The Power Paradox (a book review post)

So... Power. What even is it? I think most people would say it's something about how able you are to tell other people what to do and have them do what you're saying and, while Keltner would probably agree with that, he would broaden the definition to include how able you are to make a difference in the world around you. Which, you know, is fine. I can go with that.

What I can't go with is Keltner ascribing the results of his small group experiments to the broader context of society.

So, yes, Keltner does have data, a lot of it, done mostly in labs (and colleges are labs, of a sort), mostly with small groups of people, and, frequently, with groups of people who didn't know each other prior to the experiment. And I can't argue with his results. I see how he came to the conclusions he came to within the contexts of the experiments he ran, but -- and it's a big BUT -- he applies his conclusions to society in general, and, no matter how I look at it, I can't see that any of his ideas, at least the ones dealing with how we gain power, apply to society at large and across other cultures (which don't necessarily have the same views toward power that we do). It's rather like Freud in his generalizing to all people the conclusions he came to from working with a select few of mostly women seeking him for psychological treatment.

Which is too bad, actually, because they are interesting ideas and conclusions.

To put it simply, Keltner believes that we give power to people who promote the greater good of the group. And that's all fine and good, but he also says we remove that power from people when they stop exercising their power for the good of the group and start exercising it for the good of themselves. And, well, I don't know if he's looked around lately, but there are an awful lot of people in power, exercising it for their own good only, who seem to be just fine where they are and in no danger of losing their power anytime soon, which is the weakness of the book.

Power, according to Keltner, is its own downfall, because it is the having of power which causes us to quit looking outward toward ways we can create the greater good and start looking inward to how we can create greatness for ourselves. And it's not that he doesn't get this stuff right, the things that having power causes -- I'm sure he is quite correct -- but he says it's giving into these power impulses that, then, cause us to lose the power we've acquired. That's the part I'm not seeing, these active dynamics he's talking about happening on a societal scale.

He talks about how power is a constant give and take, and he does demonstrate that on a small scale to some extent, but he never even touches on how or why the people in power who are demonstrably out for themselves are able to escape all of these natural punishments and consequences he says we have. It undermines his whole premise. The one thing he mentions that's kind of his out is that he says personal charisma is one of the biggest influencers on how we gain power, which, also undermines his theory of it having to do with contributing to the greater good, and he never talks about how it enables people to retain power after they've begun to abuse it.

The one part of the book he gets right, completely right -- and he gets it right because he deals with this aspect on a societal level -- is the section dealing with the effects of powerlessness on people. Having no power causes stress which leads to a further lack of ability to contribute to society (basically, the definition of power itself, according to Keltner) and poor health. He does nothing, however, to address the issue other than to say that these people need to be empowered.

I'm not going to say that the book doesn't contain some interesting ideas; it does. I will say that these ideas weren't ready to be a book, though. Even if he's onto something. And he might be onto something. But there's no way to apply what he says here to the world at large and no way to apply the principles he's come up with other than to say, "Be excellent to each other." Which, you know, is a great thing to say and something I agree with wholeheartedly, but he needs to offer some practical applications if he wants to write a book about it. Simply saying, "Be empathetic," isn't enough.

Why We Need To Go To Space

As a society, we've given up on space travel. It's not really a part of our cultural consciousness anymore. Not the way it used to be. First, there was the drive to reach the moon, and, once achieved, there was this innate belief that we had only just started. We had, for all intents and purposes, reached the "final frontier."

But, then, we abandoned it. Like, standing on the brink, we shied away. We couldn't take that leap.

Not that I think it's that simple, but, really, it kind of is. The money people looked, and wouldn't make that leap of faith that going out into space would be worth it. At least, it wouldn't be worth it to them, and screw the future, if you know what I mean. But it was that kind of thinking in the 80's (and 90's), the "what are you doing for me now?" thinking, that brought us to where we are. Which is not exactly the best place to be.

My childhood was full of visions and fantasies about what it would be like in space, and there was this expectation among all of us my age that it was going to happen. Not if. When.

Maybe it was the Challenger explosion that caused the change. Or, at least, started the change. At any rate, it's not something that we dream about culturally anymore.

And it's really too bad, because I think we're in sore need of that dream.

It's kind of obvious from a practical standpoint why we're in need of greater space exploration. Just the resources we could get from mining asteroids would be tremendous. Rather than go into all of this, you can just go check out Planetary Resources for all the details.
As an investment, just a simple monetary investment, space is looking really good.

However, I don't think this is where we would find our greatest reward.

For millennia, man explored the world. Man dreamed about the world. Man dreamed about the places he hadn't been. It did something for his spirit. Something unquantifiable. But, then, not all that long ago, we reached the end of the world. There's nowhere left to go. Nowhere to dream about. Not even the oceans or the air for all practical purposes. Not even under the Earth. That unquantifiable thing, that thing that used to inspire men to go and explore, is gone.

There is nowhere to go.

It's hard to say what we've lost as a society because of this, because we don't know which people would be the ones to grow restless and take off into the distance to discover now places. New worlds. Maybe it is that some, at least, of the current societal unrest is due to the fact that people that used to be the ones that would go explore can no longer do that. They have wanderlust that can't be fulfilled.

Like my cat when he wants to go outside.

I think we have people like this. Stuck in cities and wanting to get out, clawing at the door, meowing, but no one will let them go. Because there isn't anywhere to go.

Have you ever been stuck inside with a cat that wants to go out? It's much worse, in general, than being stuck inside with a dog. Dogs can (usually) be distracted, not so with cats. Just like with the cat, these people that want "out" need a place to go.
Space is that place...

Can you imagine what it would be like to have people taking off into space just for the sake of going? [Let me just say that I am not one of those people that would be going, but I think it would be so cool for those that would.] The kinds of things we would learn.
The kinds of dreams that would be born.

Which brings me to the other thing we've lost: dreams.

Once upon a time, man wrote about the dreams he had of the places he'd never been. Africa. India. The American Frontier. Under the oceans and up in the sky. Even space. But we've quit writing about those places, because we know what's there. Well, except for space, but, like I said, we've mostly given up on that. And we think we know what's there. Even though we haven't been there, we look through our magic glasses and decide all we need to do is look. Or send a tiny robot.

But I wonder...

I wonder what would happen if we actually decided to go. Like when we decided to go to the moon. The dreams that decision awoke in us. What would happen if we did that again? What kinds of things would we write about the things that we would dream?

That, those dreams, and those things people wrote about those dreams, that would be our greatest reward.
Because, when it comes down to it, it's the things that can't be quantified that we live for.