Wednesday, March 23, 2011

cause of corruption

"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
sounds good --
but I have a different theory, based on observation.

In my experience,
some people
who have
frustrations they can't deal with;
low self-esteem;
something to prove;
a drive to domination for its own sake,

and have a need to work this out, somehow, on the World, will seek a position of power from which to operate.

I don't believe the person
Gets the Power
and THEN that Power "corrupts" them --
like if you ate something & got food poisoning.

It appears to me that a corrupt person in power
already
had the corruption, (or the tendency toward it -- the personal "deficit")
when they arrived at the power.

Having the power just allows the person (Saddam Hussein, for example) to perpetrate more outrageous atrocities on the world and to
obliterate obstacles
and
protect himself effectively from censure, or defeat.

The more he wins, the more he can win.
The more people he kills, the more people he can kill.
Etc.
The Power isn't the Problem.
The Problem is the Person who uses the power to do bad things.

(I always remember a catch-phrase Maxwell Smart would use -- sometimes at the end of an episode of "Get Smart," when they're wrapping up the loose ends of the case, Max would become deeply contemplative and gaze off into the distance, & say (in that nasal New-York-accent twang),
"If only he had used his power [pow-ah]
for niceness,
Instead of
for evil.")

-30-

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