{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "\u201cpower corrupts\u201d always felt like a weird\u2026 inversion of causality \n if people in power are corrupt, surely the most parsimonious...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/189409185388/", "html": "

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urban-fantasy-writer-astronaut:

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\u201cpower corrupts\u201d always felt like a weird\u2026 inversion of causality

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if people in power are corrupt, surely the most parsimonious explanation is that corruption is an effective means to power?

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I mean, people in power also have more room to be corrupt. Like, it\u2019s easier to be cruel if you won\u2019t have to face or deal with the consequence, you know?

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And you don\u2019t have to worry about what other people think of you anymore.

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see, i\u2019ve been told that a more accurate description of this is that power doesn\u2019t corrupt so much as power reveals.

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given power, people apparently do whatever they want. this sounds simple, but consider how tricky figuring out what you want is?

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power, in sufficiently large quantities, means constantly being surrounded by people who are trying to do whatever it is that you want, whether or not you know what it is that you want in the first place.

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it\u2019s the reason powerful people\u2019s\u00a0\u201cgut feelings\u201d are so effective from their perspective. like, if you have people around you who do whatever you want, you don\u2019t need to understand what they do or why they do it or what you actually want, you just need to keep track of your feelings and like, add up all the feelings that co-occurred with any given person and you\u2019ll zoom in on the\u00a0\u201cmost effective person\u201d (synonymously) \u201cmost loyal person\u201d (synonymously)\u00a0\u201cgreatest toady\u201d around.

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the point being, your petty cruelties and unexamined-gut-prejudices are also things that go into your\u00a0\u201cwant\u201d.

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power reveals. it digs out your worst desires and removes from you the need/ability to critically examine them.

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this is only\u2026 in the loosest sense corruption. power-as-revelatory seems like a better description (to me) of this specific phenomenon.

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reminder that one of the foundations of western political philosophy is the Ring of Gyges story from Plato’s Republic, where it’s all “ok c'mon, that myth where this guy got an invisibility ring and used it to cuck the king (the ultimate earthly power in an ancient’s life) by raping the queen (the ultimate female celebrity in an ancient’s life), anyone would do that, right?”

And Plato tells this reasoning where no, cause virtue or something

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