Freedom is Power

He was a big man – peering from beneath his hat with an unfaltering gaze. There was no arguing with the big man – it was, do what he says, or get out. But the group had another big man, and one day the two of them clashed. Like so many arguments, it was over something trivial. The roof of the building had a water collection system. The water had turned cloudy. Was it the roof or was it the filtration? The two big guys screamed at each other. Everyone else kept an embarrassed silence. This went on for half an hour or more. Then a small weedy guy spoke up. Surely the water in the storage tank would decide the matter one way or another. If the water was cloudy then the fault must be with the roof. If the water was clear then the fault must lie further into the system, that is, with the filtration unit. There was a few moments of silence as the inexorable logic of the weedy man’s words sunk in. Then everyone bundled up onto the flat roof and the hatch to the water tank. A glass was lowered down. A glass full of crystal clear water was lifted out. One big man had been right, the other one wrong. There was no possibility of doubt. The losing man could not face the group. He remained alone, up on the roof, until the meeting was over. I recount this incident because it illustrates some peculiar aspects of both power and freedom. One of the main ways we discuss freedom is to make a distinction between ‘freedom-from’ and ‘freedom-to’. These terms relate closely to the idea of power. So, to be ‘free from’ means to be free from the abuse of power inflicted on us by others – to be free from ‘power-over’. Meanwhile, at first strike, it might seem that ‘freedom-to’ would be the province of the powerful. But our story questions those assumptions. Think first of the losing side of the two big guys. We could hardly say that he was free in the situation I’ve described. In fact, it was his power that trapped him into misery and shame as a result of getting things wrong. Power can have that effect – trapping those who wield it into evermore ridiculous posturing in order to avoid the humiliation and shame of being brought down by some failure or misdemeanour on their part. And – perhaps more pertinent to the theme of this essay – there is the little guy – the guy who offered the suggestion of testing the water to see where the problem might lie. Such a person might be regarded as lacking in power. Too quiet, too small, not sufficiently assertive, or whatever. It was only in this instance where he could point out the unassailable logic of the situation that he was able to win through. So, we can ask, is he free? On a superficial level we could say he gained a bit of freedom in this instance. He pointed out something that the big guys hadn’t thought of – and it didn’t matter what the correct solution was, it was just the idea of how to figure things out. We might say he humiliated the powerful, to an extent. This brings us to different ideas of that rather difficult term – ‘power-under’. It’s an odd thing that power-under is so much more complicated than power-over. Power-over’s meaning just seems clear. The powerful are powerful. They wield power with ruthless cruelty or with wisdom and compassion – but there’s not much ambiguity over the fact that it’s them who hold the power. But power-under is, by contrast, a much trickier term. Here’s three meanings. Firstly, there’s power-under in the sado-masochistic sense. I don’t mean in the sexual sense – but the sexual gives us an indication of what’s going on here. Part of us likes someone else to take control – to wield power. It absolves us of responsibility. It becomes a comfortable routine. At the same time though, we resent those that hold power over us. In a milder form, we might despise our leaders but be unwilling to challenge their leadership. They’re all corrupt and in it for the money, we might think. But at the same time we’re hoping for someone else to shoulder the responsibilities – and the blame. The second meaning of power-under is a bit more pro-active. It is to challenge power – often by way of being cleverer or more subtle than the powerful. This was what the quiet guy in our story was doing. The power lay with him for a little while at least, and he gained a little freedom as a result. It’s a technique sometimes used by artists and poets. They will produce work that has a different take on the world, but one that resonates with people – often on an emotional, even visceral, level. Thus, those in power are challenged, but often not in any obvious or direct way. Authoritarian governments of all stripes are, by their nature, paranoid. Authoritarian governments have a particular fear of artists and poets. The artist and the poet may well be on the losing side of this dynamic, but they hold a great deal of freedom. They understand the world in a much deeper and more profound way than their power-hungry leaders. This knowledge might not give them power, but it certainly gives them freedom. Their leaders know this and hate them for it. The third meaning of power-under I want to offer is, if anything, even more subtle. Our previous meanings were, we might say, just playing with the power dynamic. Someone has the power and someone else wants to drag them down – one way or another – and grab the power for themselves. Or otherwise – as with the first meaning – we just accept the status quo and resent it. What, though, if we were to step outside the hierarchies of power altogether? That’s our third option. We’re on the brink of it already with the artist and the poet. The art of comedy gets us closer. The clown challenges those in power, not by deeper insight so much as by silliness. One thing the powerful usually find very difficult to do is to laugh at themselves – to suffer humiliation. Humour steps outside power altogether, treating everything as a potential moment of hilarity. But clearly we could not all live as clowns! So the key question that our third power-under scenario presents us with is whether we could ever live a meaningful, happy, fulfilling life, entirely fee from all the trappings of power. And here I include power within families and amongst friends as well as in education, the workplace, institutions and government. Could I just live my life, do my own thing and ignore everything else that’s happening in terms of the power relations, authority, conventions and opinions all around me? In many ways it’s an attractive prospect. It taps into such terms as authenticity. It is the free-thinker, the entrepreneur, the artisan, the craftsman. It’s the hippy and hipster lifestyle. It’s freedom-from and it’s freedom-to. It’s not only freedom-to-do it’s freedom-to-be! So, is this possible? If someone lived in a hut in the woods and grew all their own food, they might just make it. Or if someone lived alone, made and sold things themselves in order to make a living and otherwise kept entirely to themselves, then again they might make it. There’s a pattern there, of course. As soon as we have to involve other people in any significant way, then the insidious wheels of power start to turn once again. Don’t be fooled by groups that practice some kind of ‘power-with’ – where everyone is supposed to have a say. They are usually even more trapped by power than the rest of us! No, if this third version of power-under were to work, then it means changing the narrative of human societies, if not changing human nature itself! The first thing might be to call out and shame all abuses of power, wherever and however they might occur. And if that were not difficult enough, it means somehow thinking differently about what life is even for! Because, yes, worldly success, being right, leaving a legacy, gaining knowledge, gaining skill – even practising compassion – all of these may simply be further ways back into hierarchies of power – further ways in which we ‘get one over’ on the powerful. There is no easy answer to this – as I suspect is obvious by now. Perhaps one way forward is simply to watch how almost every conversation is an exchange of power. And in watching for this, perhaps we can learn to resist. Resist the temptation to do what power would normally choose to do – getting some subtle, or not-so-subtle, advantage in the power game. Why not, instead, give up the need to be right? Why not give up the need to be heard? Why not keep our opinions to ourselves? Why not build others up instead of ourselves? Why not hide our talents instead of flaunting them? Why not ignore fashion, opinion, convention, etiquette? But perhaps you see the difficulty, even with these strategies. Would we not, in fact, be playing an even more subtle power game? I hope, instead, we could do all this for real, as it were. I hope we could be the genuine thing, the truly authentic. The implication – from society, culture, politics, even the arts – the implication is that power brings freedom. But we’ve seen that the powerful can instead be trapped by their power. The real lesson – the lesson of true power-under – is that freedom is power. But the freedom is of a special type – not the kind of packaged holiday, city breaks version offered to us by consumer society. So what will set us free? That, it seems to me, is a question worth asking ourselves. What, dear reader, will set YOU free?