I’m impressed with the work Lapis brings to us through Collective Disease Incorporated (http://www.curezone.com/blogs/f.asp?f=452&t=58352). So many of the postings relate stories about power: how the United States manipulates us and others. The way the U.S. relates with the president of Venezuela, Chavez, for instance—it’s about power, pure and simple.
This is power on a collective, national and world scale. What about power on an individual basis? And what about me: how do I relate with power? Am I in a right relationship with my own power?
I know my power is strong, but have I truly claimed it? How does one go about claiming one’s own power and not project it into everything in the world? Is this what I am doing with each situation? Does the fear of a situation, the fear of moving into a space, result from me projecting my power—refusing my own power? This is interesting, because this could be at the basis of a lot for me. My own relationship with power is a hot topic for this life, no?
Wait—I think there’s a piece that I wrote several months ago. Let me pull it:
From the minute we are born, we enter into a relationship with power.
Power—like air—is something we are always contending with.
I have had a battle with power, so to speak, from the minute I was born. Whether it is with my parents, my environment, the society I was born, the system determining what I was to know—I have always been in relationship with power, in good ways, and in not so good ways.
Yes, that is something that has been on my mind. I know that topic came up for me during a class I had a few years ago at UT-Austin involving the Yoruba culture. The Yoruba are a people located primarily north of Nigeria, and their history is an important one. They have a totally different relationship with power than we do in the Western world. For them, power is manifested through the spiritual world, and brought forward from there. They maintain close ties with the spiritual world. Power resides in families and through spiritual work.
Through my study of the Yoruba, I began to wonder: how does power come about, how does one have it, control it, etc. Those questions began forming two years ago and probably the first time I consciously began to think about power.
Now, in these moments as I write these words, I can feel myself becoming sleepy, tired. Is power trying to put me to sleep? Am I traipsing into corners of my psyche that have long been dormant and don’t want to be awakened? Am I moving into the corridors of my own relationship with power—definitely, I’m sure, archaic grounds!
I resurrected my intrigue about power several months ago when I gave a Ph.D class presentation in June about power. I sort of “masked” the topic within a slide show of Carnival in Rio—another example of how power is used. As creative and crazy and fun as my presentation was, it was about Power. Clear and simple, no doubt about it. And here I am bringing up this subject again. Here are some excerpts from this presentation:
Michael Foucault’s ideas from the book Making Social Science Matter
Rationalization and the misuse of power are among the most important problems of our time.
Power and how it works
Foucault is not interested in the outcomes or localization of power, nor even in power in itself. He is interested in the relationships of power:
1) Power is not something that is acquired, seized, or shared, something that one holds on to or allows to slip away.
2) Power is exercised rather than possessed.
3) Location of power is not important; power is everywhere, not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.
Concept of power: “power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in s particular society.
Therefore, Foucault asks the “little question”: How is power exercised?
****The process of this power being exercised is more important than the structure of power. Remember, Foucault understands that power is everywhere and is not located in any one thing.
In studying power, Foucault concentrates on the question of “How” because he feels it is a neglected question. “I wish to know if it is legitimate to imagine a power which unites in itself a what, a why and a how.” (p. 119)
Hmm. There’s something here to investigate, because all of this has been done on the basis of power on a group scale. It does not look at the topic of power on an individual scale. How is power exercised within oneself? How is this reflected in the family, in the community, in the nation, and in the world? I think sticking with this most basic of questions is the topic. And, for me, the question is, How does Gregg Echols relate with power? How is power exercised within himself?
It is as though there is something deep and disturbing and archaic here, in a way: as though there’s a part of me that is pushing me forward to investigate this idea; yet there is also the source, the location of the power itself that is not wanting me to touch it—or maybe another part, I don’t know. I know that I’m feeling sleepy and groggy in these moments, as though I’m being lulled back to sleep.
That is telling me: something is up! Maybe this explains some of this “lulling to sleep” via the writing of Foucault:
***Power cannot be “acquired,” “taken,” or “shared,” nor can it be “retained,” or allowed to “slip away.” Power is exercised from “innumerable points” in an interaction between unequal and mobile relations. Power relations in business, families, in groups and institutions, have fragmentary effects which permeate society.
***Where there is power there is resistance. “If there were no possibility of resistance, there would be no relations of power.” Resistance does not stand in an external relationship to power—it is in power, a part of it.
It is this resistance in power relations that interests Foucault. “It consists of using this resistance as a chemical catalyst, so as to bring to light power relations, locate their position, find out their point of application and the methods used. Rather than analyzing power from the point of view of its internal rationality, it consists of analyzing power relations through the antagonism of strategies.”
There is resistance, for sure. I have been involved in resistance for the past month—for all of my life! Wow. There is a “chemical catalyst” going on within me in these moments with this “lulling to sleep.” Whew—I’m ready for a good, long nap!
I know one of my intentions with all of this energy work, sweat lodges, purification, etc., is to clear myself and open myself to spirit: to be a container for spirit to work. I know that in the process—I hope!—I will learn and understand things about myself in ways I couldn’t even imagine. I know that in this process, I am learning about my relationship with myself. Power is part of that.
My own power has been my success—and my pitfall—all of my life! It is time I finally enter into a working relationship with my own power, in a healthy, truthful, and loving way. Otherwise—well, things are going to get a lot more difficult.
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