Paul StJohn Mackintosh

Writing * Poetry * Dark Fiction * Weird * Fantastic * Horror * Fantasy * Science Fiction * Literature

Power and perversion

Power is the most perverted passion of all, far beyond molestation or bestiality. Remember that every time you look at a political figure. More twisted, more insidious, more pervasive, more far-reaching, more damaging, more depraved. Power does not corrupt: power is corrupt. Because the moment we upset the natural balance of power between ourselves, and give any one person power over any other, we unleash their passions as far as that power will allow. And the perverted power-mongers always want more.

Power is perversion. Power is perverse. Yes, you need power to do anything to anyone, or anything at all. We each have our own natural will power. Exactly how strong or weak, no one can measure, certainly not science. Without measurement, for accuracy as well as fairness, we might as well assume that it’s equal. Muscle power, brain power, stamina, health, height, luck, everything that constitutes power at any one time, are all likely to naturally even out in the end. But to take away or reduce someone else’s own natural will power, and autonomy, to take power over them, is already unnatural, a distortion of the natural order. It twists things out of true. No wonder perverts love to do it. And the more perverted they are, the more power they want to acquire.

Sadistic abuses are mostly about power first, and any satisfaction after. The specific satisfaction is a turn-on purely because it’s a manifestation of power, whether power over someone smaller, weaker, or less mature, or power to hurt and maim. What the abuser wants ultimately is power itself – the supposed fulfillment is an afterthought. And the purest embodiment of that perversion is the sociopath, without empathy or affect. In their dead-eyed, empty lives, the only passion is power, the basic volitional impulse devoid of any object. All other emotions are atrophied or absent. They have no fellow-feeling because they have no feelings, no real human being. Power is all they can feel. So they pursue it single-mindedly, in any guise, regardless of any cost or consequence, because nothing else can affect them. All the rest of us can do is guard against that, constantly.

Knowing this, what will happen, why does anyone voluntarily give up their own share of power, to be abused? Usually, identification with anyone they see as stronger. It’s an easy cop-out for the weak, the foolhardy, the fearful, the unstable and vulnerable identity. As a slave, you gain a protector. As a clan chattel, you gain a totem. Fear and incoherence feed the perversion of power. The power-monger and the powerless are natural allies, so if you’d rather keep your own power, allow others theirs.

We are all perverts. Potentially if not actually. Which is why we all need a framework of negative checks and balances to keep our wills in check. Negative Golden Rule. The power we give up collectively is the forfeit we pay to check the perverted abuse of power over us. And as soon as that power is taken out of balance, the cycle of abuse begins again. None of us have any right to have power over any other, but we strike the balance as the cost of saving ourselves. We share power to check each other. Which power-mongers can’t bear. And if they’re not kept in check, the perverts shall inherit the earth.

 

 

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