I've been thinking a lot about where power comes from and what gives someone the right to have power over someone else lately. I think a lot of this has been stirred from a class I'm taking where we've been talking about the role of the state, but this is a question I've grappled with for a couple of years now.
Who was the first person to take charge as a leader, and why did the other people submit to them? Was it the best hunter or was it someone with natural leadership ability? Did gorillas that eventually evolved into humans have leaders? Why did one gorilla just suddenly become leader? Why? Why? Why? Is there such thing as a natural leadership ability? Is leadership really natural? Why does someone else have the ability to tell me what to do? I don't remember signing anything that says anyone else has power over me. I just don't understand and I don't think I'll ever fully understand.
What gives someone else power over me? They're just a person like I'm just a person. We are all just people, nobody better than the other. In a classless society, nobody would be born with more power than another. If we had no society back before society was even a thing, nobody was just born powerful (I mean, strength, yes, but power over others, no.) Where then, did power come from? What makes people submit to the authority of others? I just don't understand where that authority came from. A policeman is just another person, but they have authority over what we can and can't do. Who got to decide what we can and can't do? And why did they get to decide and not me? The problem I'm grappling with at the moment is that we're all just humans. Nothing really distinguishes each from the other in a state of pure nature, so what makes someone so much more powerful than I am. Why should a congressman have the power to tell someone whether or not they can get married? What is it that gave them that power? The constitution. Who gave men of the constitutional convention the power to create the constitution? When the settlers came to America, what made some leaders and others just normal, every day people? I just don't get it. Did someone just decide they were going to be King one day and BAM! they ruled over everyone?
Voltaire said "To figure out who rules you, figure out who you can't criticize." That is so true to an extent. You aren't going to openly, blatantly criticize the person who rules over you because of fear of punishment. What gives that person the power to punish you other than their own authority. In that case, why can't you punish them? If you criticize someone of power, there is a high probability of backlash so Voltaire was right. I do criticize Voltaire in the respect that if I were to criticize the President, who rules over me, it's possible to do so with little to no repercussions because others would agree. Granted, in earlier times, it was much harder to criticize the ruler, but the principle still stands. In Nazi Germany, those who criticized Hitler were far and few between because of terror of being punished. In other countries, it is a crime to speak against the leader, but in modern-day USA, I could write a blog about how much I hate President Obama and nothing would happen. I would get some backlash from friends of mine, but other than that it would be relatively painless (except for how much I support the president...it would pain me to have to write that :) ).
What kind of ruler rules through fear? I have a strong feeling that leaders through history have gained a lot of their power through inflicting fear of pain or punishment onto those they rule over. People wouldn't question the ruler because they didn't want to get killed or tortured. I think that in the beginning of time when people began taking control of each other they did so through fear. It's like a big bully who takes your lunch money. If you want to live here, you have to submit to my power otherwise I'll kill your family because I can. I think that would cause me to submit to someone else's power too. Not cool.
Another thought I've been pondering lately has to do with how anyone has any right to land. Adam and Eve didn't own land. Archaic peoples didn't own land. Maybe if you decided that you wanted to live somewhere and made your own area that was cool, but who ever associated a monetary value with it. I get selling a house, but I don't feel like anyone has more right to land than anyone else. It's another power thing.
I don't think I'll ever know the answer to these questions. I don't even know if this post makes any sense to anyone else but me, but I'll continue to think about these big ideas and try to figure out what I think and where power actually comes from. :)
