Let’s Talk About Power

Power stems from fear, and thus when it becomes indifferent to high moral concepts and principles, its use only breeds fear. Fear leads to hatred, and the extremity of hatred results in such detachment where humans are regarded lower than objects, making the slaughter of thousands, even millions of people, and the destruction of civilizations and nations, seem trivial.

Power is used like a single-edged sword. However, power is like a double-edged sword. It harms the wielder more than it harms others. The fear it instills in others is surpassed by the fear it instills in the wielder. But identifying this fear is not easy because the wielder of power always manages to concoct such a theory, idea, concept, or issue that justifies the use of power. As evident, this situation is merely the craftiness of power, often effective but never truly justified in the annals of human history, nor will it ever be. Despite this, history is witness that what humans have most relied and trusted upon is power. Yet, there’s a reason for this.

The greatest allure of power for humans is that it convinces them that everything can be achieved through it. However, only very insignificant tasks, like breaking peanuts, can be achieved through power. But this is something humans understand with difficulty; thus, they lean towards using power, and as its usage increases, humans become more subservient to power. There’s no doubt that there’s a great realization of ‘life’ in power, but the ‘life’ of power results from deviation from high moral concepts and values, therefore there is a lot of intensity in it, and intense things are often perceived by humans as real and genuine, and what’s real and genuine is certainly deemed valuable. This aspect is an important part of the allure of power. But can everything be done through power?

This notion is part of ancient wisdom that while power can enslave people, it cannot win their hearts. The meaning of it is quite clear and it conveys that power and its use only foster a relationship and a notion between the conqueror and the conquered, the master and the slave. Masters can be kind, but still, the imbalance in the relationship between master and slave persists. In this imbalance, there are a thousand aspects of satisfaction for the master. The question then arises why humans are more interested in conquering others rather than winning their hearts.

Winning hearts means establishing a human-level connection and opening the door for bilateral communication. Such communication serves as a means of revealing and expressing thousands of mutual relations and connections. Through these relations and connections, humans go through the process of knowing each other better. The desire to know more is an expression of the emotion commonly referred to as friendship. In contrast, power rejects human-level connections and emphasizes a very superficial social or political connection. The meaning of power and its use implies that humans are establishing a ‘system’ of one-way communication by closing all paths to two-way communication. There is no room in power for the expression of mutual relations and connections. Power declares that we will try to know each other as little as possible. Thus, power rejects every possibility of friendship, and all these aspects of power are important and interesting. If we carefully observe our individual and collective lives and historical experiences, these aspects are not difficult to perceive and understand.

It is important to note that when power intervenes in human relations, the so-called bilateral relationship takes on a wholly negative form. This is because humans then only see each other’s weaknesses and negative aspects, but even this bilateral observation of negative aspects does not become a means of enlightenment. This is because the observation of weaknesses and negative aspects is aimed at harming and taking advantage of each other. This situation destroys individual and collective civility (تہذیب) and robs humans of their creative abilities.

In this context, the answer to why humans are more interested in conquering others rather than winning their hearts becomes quite clear. The thing is that the desire to win hearts is a human desire and can only be found in those who view life from a religious or moral perspective. Moreover, the desire and struggle to win hearts is not easy. It requires a person to make a thousand changes within themselves, resulting in the person becoming a different personality. In contrast, conquering through power is relatively easy. It does not require any special change within a person. The use of power also indicates the desire to find an ‘easy solution’ to problems. If a person cannot conquer something, at least they can destroy it, and even destroying it brings some pleasure of victory. But the matter does not end there.

In this regard, the concepts of ‘utilization’ and ‘gain’ are also important. In winning hearts, the question of ‘utility’ does not arise. At some stage in the process of winning hearts, the nature of the relationship becomes complementary. Obviously, when the nature of the relationship becomes such, then the desire to ‘use’ or ‘utilize’ someone else does not arise. In this process, the meaning of ‘gain’ is nothing but closeness and the feeling of knowing each other. The case of power is the opposite because within its realm, utility and gain are of fundamental importance. If power is not a means of utility, then it is nothing. This utility can be material as well as mental and psychological. The concept of gain emerges from utility and through it, the ‘greatness’ and ‘majesty’ of power are demonstrated.

Although power indeed stems from fear, a fundamental thing about this fear is that it is largely a barren fear. This clarification is necessary because there is also a form of fear that relates to the ‘unknown’ and ‘beyond,’ from which springs of creation flow and fountains of goodness and beauty emerge.