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What is Power?
Psychologist, Amos Wilson states:
“Power refers to the ability to do, the ability to be, the ability to prevail. Beingness and aliveness originate with power” (Wilson, 2020/1988, p. 5).
“Power in and of itself ‘can be both a detrimental and a beneficial aspect of social relationships’ and can be made to play ‘the negative as well as the positive role…in the constitution of human social life’ (Wartenberg). Power can be utilized to achieve personal, social, political and material ends if it is appropriately developed, organized and applied. The question of whether power is beneficial or harmful can only be answered in regard to the specific use to which it is put in a particular situation” (Wilson, 2020/1988, p. 6).
“The oppressed and downtrodden, having been traumatized by the abuse of power by their powerful oppressors, often come to perceive power itself as inherently evil, as by nature corrupting and therefore as something to be eschewed, denied and renounced. The pursuit of power is viewed as unworthy of virtuous persons, and the desire to possess it as sinful. Therefore, many among the powerless and poor feel compelled to find in their powerlessness and poverty the emblematic signs of their Godliness and redemptive salvation. How convenient a precept for rationalizing and maintaining the power of the haves over the have-nots” (Wilson, 2020/1988, p. 6-7)!
Reference:
Wilson, A. (2020). Blueprint for Black power: A moral, political and economic imperative for the twenty-first century. African World InfoSystems. (Originally published 1998).
