Perspectives on power

An "uber empath" friend writes:

I have been reading your sociopath blog and read the recent entry on power. I have a couple of thoughts.

When I was reading it, it made me think of a scene in Lords of the Rings. It's where Frodo and Sam end up "visiting" the wood elves. There is a scene with Galadriel, the queen of the wood elves. She is tested when Frodo offers to place the One Ring (the Ring of Power) in her keeping. In response to his offer, she presents an image of herself corrupted by the ring declaring; "And now it comes to it at last. You will give me the One Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night. Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain...all shall love me and despair!" But then, after appearing to Frodo both beautiful and terrible to behold, she fades and once again becomes Galadriel. Recalling the ambitions that had once brought her to Middle-earth, she declares, "I pass the test," and refuses the Ring, accepting her fate of diminishing (as the time of the dominion of men had come) and returning at last to Valinor (the Elf version of Valhalla).
You called me a super-empath once, but if I had power, this is kind of how I would envision myself. A seemingly benevolent but somewhat dark queen, who would demand that everyone love and be kind to one another (or else, of course, off with their heads!!).

With regard to your comments about power and communism/facism, I say this. The history of the world is essentially that of "the People," "the Fuhrer" and "the Poet." The People are the sheep. In order to function, they need to have the Fuhrer in place to direct them and tell them how to live their lives. Dictators and sociopaths achieve power because the People give it to them. They NEED the Fuhrer, for they secretly suspect they are incapable of living without him/her. Occasionally in history, a Poet figure comes along (Socrates, Jesus of Nazareth, etc. etc.). The Poet presents the People with the possibility of human freedom. He or she is initially greeted with enthusiasm and some of the People may even begin to embrace their freedom. But eventually, always, the People panic and reject the possibility of freedom. Then they turn on the Poet and destroy him/her, or turn the Poet over to the Fuhrer to imprison/destroy.
What do you think?

Power

I love power. I'm fascinated by it. The power over self. The power over others. I think the power over self definitely should preceed the power over others. I've learned this over time of studying and practicing it.

It is interesting to read about world leaders in history who have started powerless and who had been thrust into a position of power without being prepared for it. They start off idealists, wanting only the best for mankind, only to be thrown on a downward spiral committing atrocities for what they perceived as the betterment of mankind or their country. I truly understand them.

I can't tell you that I'm partisan to any particular brand of ideology. I have studied all of them deeply. Communism and fascism are the most interesting when it comes to power, because it thrusts absolute power into the hands of a few people. Indeed capitalism does still keep power in the hands of a few, but not as little as you can count on two hands.

We don't have a lot of fascist leaders to compare, as the idea never gained enough popularity worldwide to have any long standing leaders. I have always found fascism to be power given to the impatent. It's guided by insecurity. As usual the theory actually makes a little sense to anyone who can look at it objectively: It's a structure of government that believes that people don't want freedom. It believes the strong should survive and the weak should perish. Individualism should be sacrificed for the state. Quoting Mussolini, "Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State...." Absolute power indeed. The fascists' insecurity, however, is written in their ideology from the gate. They reject liberalism and communism for the fact that they blame these ideologies for their losses in the first world war. This was the platform to which Mussolini and Hitler rose to power. It was the insecurity of the masses in these countries that propelled two insecure people into power.

The claim of supremacy of the Aryan race and throwbacks to a ancient civilization of glory were examples of this. The point the finger attitude of hating Jews, liberals, communists, France, etc. were yet another. I wouldn't claim Hitler a sociopath purely for the fact that his entire campaign and life rested on his insecurity and over-emotionalism. I won't delve deep into his life, as I'm not trying to write a biography on him, however those who have should throw a comment up on your opinion.

Communism is a doctrine that thrusts power into the hands of the powerless. I do believe the intentions of a majority of the leaders of communist revolutions to be genuine. Notice I said majority. People like Pol Pot I believe had no intention of furthering anything, but his lust for power and blood. Why do I think so? The foundation of communism is to create a egalitarian society. One where the workers who produce the products are in control. That's why they call it a dictatorship of the proletariat. For the sociopath at the top, this is a terrible idea. How then would they exploit the workers? For the powerless sociopath, this was a wonderful idea. What better way to gain popular support but to say that you would be giving everyone equality, and control over their own labor? I will use Stalin for a example.

If Stalin wasn't a sociopath I will hand over my control to this website to Love Fraud. Hands down. Stalin's rap sheet as a young revolutionary is long: Armed robbery, kidnapping, assassination, counterfeiting, extortion, racketeering, inciting riots, and finally insurrection. Stalin manipulated his way into power. Such as his alliance with Kamenev and Zinoviev, which he used to make sure that Lenin's testament (Which had orders not to let Stalin in power) would never be revealed. After Stalin's death he shifted his alliance to another party member and had them both ejected from the party. Stalin's path while in power was one of a heroin addict with a unlimited supply of junk. He started executing anyone who opposed him. Even to go as far as having a assassin stab Trotsky (Former party member in exile) to death with a ice pick. He had his armies throw themselves into the enemies' guns in WWII resulting in the largest amount of casualties in a country during the world war. He changed history books to the point of erasing people out of pictures who he deemed counter revolutionary. This would mean erasing people's entire existence for going against him. His own son tried to commit suicide after Stalin told him he was a failure. Upon receiving the news he said, "He can't even shoot straight." After being captured by the Germans Stalin refused to trade for him saying that if he did it would be special treatment and not fair to the rest of the "Sons of Russia." Stalin's son then succeeded in running himself into a electric fence in the concentration camp. I believe Stalin was a sociopath given a cause and as he grew more powerful he lost vision of what exactly that cause was. In the end his cause was staying in power. The funny thing is he died with his only possession being his uniform. His power.

Power is raw and uncut. Its lure is subtle, but its taste is explosive. You have a little and you keep wanting more. The more you have it, the more you will excuse using it vicariously. You'll justify your every callous action with vigour. Soon you are nothing but a embodiment of fear and manipulation. You still think you are fighting for what you were in the beginning, but you're only fighting to maintain your position. As all the threats real and perceived mount, you become more awful in your preservation of it. In the end it's easy to lose sight, or is the real intention deep down inside everyone of us power itself? Sometimes it's hard to know. Even for the person fighting it.