the money, it is in our ability to use it to help or hinder the other person. Thus it is motivating them to help us in our own quest. It motivates by creating feelings of control, influence or seduction, coupled with feelings of anger, fear or excitement. The whole of the power experience is going on inside the subject. The actor is simply trying to use the needs of their subject to motivate a choice to do, say or think something. The mechanism allows them the chance to use the need - to exploit the power within the need.

The dynamic of power is simple.

It is always an application of a mechanism against a need to create an experience of control, influence or seduction coupled with motivating feelings of anger, fear or excitement.

Person against person. Whether a group of people or not. It is a personal thing.

It happens within the subject. It is created within the subject. The source of the power is within the subject. And the dynamic of power plays itself out within the mind of the subject.

And - for better or worse - power is created.