Powerful People, Powerful Ideas
On the disjunct between power and wisdom.
I keep coming back to Plato’s words, not because they are perfectly rendered, but because they capture the essence of the idea that power and wisdom seldom coincide:
“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.” - Plato
And then there’s Thomas Jefferson, not generally recognized as a philosopher, but clearly a man who lived and breathed the search for truth:
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.” - Thomas Jefferson
As we watch the candidates campaign for the presidency I’m most saddened and depressed by how far we remain from Plato’s ideal of power coupled with wisdom. The deeper into the race we get, the more conniving and unwise the rhetoric becomes. (Clinton’s racial politics and her unwise and insincere politics of pandering on the gas tax; McCain’s hard swerve to the right.) The competitive, beauty pageant, micro-focused format of modern politics works against the ideal, of course. Obama seems to be sincere in his desire to break the mold, but he has a long hard road ahead of him and he’s already begun to falter with snipes against Hillary and rash policy promises.
I keep being drawn to stories of good being done by those who’ve quickly made a lot of money and therefore accrued a lot of power while still remembering what it’s like to be one of the have-nots. The Times has a piece on Craig Newmark, of Craigslist, who is one such newly moneyed philanthropist. Newmark, who’s been slow to capitalize on the extraordinary success of his Craigslist idea, even says this about relative wealth: “We know these guys in Google and the eBay guys, and they are not any happier than anyone else. A lot of money is a burden.”
The purist in me reviles against the idea that people who’ve been successful in business should be holding sway with social and philanthropic programs. But why not? Presumably, we’d be able to intervene if one of them turned out to be a nut-job who was out to achieve dubious ends.
Philosophically speaking, if someone has made a lot of money and chooses to spend his or her time and money dedicated to things other than making himself or herself wealthier, it’s more than likely that they’ll be aimed at making positive impact. The concept of philanthropy requires a focus on others over self. A persistent focus on self will tend to have a much less expansive outlook.
Whereas the desire for political power involves a composite desire to achieve sway over others and to be seen to effect change. The desire for political power doesn’t intrinsically have anything to do with effecting positive social change. It should, but it doesn’t.
This points to an intriguing development in the tensions between power and wisdom. Perhaps we will see a period in which politicians are shamed into behaving more responsibly and sincerely by the wealthy philanthropists. Why shouldn’t social improvement occur outside the mainstream political spectrum? And if they do, why shouldn’t this result in more pressure on politicians to focus on doing a job that serves the people rather than serving themselves?
Power rests where it lands. Wisdom, too.
For a rational, science-based explanation of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive
Tags: barack-obama, craig-newmark, government, Hillary-Clinton, john-mccain, money, plato, politics, power, presidential-campaign, thomas-jefferson, wisdom
May 13th, 2008 at 12:39 am
There appears to be a link between feelings of powerlessness and esteem issues and the climb toward being powerful. Psychological studies of early family dynamics of politicians indicate that the higher they climb, the worse was their emotional relationships in the family of origin, particularly the absense, either physically or emotionally, of the father. This has a direct impact on their leadership capabilities - usually because they are trying to prove something to the parents. When I asked my prof., many years ago, why people who are intelligent, rational, and had good family relations don’t go into politics, he told me that well-adjusted people don’t have anything to prove to anybody, and they are way too intelligent to want to work with all the misfits in politics.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:01 am
And, if this is the case, it provides further support for Plato’s idea of the wise person who has power foisted on him or her, or the powerful person who has wisdom foisted on him or her — self selection will otherwise leave us with the same sorry crop of those with something to prove and a stomach for the often nasty and silly games of politics.
I’m still fascinated by how this relates to those who become powerful sideways — the newly wealthy social philanthropists… More on that in coming posts.