In nearly every situation that modern life puts in front of us, there is always a way for people to gain some form of power. It may be to become a boss, a team captain, the alpha male between friends. People seem to always work in hierarchies, especially where there is money involved. For some this power struggle and dominance play is ingrained, and others will always shy away and stay at the level they are on, and not seek to become a leader in any way.
The power hungry run with any kind of token authority that is vested in them via the social situation that they are in. It doesn’t matter if it is a company, a sports team or a community group, it is the power game that becomes primary, and the actual goal of the organization becomes secondary. As Doug Lain pointed out in his recent fantastic appearance on Warty Theorems, the people inside most organisations that are set up to create some kind of social change are generally power starved individuals who use the organisation as a way of grabbing onto some kind of individual power. Even if that power is only internal to that organisation. The organisation then starts to run out of steam to make any external changes, as the internal power struggle comes to dominate the psyche of those that are participating.
A good example of this is Survivor. The TV show is just about this and pretty much nothing else. The fact that they have to eat rice and try to stay healthy in the wild is of secondary consequence. It is the tribal power game, the oldest game in human history that is the real showpiece. And this old story continues on to our newest of societal inventions. In social media, users will covet whatever cache power that can be found in the network. People want more followers, more visits to their profile pages. There is no financial goal (most of the time) for this, or even any kind of ‘real world’ benefit in doing this. It is just so ingrained in our heads that it feels like a natural thing to do, no matter what the actual payoff is.
From looking at the above we can safely say that these power structures are an inherent feature of organised human behavior. I feel that we can both embrace this fact and participate, or we can shun any kind of mass movements of people and go the solo route. I think that the idea of running away from these situations needs to be addressed, and that we should look at ways that we can work with these natural tendencies to get things done. Too many people do not try to make any kind of change in society that may need the organisation of a number of people, or even join community situations where the participation itself would be beneficial to their mental and physical health, due to the factor that for someone with half a clue, these power games are tedious at best.
So how can we harness this natural tendency in people to seek power? I don’t have the answer, and only use this as an example of one of the fundamental things that would need to change for the current power structures
Groups do need leaders; however they do not need leaders that are looking out for themselves. They need leaders that are looking after the needs of those that are the constituents of the group. The trouble is, the only reason these people really get to be leaders is because they are excellent at looking out for themselves.
You can see how free market capitalism really gets the edge here, as it relies on people chasing their own self interest to get the goals of greater society achieved (via careful management of those that are really in power i.e. governments)
Maybe the best way to bring these kinds of games to a close, and get organisastions working in a more equitable and single focused direction would be to bring this behavior to the light. Have it in the charter, in the newsletter, on the website. Basically a statement saying we know that this goes on, we don’t want it here. Leaders are elected at x time via straight democratic process. Anyone seen to be taking their own interest over that of the group will be reprimanded in a pre determined way.
