Power structure: Difference between revisions

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Power structures are a feature of [[critical theory]] critiques of — well — the western world, basically, but only when rendered in the “glass-half-empty” terms of the permanently malcontent. One might ask whether {{author|James Carse}}’s distinction<ref>{{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}.</ref> between “power” and “strength” wouldn’t cast a less Hobbesian light here. Sure, social hierarchies can be pernicious, where operated by those engaged in a fight to the death, but most people are not. Those who who favour any form of communal organisation more developed that flapping around in primordial sludge will concede that social arrangements don’t ''have'' to be destructive: they can be ''con''structive, enabling, levers to prosperity and betterment for everyone who wants it. If we call such a centralised, curated, defended store of knowledge for sharing a “strength structure” it does not sound so ominous.
Power structures are a feature of [[critical theory]] critiques of — well — the western world, basically, but only when rendered in the “glass-half-empty” terms of the permanently malcontent. One might ask whether {{author|James Carse}}’s distinction<ref>{{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}.</ref> between “power” and “strength” wouldn’t cast a less Hobbesian light here. Sure, social hierarchies can be pernicious, where operated by those engaged in a fight to the death, but most people are not. Those who who favour any form of communal organisation more developed that flapping around in primordial sludge will concede that social arrangements don’t ''have'' to be destructive: they can be ''con''structive, enabling, levers to prosperity and betterment for everyone who wants it. If we call such a centralised, curated, defended store of knowledge for sharing a “strength structure” it does not sound so ominous.


{{quote|Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish ''as a result of my play with them'', but because I can allow them to do what they wish ''in the course of my play with them''.}}
{{quote|“Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish ''as a result of my play with them'', but because I can allow them to do what they wish ''in the course of my play with them''.}}


===Frontiers, utopian anarchy and why [[this time is different|this time isn’t different]]===
===Frontiers, utopian anarchy and why [[this time is different|this time isn’t different]]===