Relationships

Well, Joey has offered his final thoughts in our conversation, at least for now. I for one feel some sense of relief, because the thing had started to sprawl across several blogs as well as subjects, and it was getting too large for me to keep track of it all! A few pointers to some of the participants (links are to their latest contributions to the discussion, as of this writing): FSK’s Guide to Reality; David Gross at The Picket Line; and Kent McManigal. While I have much to say on each of the topics we’ve tossed around, I have neither the time nor the inclination to try to do them all justice in this sitting. Instead, I will mention that a primary raison d’être for my part of this blog is to explore these issues; and I encourage any interested invididuals to explore the archives here and elsewhere for previous ramblings on the subjects. All I’ll offer today are some general observations in response to what I perceive to be Joey’s central themes.

Summer is in full bloom here on the prairie and with it, as every year, come back memories of my childhood almost always spent with either set of grandparents. They are my fondest memories from my childhood and interestingly they have something in common- a kind of freedom provided by the old and the wise in my family.

I am astonished. What is so tough about understanding “mine” versus “not mine”—the fundamental element of property rights? But a few conversations of late have me shaking my head in perplexity, as I find myself hearing strange things coming from individuals who claim to be pro-freedom and pro-property rights.

After Jorge’s gentle nudge, I’ve returned to the project of updating the old Greymatter posts. Mostly I’m just adding tags to them and reassigning appropriate authorship where necessary ... but for some reason those old posts aren’t included in searches until I add tags. Weird.

Anyway, the travels down memory lane have left me missing several people this morning ... most notably, Ian (of the lost and lamented Ianism), Morpheus of The Statrix, freeman, and formerly regular commenters “Laura” and “Herself”. I also miss Kirsten’s Poddy Talk podcasts ... She shared some schemes she’s plotting with me a while back, so I can patiently wait to see what hatches there.

There are more, of course ... this isn’t an exhaustive list. If any of you drop by here from time to time still, I hope you’re doing well, and I hope you know you’re missed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about power lately—who has it, who’s perceived to have it, how individuals get it and lose it—and it seems to me that our society in general is missing a few crucially important ideas with respect to the concept. Even worse, many libertarians may be among the most blind to these nuances. I present as evidence some quotations commonly found on freedom-oriented web sites:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Those who have been once intoxicated with power . . . can never willingly abandon it.
All men having power ought to be mistrusted.

With quotations like that to light the way, it’s no surprise that many individuals who hold freedom-affirming principles have an almost automatic aversion to power. In one sense, this is appropriate. But in a broader context, it creates a means of enabling greater problems for (and among) ourselves, as well as difficulties in accurately communicating the value of liberty to others.

My Webster’s dictionary has several definitions of power; the first one is, simply, “ability to do, act, or produce”. The fourth definition is where things start to get dicey; it is “the ability to control others; authority; sway; influence”. I doubt that any reasonable individual would have problems with the first definition; it's that “ability to control others” that creates problems, and thus earns libertarian disdain. But that’s a fairly narrow definition of power—one that could properly be labeled political power (keeping in mind that politics is a much broader concept than the electoral and legislative processes that most often come to mind).

The first—and most important—definition is really defining personal power. While there’s a lot of overlap between personal and political power, especially under the boots of a state that attempts to act as individuals’ parents, personal power is much too important to leave as an afterthought. That’s precisely what I think many libertarian thinkers have done. Each fairly mature individual has a wealth of personal power at his command, both in handling himself and his interactions with others. (Personal power also influences political power, of course, but that’s a topic I’ll save for later.)

Power over yourself

Each person has personal power to exert over him– or herself. While that’s obvious, I think many people fail to see the depths of power inherent in that truth. Beyond choosing the clothes one wears, the food one eats, and other fairly mundane things, this sort of power is about making important choices. Choices about how to be, as a person. Choices about how to think, what to feel and value, how to act. It’s also about the choice to accept or reject the consequences of those choices.

While it’s true that our genes instruct us about how to be, they are best thought of as a blueprint that provides for a range of actual outcomes. To varying degrees those outcomes can be shifted, if a person exercises the power to do so. If a person doesn’t like being introverted, he can change that to some degree. Or, a person can choose to try to be more considerate of others—or not allow himself to be taken advantage of; the list is very long.

Exercising this power to change yourself necessarily involves changing your actions and thoughts. Doing so can be difficult, but the field of self-help psychology is a testament to individuals’ desires to do so (and amongst the heaps of sand therein one can find diamonds; those I consider diamonds include Wayne Dyer, Nathaniel Branden, and Albert Ellis). Like it or not, a person chooses to be positive or negative; to be “all talk” or to take action; to do another line of coke; or stay in an unfulfilling relationship.

Habits are nothing more than choices made so often they’ve become entrenched—chosen without thought. As such, they can be exceedingly difficult to change, but they can be changed. Even though drug use can have a strong physical pull (a good example being weekend caffeine withdrawal headaches), “addiction” is often nothing more than placing responsibility for one’s over-indulgence (meaning use that impedes one’s ability to function) on the drug, rather than oneself. Similarly, much of what we think of as someone’s personality is a complex interplay of patterns of choices; it’s therefore more malleable than many individuals like to think.

To the degree an individual sees himself as a victim—of another person, of “the system”, of forces outside his control—he has ceded some degree of his personal power and placed it in the hands of others, whether they’re real entities or imaginary constructs. In a recent essay on psychological marginalization I touched on some of the unhealthy aspects of victimhood. Even worse is placing one’s personal power in others’ hands—especially when those hands are those of an enemy, as the state’s agents so very often are.

Victimhood is just one way that personal power influences one’s interaction with others. Relationships necessarily involve a balance of power among the individuals comprising them. A refusal or inability to see that one has personal power over another can lead to misunderstandings, or worse. And that’s where personal power can get very sticky.

Power in relationships

Meaningful relationships with others are built on complex, sometimes delicate balances of power between individuals. Even casual friendships display this; when one values another’s thoughts and company, choices are made that take them into account. One may choose to see a movie one isn’t very interested in, because a friend’s company is more important than the film choice. Often when a balance of personal power in a friendship shifts toward one party, individuals may speak of a friend being manipulated, used, or taken advantage of.

The English language’s typical structure for expressing emotions very curiously places power over one’s emotions into another’s control. How many times have you heard, or even said, something like, “You make me _____” (happy, angry, sad—whatever)? It’s so entrenched in the way we think that many people—even individualists—have never thought about this, much less questioned it. While it will never be as catchy as singing, “You’ve made me so very happy”, it would be much more accurate to say, for example, “You enable a lot of joy in my life”. Abdicating responsibility for one’s emotions—giving that important personal power to others—not only allows victimhood, it drastically slims the likelihood of positive change taking place.

Parents obviously have power over their young children, but if they handle the responsibility to raise a child well, he or she will gradually take on more personal power, and wield it more effectively. That is a goal of parenting, although it seems to be rarely thought of in this way. (I have found myself wondering to what degree libertarians who eschew the use of force in their child-rearing methods mistake proper uses of their parental authority for coercion.) While it can be more subtle, it is nonetheless true that at the least from the moment of birth, a child has and exerts some degree of power over his parents. Loving parents therefore enter into what I’ve come to think of as a “dance of power” with their children. It’s a shifting style that may be equal parts flowing waltz and slam dance, but both are necessary for the emergence of a mature, responsible adult.

Even more complicated—if such a thing is possible—is the dance of personal power inherent in romantic relationships. By choosing to love another, one is voluntarily placing some personal power in the beloved’s hands. If the relationship is mutual and consists of psychologically healthy, mature adults, this is a reciprocal choice and is probably fairly well balanced. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that problems won’t arise. A simple misunderstanding, a careless remark, or more seriously, changes in goals or differences in needs or desires can create pain. It’s a paradoxical fact of love that being in love necessarily means experiencing pain at some point, because love requires the exchange of personal power. Adding a twist of irony to that paradox, it may be that one gets a true sense of the extent of his love for another in the depths of pain he feels at the possibility of losing that love.

To the degree that individuals don’t realize this and fail to treat that gift of personal power with the utmost respect and care it deserves—as well as uncritically accepting the “you make me” emotional power-shift English plays—our society will continue to produce individuals incapable of knowing genuine love, much less learning from failures. While I don’t have a comprehensive theory of “libertarian love” worked out, it seems to me that the blanket tendency to abhor power most clearly shows its negative repercussions here, as so many freedom-oriented individuals seem to have difficulty with the idea of giving up some control over one’s life—even though it’s voluntary, and is essential to love.

If freedom-loving individuals want to create a freer, healthier society, it is imperative that we rethink the reflexive tendency to dismiss power as inherently evil or corrupt. As Rush so aptly put it in their song Something for Nothing, “what you love is your own power”. Viewed in the context of personal power wielded in a responsible way, that love isn’t only healthy—it’s necessary.

Author's note: I would like to acknowledge the important contributions of a beloved friend who prefers to remain anonymous, whose challenging conversations with me on this and related subjects have greatly clarified my thinking.

I’ve been thinking a fair bit about Pint of Stout’s upcoming thought–party, An Inquiry into the Soul. Although I’m not sure how to accomplish it just yet, I hope to contribute. Then, The Shadow’s Thoughts on Ataraxia veered my rambling ideas into a related (but only tangentially) direction: what is a successful life?

Once more I find myself to be well outside the norm of USSA culture. And as usual, I view that as a good thing. However, to the degree that my assessment is accurate, it’s a dismal commentary on our society.

I recently stumbled across a quotation I’d written on a slip of paper some time ago. I didn’t record any reference along with it, so I don’t know where I encountered this statement by Ferdinand Protzman on love. Since reading it, it’s occupied a fair amount of space in my mind ... but I can’t really compose a well-crafted summation of my responses to it.

Anyone who cares to share their responses is welcome to do so in the comments. I’ll join in, as I can: much of my day will be spent in the kitchen, making truffles and caramels. Here’s the quote:

Love can alter people’s lives in positive ways .... It can also break their hearts, crush their spirits, and kill them.

One thing that occurred to me is that we never know where our loving someone might go; even when love starts out as a positive thing, it can lead to enormous pain.

In a very good post on quitting (the comments on it so far are good, too), Kirsten incidentally offers this bit on compromise:

By compromising again and again ... we ended up with lives that were tolerable but nothing close to what either of us really wanted.

Oh boy, can I relate ... and many thoughts and questions spring to mind as a result, but I’ve a lot of things to do today, so it’ll have to wait for another time.

Everybody assumes they know what the social contract is, but no two people agree on it in every particular. That tends to make a mockery of the “conform or leave” arguments.

From Bacchus of Eros blog.

I knew, just from reading the title, that I would be sputtering with indignation if I clicked through to read Is a taste of deceit with carrots so bad for kids?. I clicked. Consider yourselves warned.

[T]his is how society works. Some people become attached to, and find meaning from, things that other people do not care for or understand. There's no point in judging how other people find meaning and happiness in non-traditional communities. The important thing is to celebrate that they did find meaning and happiness.

From James Leroy Wilson, in Cyber Salvation. Inspiring stories leading to this quote, too.

(For all my teevee-watching friends: I shall try to remember this lesson.)

As struck as I was by this understanding when I first encountered it, it’s become an uncomfortable truth for me of late. I’ve tried to dodge it ... tried to find a rationalization or exemption that would cover my actions, but I have come to the realization that I can’t weasel around it.

You could die today, you know. So could I. For some of us, such thoughts regularly niggle at our minds, irrespective of whether there’s a good reason for them to tug at our attention. I’ve tried to turn that almost ever-present sense of mortality into a source of motivation—a way to help me live the life I dream, rather than sleepwalking through most of it. So I guess it won’t come as any surprise to you seven that when I read this over at B.W.’s place, I had quite an intense reaction.

And the reason why I haven’t commented sooner in this space is because I didn’t want my response to be too personal—I don’t know B.W.’s commenter, “CK”, and I didn’t want to give the impression of attacking him or her. But last night, as I lay and waited for sleep to embrace my mind, I realized that a large part of my reaction to CK’s comment arose from the attack s/he mounted on my friend—one I am all too familiar with. And thus I cannot let it pass unchallenged.

Originally, the bit about change in the quote I posted yesterday caught my attention ... but later, thinking about it more, the “love the people who treat you right” phrase started tickling my brain. And it still hasn’t stopped.