How do we solve the ‘Power’ problem?

There is a saying, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Actually the saying by Baron Acton is, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

Although he is not the first to question power he is the closest to the saying everyone knows.  Yet still to this day power and all its trimmings have such a massive devastating effect on humanity and the planet in general.

If ever there was a psychological human disorder to solve this must be a top priority.  We have many scientists trying to solve a plethora other human defects; I wonder how many look at solving this one.  Power is a necessary evil; we have to have someone or some group in charge, in power, it is necessary to stop anarchy and the destruction of society and civilisation.  Still it is a dangerous beast to control, and the way we control it at present does not work and has not worked for many years.

I used to think it was not worth saving, that we should be destroyed, that humanity needed to be taught a lesson.  But I now realise how foolish I was, for even if we did bring the evil power hungry, greedy bastards down, society was destroyed and anarchy reigned; we would not have solved the problem at hand.  We would still fall into the same power psychology traps as always; just it would take longer before they reached a critical mass again.  And in all likelihood they would be worse.

Like so many issues it needs to be addressed very soon for humanity to survive, the delusion created by massive amounts of power and control is worse than any drug addiction.  This being the case the loss of that power is something far more devastating, and this is the problem we have as humans because it is known that we do not take loss very well. 

This is something casinos have known for years, loss is how they make so much money.  We don’t get a massive buzz from winning, but we take a massive hit when we lose.  We fall into a self-inflicted delusion of the mind that we can somehow sustain the loss, we can hide its fallout, and we can somehow turn it around.  Yet as we see throughout history it rarely happens, once the snowball has started to roll, the avalanche tends to follow.

The financial meltdown of recent years is an example of how misuse of power can result in a catastrophe yet will we learn from it, I doubt it.  We didn’t learn from the two world wars, which have to be the most devastating events in the history of humanity, why should something as mundane as a financial meltdown stop the power hungry lunatics.

As we grow ever more gifted, (I use the word to show our ability to improve and to have more control over our lives) we lend ourselves ever more to the horror of power elitism, and its overwhelming effect on the lives of humanity.  Whenever we try to control the beast, we allow it to grow and to inveigle us or at least some of us into thinking the beast has been tamed.  And then they let the beast free, and what does it do, it devours everything until it is brought to heal once more.  The problem with this continuous release and then restrict policy is that the beast which is all powerful continues to grow, until it is uncontrollable.

And when the beast becomes uncontrollable, god help us then.

 

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As a footnote here is something to ponder...

Imagine you are in Austria and you are Adolf Hitler's careers adviser, and you ask him what do you want to be when you grow up? 

Do you think he answers; well I'd like to be known as the most evil man in history, responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people, some in callous and despicable ways.  I want to be the destroyer of the country I love, Germany, and cause more devastation than any other human to have lived.

I somehow doubt it, I would imagine he just wanted to be a painter.