The Origins of Power #

The assumption of power can give it to you, whether you have it or not.” Or, in Laurie Oakes’ more pithy translation: “You get power by exercising it.”

There are multitudes of theories on the nature of power and the basis, sources and distribution of power. Early societies believed all power derived from the gods, the sun or the earth and these had to be appeased by sacrifice if the tribe were to survive and prosper. Poets spoke the language of the gods and so became early leaders.

Eventually power went to the last War Lord left standing. To legitimise their power, War Lords became monarchs and claimed they too derived their power directly from a deity and in many civilizations leaders were considered demi-gods.

Early power struggles raged between Monarchs and the Pope. With the fall of Rome, the Pope eventually filled the power vacuum, claiming absolute power in Europe.

When the German King Henry IV attempted to appoint his own bishops, Pope Gregory VII excommunicated Henry IV and all his subjects, in 1076.

Henry IV trekked from Speyer to Canossa Castle in Emilia-Romagna, barefoot, wearing a hair shirt, to obtain the revocation of the excommunication imposed on him by the Pope Gregory VII. He was forced to humiliate himself on his knees waiting for three days and three nights before the entrance gate of the castle, while a blizzard raged in January 1077.

The conflict ended in 1122, when The Investiture Controversy was resolved by Pope Callixtus II and Emperor Henry V at the Concordat of Worms. ‎ However the Spanish Inquisition demonstrated the Church’s absolute control over thought, but eventually the secularists won out when Martin Luther broke the monopoly of the Church and Henry VIII declared himself head of the English Church, seized all Church properties and hung rebellious Priests. It was the radical group the Anabaptists or Mennonites who believed in egalitarianism and a total separation of Church and State. Because they had no political power they were martyred in great numbers.

Christians continued to kill each other throughout Europe in what are called The Religious Wars. The Treaty of Westphalia 1648, was one of the first attempts to resolve conflict by negotiation, and diplomacy, rather than military force.

The first documented evidence of asserted people power exists in the Magna Carter as depicted in the chronicle of Melrose Abbey in 1215:

a new state of things has begun in England; such a strange affair as had never before been heard; for the body wished to rule the head, and the people desired to be masters over the king.

Nothing happened for 400 years as shown by King James I’s belief in the divine right of kings; the idea that they have unlimited sovereign prerogatives as indicated by his speech to parliament on 21^(st) of March 1610:

Kings are justly called Gods for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth. For if you will consider the attributes of God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a King. God has the power to create and destroy; make or unmake at his pleasure; to give life or send death; to judge all and to be judged, nor accountability to none; to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure. And the like power have Kings.

Henry IV of France called James I “the wisest fool of Christendom”.

When an eminent lawyer, Sir Edward Cook, suggested there were limitations to the King’s prerogatives, James thundered “So then I am under the law. It is treason to say that!” Cook threw himself flat on all fours in terror and obeisance at the royal rage pleading for mercy.

Shakespeare has Lady MacBeth express her delusional supreme confidence in their untrammelled security;

“ What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account"?

Was Shakespeare attempting to caution King James? Was it this inculcated delusional belief in absolute power that caused King James’ son Charles I to lose his head?

Thirty years later Cromwell’s lawyers produced the first trial of a Head of State – that of Charles I. It traces the memorable career of John Cooke, the radical barrister and visionary social reformer who had the courage and intellect to devise a way to end the impunity of sovereigns. Geoffrey Robertson’spaper, Ending Impunity: How International Criminal Law Can Put Tyrants on Trial has been published in the 2005 Cornell Law Journal (issue 3, Volume 38). Unfortunately after the restoration of the monarchy in the 1660’s, John Cooke was tried for treason and executed for his services to democracy.

Other western monarchs too asserted the Divine Right of Absolute power and the only way to dissuade them was to detach their heads from their bodies which happened in England in 1648, France 1789, while Russia resorted to a firing squad in 1918.

Nature abhors a vacuum, so with the decline of Absolute Monarchies, the Catholic Church renewed her claim to absolute power. With its loss of moral credibility and authority, other institutions and corporations were queued up ready to take over the mantle including: the legal judicial cartel, media moguls, transnational mining companies, telecommunication industry…. Media moguls from, Lord Beaverbrook, William Randolph Hearst, Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch….all claimed influential power over people and governments. America’s democracy (Power by, for and of the People) has been hi-jacked by the Military Industrial Complex, Unions, the Mafia, the National Rifle Association, the legal/judicial cartel…..

“The point about real power is that it does its own work, particularly among those who deal in power. Nobody in the power elite needs to be told … everybody understands; the fact of power is enough. If there’s a bull in the field, everybody steps carefully. The fear gives him access; the access gives him influence. Real power is passive.” – Nick Davies, Hack Attack on the vaunted power of the Murdoch press.

Lord Acton had papal infallibility in mind when writing to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887.

“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact > that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”

This caution appears to have gone unheeded and the Church is today facing a crises of moral credibility and loss of authority, legitimacy and influence due to its inadequate response to allegations of sexual abuse.

Never mind other institutions were lined up to usurp the power of and from the people to claim world domination.

Many early leaders followed the dictum that all power rose out of military prowess and later Mao’s theory that “all power comes out of the barrel of a gun”. Only in enlightened societies did the concept of power from and by the people (the governed) develop. For 30 years, the Golden Age of Democracy reigned in Greece. A full direct version of democracy flourished but was eventually undermined by the crisis of war.

Democracy as a political model did not re-emerge until after the 17^(th) C. Its growth and spread was slow and tortuous. The Magna Charter of 1215 is an early step while John Locke in England and Jacques Rousseau in France developed foundation theories on the concept of a Social Contract; government by the consent of the governed. The pendulum now swung behind the idea that “The pen is mightier than the sword” updated as “Can a word processor be more powerful than a nuclear warhead?” Might is not necessarily right.

Hard power imposed from above is temporal, while soft power, inspirational power induced by the winning of hearts and minds can be more permanent. When people are coerced into action they will do as they are told; no more, no less, however when people are thoroughly convinced, committed, fervent, inspired or full of conviction they will give their all for a cause, even the supreme sacrifice of their lives.

Hard and soft power can be combined into “smart power”, as Nietzsche articulated and Goebbels demonstrated. The more authoritarian, the less real authority.

Power is elusive. Power is mercurial. Power is ephemeral. Power cannot be vested; real power has to be earned and deserved. Real enduring power is associated with influence and authority; the more authoritarian, the less real authority. Power that needs to act with force is not real power.There is not absolute power; every power has limitations.

Even Julius Caesar was subject to the power of his wife and ultimately his colleagues. You are a rooster one day and a feather duster the next.

“The assassins came, they always do, and they barely pause to knock. Power, we see, has its limits, and people tend to experience those limits in very quantifiable ways. One way is being forced to stow your own hubris in a cardboard box with your personal effects. Hand back the official phone. Hand back the security pass. – and It’s always too soon. In politics, people only ever believe they are just getting started. They are slaves to their addiction. Katherine Murphy – The Guardian on Peta Credlin 24/09/2015

You are lucky if the security guards don’t frog-march you out the door.

Power mongers suffer from the Ozymandias Syndrome:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”. Percy Bysshe Shelley

“The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.” ―Marcus Garvey

Barry Cassidy contends that true leadership is about earning respect, not wielding authority. ….

Five basic forms of Authority #

Æsculapian Authority and the Doctor-patient Relationship

Erik T. Paterson, M.B., Ch.B., D.Obst.R.C.O.G., F.B.I.S The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine Vol. 15, 2nd Quarter 2000

Authority as a term has bad public relations at this time because of the confusion between its meaning and that of the word “power”, the two often and incorrectly being used as synonyms.

Power is that which is used to change the way people function/behave without their consent. In effect it makes slaves of them, denying them the rights and privileges of citizenship while imposing upon them merely duties and responsibilities. Military people are familiar with this in the form of conscription, a conscript army being indistinguishable from a slave army.

This is an appropriate point to consider the term ‘Swanelo’. This Ugandan word was identified by Paterson as expressing the essence of citizenship. In return for voluntarily carrying out a person’s Duties and Responsibilities to society, society in return bestows certain Rights and Privileges upon that person.

However, a person who has only Rights and Privileges is a tyrant, and, currently, there are too many tyrants in society all demanding their Rights without consideration of what Duties they ought to perform to merit such Rights. A slave has merely Duties and Responsibilities, having no say in how his or her life ought to be conducted. Someone without either Duties and Responsibilities or Rights and Privileges is nothing, not even human as we understand it–see ‘nidding’ above. A citizen has Duties and Responsibilities in perfect balance with Rights and Privileges, i.e. Swanelo.

An important aspect of Swanelo is Authority. It is society, or a component of society such as a company or other organization, which bestows authority upon a person by common consent. And it is that consent which distinguishes Authority from Power. Which form of authority (or combination of forms) is given depends upon what function or role that person is to fulfill in society. Understanding of the forms of Authority in a clear and unambiguous fashion helps us to use it constructively. And it is a very potent tool which the group uses to make the decisions which it has to make, often to achieve the very survival of the group”. Paterson identified 5 basic forms of Authority:

1 Structural Authority #

The right to command (and discipline) by reason of a person’s position within an organization. An example of this is the authority of the manager of a business. The manager is required to secure the economic survival of the business. An employee enters the business to perform some function which the business requires to further aim of the survival of the business. And the employee voluntarily accepts that the manager has Structural Authority. Without that authority the manager is unable to give the necessary orders to ensure that the business does survive, and the employee’s very livelihood, and ultimately survival, depends on that. It also confers the right to discipline by reprimand, or even more severe sanctions, if the employee acts in a fashion which is contrary to the survival of the enterprise.

2 Sapiential Authority #

The right to be heard by reason of a person’s superior knowledge and experience. The wise manager recognises that employees have knowledge about their jobs which the manager cannot possess. While the ultimate responsibility for the outcome of the employee’s work lies with the manager, it is better for the business if that knowledge is recognised. The unwise manager gives arbitrary orders without acknowledging the Sapiential Authority of the worker. An important aspect of Sapiential Authority is advisability, the right to give advice. But this does not confer the right to retaliate if the advice is not accepted.

3 Charismatic Authority #

Literally God given Authority – the right to be heard by reason of the religious, or pseudo-religious, mantle borne by the person. Commonly this is bestowed upon the clergy of the various world religions, but can be a feature of other ideologies. It tends to be used to bring about correct behaviour within the tenets of the ideology. The danger is always that of ‘righteousness’, a rigidity of thinking which cannot tolerate deviations from such tenets even though such deviations might bring about an improvement in a situation. Currently many medical authorities and licensing bodies are guilty of righteousness.

4 Moral Authority #

The right to be heard because the person is trying to bring about a betteringness of the situation. Hold frequent meetings between management and the staff at the office. First of all this is done to bring home the recognition of their Sapiential Authority. But, more importantly, the moral authority of everyone is invoked to improve the service provided, which is ‘a good thing’ and far from righteous.

5 Personal Authority #

The right to be heard by reason of a person’s personal qualities. In the meetings referred to above, there are members of staff who tend to speak up more on matters than others. Necessarily they have more Personal Authority.

Either consciously, or unconsciously, humans seem to recognise these forms of Authority. Perhaps that recognition is hard-wired into our brains genetically by evolution. Certainly they are universal in all known human cultures, even those separated from each other by many millennia of separate development. This is also true of Æsculapian Authority. No individual is restricted to one form of authority. Often, depending on the circumstances and the differing roles which we play, we may switch from one form to another or even adopt combinations. Paterson

John Howard rose to the occasion [by toughening gun restrictions] after the Port Arthur massacre but others haven’t done as well. Being put in a position of leadership does not make you a leader. You have to demonstrate leadership when you get the opportunity. He also showed great courage and risk by introducing the GST before an election.

Definitions of Power #

Ability to do or act; strength, might, force, capability of doing or accomplishing something.

libido dominandi , an insatiable lust for power and dominance.

Machiavelli: Power is conspicuous for its absence.

Nietzsche: “There are men who desire power simply for the sake of the happiness it will bring.” Everybody searches for power, but the weak search for it everywhere, while the strong will search in very specific places.” The Will to Power

Michel Foucault once asserted that ‘power and knowledge directly imply one another’ – one cannot exist without the other.

What every political party would want in their own country … ascendancy and supremacy.

A democracy is all about power; how we take it away from those who abuse it, and put it back where it belongs – distributed to the people.

Piety is a mask for power. And like the pious, some are more concerned with their own superiority than with doing good.

“universalism, a hard distinction between justice and power, and the possibility of progress”.

The Exercise of Power through Bullying #

Bullying, much in the news of late, has been with us for thousands of years. That it exists in a free democratic society should be of concern to us as it breeds and thrives in highly organized, autocratic and repressive cultures. However even in the most democratic and liberal societies, there exist pockets or spheres of authoritarian mentalities where might overrules right.

Bullying can be defined as the imposition of ideas, views or methods on others by pressure or brute force. Bullying can be ruthless, direct and obvious or subtle and covert. It can be carried out by physical threat or by the potential of social, mental or emotional ridicule resulting in the isolation of the target. Bullying occurs locally where power is concentrated in the hands of one person or in small groups of people, a cabal. History records the evidence of successful bullying as exemplary in a tough world, though some leaders like Bismarck also knew how to appeal to people’s hearts and minds and Hitler used brute force but relied on the wiles of Goebbels to keep people on side.

The perpetrator of an aggressive intimidatory act is generally someone who holds a position of advantage or power over subordinates but lacks the leadership or people skills to competently or confidently exercise influence or control over them. Lacking the ability to inspire people or sway opinion, the bully resorts to crude tactics that may involve veiled threats and brutal scathing put downs. Failure to implement their policies in socially approved channels they either rant, rave, bluster or turn to clandestine means of undercutting their opponents influence by smear and character assassination. Invariably, bullies are incompetent or mediocre leaders, lacking in inspirational abilities, who compensate by blustering, posturing and bravado or underhanded machinations..

Bullying, like poverty is self-perpetuating.

Judges hold special status in our society with inordinate vested power, but with that status comes an onerous responsibility; objectivity, impartiality and rational judgments that reflect the common good and are in the Public Interest. Again, though Lord Acton had papal infallibility and the absolute powers of monarchs in mind when writing to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887, his warnings apply to all people invested with great power, including judges:

….Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely…… There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it."

Judges are not placed above the universally accepted principles of natural justice, judicial fairness, and sound reason. On the contrary, partiality is a luxury any person in a position of power can ill afford. Public faith, trust and confidence in our appointed officials provides a precious basis for a vibrant democracy and a harmonious, just and civil society.

Greg Barnes writes:

“All too often judges are criticised for being pompous and out of touch with the community. While this accusation is grossly unfair, it is understandable. Of course, if we insist on calling judges Your Honour and using ridiculously quaint expressions such as “If Your Honour pleases” in addressing a court, it’s no wonder that the deification of the judiciary is alive and well in Australia today.”

Retired Judge Dyson Heydon (Canadian born) has fired a parting salvo at his fellow High Court judges in an essay that categorises them as overbearing personalities and weaker spirits, with a herd mentality that poses a threat to judicial independence.

In a thinly veiled critique of the dynamic on the High Court, the most solitary figure on the bench in recent years attacked the tendency of some judges to dominate others, in an essay subtitled ‘‘The enemy within’’, published in the Law Quarterly Review.

‘‘Stronger judicial personalities tend to push the weaker into submission,’’ ‘They stare out from their judgments with the superb elegance of noblemen in Renaissance portraits - utterly confident of their own ability, pretty sure that no other judge has yet grasped the key points and that some may never do so, certain that the parties have not, glorifying in their self-perceived terribilita.’’

Sometimes those judges exerted their influence even before oral argument began, in the judicial conferences that were held among the seven members of the bench to discuss the issues of each case.

‘‘In pre-hearing judicial conferences, the activities of dominant judicial personalities carry the danger of creating the appearance and the reality of prejudgment - a closure by members of the court of their minds too early, before word of oral argument has been uttered,’’

‘‘Chief Justice Griffith spoke of the process by which ‘arguments were torn to shreds before they were fully admitted to the mind’. Some counsel now think that they are torn to shreds before they have fully left counsel’s mouth.’’

Another Retired High Court Justice Michael Kirby recommended that protocols be developed to deal with judges who bully counsel or witnesses.

‘‘In serious and repeated cases, bullying by judicial officers should be recognised as an abuse of public office warranting commencement of proceedings for the removal of the offender from judicial office,’’ he said.

‘‘A judge is a servant of the law and is commissioned by the Queen and the community to do their duty, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.

‘‘They have to be held to that, in my opinion, because if they’re not, they’re going to go on [bullying others].’’

If Airlines are grounded for breaching safety standards; doctors are suspended for breaching codes of practice, Priests are jailed for sexual abuse, surely we can hold Honourable Justices to account for breaching universally accepted codes of impartiality and the abuse of power. It is time for Tyrannicide; end the immunity of Judges.