Power destroys empathy

[cjsmith]

If power were a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger believe that he’s sexually magnetic. But can it cause brain damage?

Tl;dr: yes.

(Yeah, I know. Water, wet.)

What's most interesting to me is that even when the people affected know exactly what's happening and why, they can't consciously fight it.

Comments

[hitchhiker]

both fascinating and sad, especially since you'd think the feeling of power without the actual ability to affect people's lives would be the best of all possible worlds.

[cjsmith]

I'm not following the thought here. I admit that it would be very handy if the world had a way to give some unsavory humans the feeling of power without any actual ability to do a blessed thing to anyone else, and I believe that having such a thing would improve the world overall, sort of akin to an organization shuffling aside a total loser by giving them an empty but lofty-sounding title. But I'm not sure that's what you meant by "the best of all possible worlds".

[hitchhiker]

well, people like to feel powerful; the downside is that that is usually achieved at the cost of their actually having to have power over other people, to those other people's detriment. i would have guessed that something that let us feel powerful without having any actual power would be ideal, but according to the article it would still harm our capacity for empathy.

[cjsmith]

Wow, that's... so not how I think about such stuff. I can feel powerful when I fly, for example, or when I make progress on a brain hack. I have an instinctive revulsion for equating "powerful" with "power over other people".

At least if the illusion of power were to be handed out, then it's comforting to think that empathy would then be harmed only in those who can't do damage with their broken brains.

[hitchhiker]

i assumed that wasn't the kind of power they were talking about, because it's not the "power corrupts" sort. it's totally the kind everyone should be pursuing instead, i agree!

[cjsmith]

But IS it the "power corrupts" sort as well? I am not sure that's clear.