- Who got the power?
Why did the USA drop two atomic bombs on Japan?
What really happened in Libya?
What is wikileaks?
What is happening between Israel and the Palestinian people?
What is the influence of USA’s international policies not only on the world, but in the USA?
Why did terrorists fly planes on 9/11?
What is UNESCO and the United Nations and how do they work?
What is the OWS movement and what is it all about?
Why does a news station like Russia Today seem so “free” and “thought provoking” and “supportive” of OWS and does Russia Today do the same thing in Russia?
How did the Arab uprisings come around, who’s behind them, why do some countries like Russia accuse foreign countries of triggering them?
What’s going on when the whole world is losing money and needing to increase deficits when others like China are buying all they can see?
If music is so powerfull and everyone knows this wouldn’t people try to use music as a tool for manipulation in the same was as CS Lewis did with his books?
Why did Obama promise to shut down Guantanamo and didn’t? What is Guantanamo?
Why is Africa so rich with ressources but so poor socially? How can such huge famines exist today?
What is a terrorist?
What is justice? Why did DSK not even go to trial?
2 more questions :
how many people know the truth about those questions? the majority of the minority?
Last question : who puts people in power in a functioning democracy, the minority or the majority?
I rest my case your honour.
- Power and innocence, blame, duty.
If a kid punches me in the face, he’s a lot less bad than if Mike Tyson punches me in the face.
If my cat scratches me, he’s a lot less “bad” than if Obama asks his intelligence people to interrogate and “scratch” me.
So, if you have the nuclear bomb, if you have a couple warships, a stock of missiles, if you have aircraft carriers and stealth airplanes and helicopters with machine guns and drones, and if you then decide to do something “bad” (like kill someone), that’s a lot worse than if you are 10 years old, have nothing at all, and try to kill a tank by throwing a rock at it.
The more power you have, the bigger the responsibility, and the bigger the duty. The less you are owed and the more you owe.
The more power you have, the harder it is to remain without blame.
To put it simply, anything you do will have consequences, so if you are wielding hardly any power at all (having no influence) those consequences won’t be as harsh.
Which is why my Grandmother always said when I broke something, “it’s ok, “who who does nothing, breaks nothing”.
It’s a lot harder not to break anything when you have a lot of power (influence).
And if you do not move, do not say anything, close your eyes and sit still, if you make it so that you have no influence on things at all, then no one can blame you for anything.
So, I’ll repeat, “someone who doesn’t have any power who does the same thing as someone who does have a lot of power, is not “in the wrong” in the same way.”
And I’ll add : “someone who doesn’t have any power who does the same thing as someone who does have a lot of power, is not “in the right” in the same way either.
The most innocent people are the powerless and the most guilty ones are powerfull.
- Power and purity.
There is a price you pay for any power, whether natural or supernatural (fiction), and whether you like it or not.
It has to do with what is good, or bad, what is just, or unjust, pride and shame, blame and credit.
Those things are all related to morals and how we define right and wrong. So it only matters if you care about what is right or wrong and if anyone who is affected by what you do cares about what is right or wrong.
And it goes a little bit like this :
The more power you have, the harder it is to be right, good, just, without blame.
The less power you have, the “easier” it is to be “innocent”.
Not only because of the influence that you have if you have power, (a) but also because of the potential influence you can have even if you do not use that power you have (b).
Examples for a)
If you are strong and know how to fight like Mohamed Ali or Mike Tyson, and you hit someone in the face, that act will be judged not only according to the act itself, but also according to what power you have.
Which is why in many countries in Europe, a professional boxer is not punished in the same way as a civilian if he punches someone in the face.
If you are weak and don’t know how to fight, and punch someone in the face in exactly the same situation as in the first example, you will not be judged in the same way.
Basically, Mike Tyson or Mohammed Ali will be considered to have more “blame”, will be considered more “guilty” if he does that, while a skinny 11 year old geek hardly will ever get fined for that same act that could cause Tyson to go to jail.
Even if we don’t look at it legally, you will morally judge Mike Tyson to be more wrong than a 11 year old skinny geek if both of them punch someone in the face.
Examples for b)
Keeping the same example (Tyson and the skinny geek).
If Tyson is walking in the street and a young girl runs into him screaming for help, bloody and crying, and a guy arrives who was running after the girl.
Then Tyon has a choice to help the girl or not.
Same thing for the skinny 11 year old geek.
Now, if Tyson decides to push the girl away and continue on his way, ignoring her and leaving her “to her fate” (get beat up by the guy running after her) even though he could protect her, he would be more wrong to do so than if the 11 year old geek made that same choice in the same situation.
It could be argued that both of them would be wrong not to help the girl, but one would be more wrong than the other, and if we replace the 11 year old geek by a powerless, handicapped guy paralysed in a wheel chair, there’s nothing that guy could do (he has no power) and he would not be blamed at all for not helping.
Conclusion and why this is relevant to the question :
If I were to be given a super power, and if I wanted to remain innocent and free of blame, if I wanted to remain “just” and “in the right”, that power would make it harder for me to do so.
So the price I would pay for increasing my power would be to make it more difficult for me to remain true, free of blame, and just not only in what I do, but also in what I choose not to do.
If Superman was sitting on a bench in the park and he saw someone in need of help, but did not help him, he could be blamed for not moving.
So power not only gives you the responsibility of what you do, it also gives you the responsability of what you don’t do.
And conclusions of conclusions, the price you pay for power is responsability.
Would I want to pay that price?
Only if I felt I could take on that responsability, only if I knew that I could remain just and “in the right”, only if I were pure, just like not anyone in fiction can take the sword from the stone, or wield the hammer of Thor.
So, the more power you have, the more pure you need to be.
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