Down through time, during man’s ascendancy on this earth, we have had people who wielded power over us. It probably started out with the biggest and strongest of the group defying anyone in his tribe to stop him from telling them what to do, and backing it up with muscle and a big club.
Over time, as the tribes got bigger, there was probably some kind of system to pick the person who was discerned as the best candidate for the Job. The strongest, the most intelligent, or the one with the most backers, wife’s, or any combination of the above.
At some point in our history…our leaders came to believe that they were picked by ‘God’ or ‘the gods’ to fill the role of leader, and of course this was followed by some leaders thinking they were gods, and they started to picked their own successors. At any rate most of the leaders of humankind have had problems with the power they wielded. Hell, even Solomon was selling his people into slavery to enrich the treasury.
From the written history we have of the Middle Eastern world of Biblical times we know that the Kings and leaders of the time were always going to war to either overthrow another tribe and take their animals, crops, women, gold, tactical location, for sport, or they were defending themselves from bloodthirsty Kings trying to do the same to them. These leaders, almost to the man, turned out to be wicked and corrupt. They had no sense of respect for the rights of humans they purported to represent and guide. The common man has always been cannon fodder for Kings and leaders throughout our human history. Used up and discarded.
As our recorded history continued through the Greeks, Romans, Catholic Popes, Kings in France, England, and elsewhere on the European and Asian c...
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...communications. As I’ve already mentioned all monetary transactions are now monitored so the government can get their unfair share of taxes. Billions, even Trillions of dollars of tax money have just disappeared with no explanations to us poor people who work really hard to succeed and pay their taxes. If we use too much cash money…the government suspects us of being drug dealers, money launderers, arms dealers or some such crap, and they promptly investigate. Even ex-Senator Bob Dole was caught up in this silliness.
Our government is inexorably moving to a kind of democratic dictatorship. Where we vote for those that would totally control our whole life…in all respects. They just slowly add things that enslave us. You don’t even notice them sneaking up on you.
Nothing ever truly changes in Kings and politics…it’s all about control, power, and money…always was.
What is power to a human? As time has gone by, there have been many forms of control and influence in the world. Many strive to achieve total rule over a society or group of individuals. Yet the question still presents itself to the average man. Why does man desire power so greatly even though there is visible trouble that follows? Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, whether through the situation or the character themselves, depict the evils and hardships due to an imbalance and poor management of power.
Leaders of nations are designated to manage to country in a form that will allow all its aspects to run smoothly. The Ottoman and Qing had a crisis of power; all the officials took advantage of their titles. Both nations had a set system of taxes that were collected by the leaders of each county or area of the nation. In the Ottoman Empire the Janissaries and some nobles collect taxes from the citizens they had power over, yet those taxes collected were reserved for their own spending instead of helping the countries debt and military advancements. While in china a similar problem became evident, the farmers of china began to...
The tribe was divided into four social groups. At the top of the hierarchy were the relative...
would change became reality. This was a threat to the power of the king. The different
There are always people who, in a group, come out with better qualities to be a leader than others. The strongest people however, become the greater influences which the others decide to follow. However, sometimes the strongest person is not the best choice. Authors often show how humans select this stronger person to give an understanding of the different powers that people can posses over others.
In our society, we have elections to choose our leaders and, most of the time, they lead our countries well. Signs of authority are shown every day by our leaders; whether it be the way they dress, the way they give speeches, or the way they fight their wars. Our society has a checks and balances system, according to Merriam Webster “so that no part can become too powerful”. Societies like this thrive all over the world. Yet...
Thomas Jefferson once said “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” Over time I have begun to believe that America is evolving into a dystopian society and it is caused greatly by the fact that the United States is a tyranny disguised as a democracy. The reason that the United States government isn’t understood to be a tyranny is because they don’t directly oppress their citizens, but through psychological control make us indirectly oppress ourselves.
Power has been defined as the psychological relations over another to get them to do what you want them to do. We are exposed to forms of power from the time of birth. Our parents exercise power over us to behave in a way they deem appropriate. In school, teachers use their power to help us learn. When we enter the work world the power of our boss motivates us to perform and desire to move up the corporate ladder so that we too can intimidate someone with power one day. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Kurtz had a power over the jungle and its people that was inexplicable.
Since the beginning of time man has tried to build vast empires to control the globe. Manifest Destiny has been sown into our human nature creating in us the desire to conquer. In the United States, we are accustomed to a safe democratic government where everyone has a voice and freedoms, but what if it all changed? What would it even look like for America to be stripped of all our freedoms, rights, and liberties? We think this is crazy and could never happen, but George Orwell illustrates, throughout his novel 1984, the possible dangers of complete government control. Even though this exaggerated society seems farfetched, many of his fictional governmental qualities are starting to line up with our government today.
The emergence and spread of the Christian faith influenced the Western civilization significantly, particularly between BC and AD when most civilizations based their leadership and divinity on Christianity. The Biblical truth was more pronounced in the Greco-Roman civilization than other previous civilizations. The present Western lifestyle and culture controls a significant chunk of the attributes that were derived from ancient Western civilization. This paper explores the evolution of the western civilizations in relation to the lineage attributes, influence of the Christian faith, and the impact of the contemporary West on the attributes of the western civilizations (Noble,
Cocaine is a powerfully addictive drug of abuse. Individuals who have tried cocaine have described the experience as a powerful high that gave them a feeling of supremacy. However, once someone starts taking cocaine, one cannot predict or control the extent to which he or she will continue to use the drug. The major ways of taking cocaine are sniffing or snorting, injecting, and smoking (including free-base and crack cocaine).
At an undetermined point in the history of man, a people, while still in the state of nature, allowed one person to become their leader and judge over controversies. This was first the patriarch of a family, then the wisest or fittest militarily of a tribe. These leaders ruled by wisdom and discretion, though neither they nor their followers were subject to any ratified laws. These rulers represented the earliest signs of an emerging hierarchical order, yet did not constitute a government in the formal sense.
It is evident that religions and their place in society have a profound effect on the growth, development, and accomplishments of a civilization. The theocracies that preceded and followed the Greeks certainly had a profound historical impact, but the tradition that would most greatly affect the development of the western mind was that of the Hellenistic world. The birth of democracy and a Golden Age of western scientific and cultural development occurred in the civilization that furthest separated its religion from its government.
... there has always been a leader to guide the people throughout their hardships. This leader can be anything from a tribal leader to the president of a country. Society in its modernity crumbles without anyone to lead it. Having a wise and just leader in my opinion is better than having none.
There are several sources of power, some of them are authority, reward, expertise, and coercion.