Rethinking Power

During today’s meeting I offered a few quotes from Soren Kierkegaard, hoping that they might help us rethink what power is, where power comes from, and what it means to be a powerful person. Here’s one such quote that advocates for a metaphorical ‘death of self/selfishness’ as a means to freeing one’s self:

Therefore, death first; you must first die to every merely earthly hope, to every merely human confidence; you must die to your selfishness, or to the world, because it is only through your selfishness that the world has power over you; if you are dead to your selfishness, you are also dead to the world. But naturally there is nothing a human being hangs on to so firmly, indeed, with his whole self!

Here are the quotes (numbered for easy reference) that members composed in order to challenge the our beliefs/conceptions about power:

#1 Power is a word, not a position.

#2 If everyone sees someone different that has power, is there such a thing as power?

#3 Without purpose there would be complete chaos. But with too much purpose, people would not want to make effort in fear of losing that original purpose.

#4 "The power to cause pain." "The purest power is the power to cause pain."

#5 Power comes with influence.

#6 Man believes that they can control everything, but are constantly being blinded to the world that changed them.

#7 The power you have during your life will mean nothing in 200 years.

#8 If man has so much power, then what was depression and pain created for?

#9 As long as there is a sense of wealth, greed, or desire, people with those things will try to exhibit power over those without it. However, it is not necessarily true that those without it will succumb to those with it. There is power in numbers.

#10 Power is not received, it is achieved.

#11 Power is only what we make of it.

#12 When people with power lose it nothing is lost; it’s only the world that has real power.

Do you find any of these quotes/ideas challenging? Or, does the validity of any of these quotes beg to be challenged?