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Some power structures easier to avoid than others. If you dislike [[cricket]] and despair of cricket administrators, it is little effort to stay away from cricket clubs and all will be well. Not so if you dislike taxation, for example. | Some power structures easier to avoid than others. If you dislike [[cricket]] and despair of cricket administrators, it is little effort to stay away from cricket clubs and all will be well. Not so if you dislike taxation, for example. | ||
Even people who ''complain'' about power structures — at least ones who do in an organised and compelling way — have a power structure. [[Critical theory]] is a power structure, made up of lots of little power structures. Power structures often outgrow their original purpose, because it is not the ''purpose'' but the ''power'' that is exciting. | Even people who ''complain'' about power structures — at least ones who do in an organised and compelling way — have a power structure. [[Critical theory]] ''is'' a power structure, made up of lots of little power structures. Power structures often outgrow their original purpose, because it is not the ''purpose'' but the ''power'' that is exciting. | ||
===“Power” as a pejorative term=== | ===“Power” as a pejorative term=== | ||
{{power versus strength quote}} | {{quote|{{power versus strength quote}}}} | ||
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. | ||