LS Power and the MOQ

From: John and Ruth Beasley (beasley@internetnorth.com.au)
Date: Fri Apr 02 1999 - 09:25:21 BST


"The crude issue of power" is an ambivalent phrase. It seems to suggest that power is 'on the
nose'; even, perhaps, that power is a problem in itself. Charles Reich, in "The Greening of
America" says, "It is not the misuse of power that is the evil; the very existence of power is an
evil."

I strongly reject this notion. Rollo May wrote "Power and Innocence", the best book I know in
the field, and his opening words were "Power is essential for all living things". Power and
capacity are very closely linked. The word power comes from the Latin 'posse', meaning "to
be able". According to May, "the chief reason people refuse to confront the whole issue of
power is that if they did, they would have to face their own powerlessness." It is not power
that corrupts, but in the words of Edgar Friedenberg "All weakness tends to corrupt, and
impotence corrupts absolutely." May continues, "No one can accept complete impotence
short of death. If he cannot assert himself overtly, he will do it covertly. Thus magic - a
covert, occult force - is an absolute necessity for the powerless. The spread of magic and the
reliance on the occult is one symptom of the widespread impotence of our transitional age."

For many people power equals coercion. This is simplistic. John Dewey viewed coercive
force as the middle ground between power as energy and power as violence. "Not to depend
upon and utilize force is simply to be without a foothold in the real world", he said. Rollo May
discriminates five types of power. I think it is worth looking at these.

Exploitative power, embodied in slavery, is the most destructive of its victims. It depends
upon physical force or the threat of violence, and is all too common in our world.

Manipulative power is "power over another person". Both the con man and the operant
conditioning put forward by B.F. Skinner depend upon manipulative power. It has some value
in working with retarded children and prisoners, but is usually destructive.

Competitive power is "power against another". Usually it applies where one person's gain is
at the expense of others, such as in giving grades in school, and much competition in
industry. While it tends to limit human community, it has constructive as well as destructive
aspects, as in competitive sports. Competition is not always bad, and brings out the best in
many people, providing zest and vitality in their lives. "It is not competition itself that is
destructive but only the kind of competitive power."

Nutrient power is "power for the other". It is seen in the care for their children shown by
normal parents, and in good teaching. "It is the constructive aspect of political and diplomatic
power" and in statesmanship.

Integrative power is "power with the other person." When somone criticises me, not out of
spite or to inflict hurt, but to seek to clarify and deepen awareness of the issue under
contention, he gives me a gift, even though I may feel hurt or defensive at the time. Similarly,
a therapist who draws my attention to the fantasies and projections that limit me is actually
helping my growth, however painful the experience is for me.

To summarise thus far: we all use power, which can be of different types, and which can be
more or less harmful or helpful to others. Further, while power can be abused, it is our lack of
power which creates violence and aggression, and leads to covert harm through magic and
the occult. "Violence has its breeding ground in impotence and apathy." "While it is utopian
to try to divorce power completely from force, compulsion and coercion, it is cynical to
identify all kinds of power with them."

May summarises his argument in a statement which resonates with my experience of working
with people, and my understanding of myself. "No one," he says, "can escape experiencing,
in desire and action, all five types of power, and only self-righteous rigidity leads one to claim

that he is immune from any one of them. The goal for human development is to learn to use
these different kinds of power in ways adequate to the given situation." Innocence, which
appears to be a happy freedom from power issues, is in adults a subtle form of self deceit,
and a refusal to accept responsibility.

Having gone to some trouble to map the territory of power (and I really do recommend
reading May's book), I want to take a few tentative steps towards connecting with the MOQ.

If impotence is the key to undestanding the power issues of our era, as I believe, then the
debate needs to focus on how a metaphysics might empower us to live higher quality lives.
Kevin Sanchez, in his brilliantly worded but truncated essay on our previous topic
characterises both modernism and post-modernism as "two impotent interpretations". Where
is the potency in the metaphysics of quality which meets our existential crisis?

Kevin's exploration of "What is real" provides a clue. In my view, perception is oriented
towards quality, meaning those aspects of environing reality (the field) which matter to me.
With value accessible through experience, the nihilism of our era can be faced. The MOQ is
an intellectual construct which validates our experience against other intellectual systems
which are, as Kevin shows, intrinsically destructive. In this sense, it is a meme which
competes within the culture for survival. While I feel great discomfort about some of the
crusading statements that appear in Lila Squad debates, there is a sense in which the
communication of Pirsig's insights can empower people, and personally, if this wasn't so the
whole business would become an academic game.

The other area I suspect might be worth exploring is any link between "integrative power"
and dynamic quality. When working as a therapist, I am intrigued by the huge resistance to
change that needs to be overcome for growth to occur in an individual. While I suspect that
the power for such a change to occur does not come from an idea, such as the MOQ, but
from attending to actual experience, (that is to the dynamic quality inherent in that
experience), it may well be that an idea can provide the incentive to attend, and to continue
attending even when the experience generates much pain and discomfort.

I realise this is very muddy at present. I hope some clarity will emerge as the debate unfolds.

John B

MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org



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