Power Relations

Absolute power corrupts absolutely — this is a maxim held with as much faith as “apples fall from trees.” And it’s generally true: as much as any open drain is clogged with discarded trash, history is littered with jerks (to put in mildly) who have perpetrated the worst excesses for no better reason than because they could get away with it. Having power helped. A lot.

While people are rightly wary of power in political affairs, I have a feeling they are not wary enough about the flip-side influence of power in social affairs. This was impressed upon me during a recent conversation with workmates over lunch — and what better dessert is there than a bit of idle philosophising? — about the relative merit/justice of alternative power structures in the relations between men and women. Who should be under whose thumb, in other words. Among those present, one of took immense pride in her matriarchal family background — grannies, aunts, mums, etc held fearsome power in the household, while the men were effete, soft. It was the preferred order of the universe, the one that, self-evidently, made more sense.

For perhaps the wrong reasons, those present looked to me for a response, the supposed male chauvinist in that merry company. I beg to differ, really. I cannot blame people for the impression they get from the jokes I’m wont to crack, but I do not think they will derive the male chauvinist from my conduct.

But I digress. My point really, is that power should not be allowed to corrupt the relationship between men and women. What’s the value in robbing men of their spirit, turning them into hen-pecked, spineless slaves? What’s the joy in bullying women into soulless submission? A criminal waste of the human potential, both extremes. We should take a pause, get some sense of the immense potential in each person, and help each other achieve that. People who cannot see beyond a “power equation” in gender relations, well, let them be dealt in the only currency they understand, taking futile delight in meaningless triumphs, or else grovelling when the tables turn, filling their nasty lives with ultimately worthless alliances, chasing after fruitless things.

Of course, it is their liberty to do so, and to take delight in this.