Argumentative Essay: The Game Of Power

The Game of Power
Introduction:

This piece discusses the relevance of power in comparative as well as absolutist terms. One thing I have found is, the word “power,” contains specific connotations to most people. They hear the word “power” and it conjures up an image of absolutist, concentrated power. A king, judge, dictator or some other esteemed or highly influential individual. However, these roles are merely the symbolic embodiments of a concentration of power, saturated power. Power permeates the entirety of the societal structure in subtle and not-so-subtle nuances that dominate each and every social interaction. Everyone has a place. There is a pecking order. Sometimes the contrast is oblique, other times it is resounding.

Power and

This an introspective question common in a culture obsessed with seeming not to care (or at least, caring too much.) Regardless, everybody cares for the opinion of at least one other. This is normal and natural behavior. Yet many of us realize in the quest for social dominance that one must be able to out-bluff a bluffer should one wish to get their way. He who shows the most indifference and composure is oft the person to come out on top in negotiation or argument. In the theatre of masks, he whose mask begins to crack and shatter first, loses. This is what the manosphere means with all its talk of “holding frame.” From a Machiavellian viewpoint, the person who retains more composure relative to the other is forcing the other to play the cards they deal. A person with a solid frame forces others to react rather than dictate. When one is indifferent to the behavior of another, where that other would expect they be upset or angry, one commands shock value that can flip a power struggle on its head. By “letting it go over your head” you retain independence, with independence there is respect and social dominance within the interaction. He who sets the frame effectively controls the rules of engagement. He, who is definitively reactive, or at least, comparatively reactive, communicates himself to be a social