When I wrote a week ago about natural authority, I left out an important aspect of the discussion: power.
Again, I will examine this question from an etymological perspective, and from the perspective of exousia in Rom. 13:1. If you look up exousia in a dictionary, you will find several possible definitions besides "authority," one of which will be “power.” Another way of seeing this is to think of the “authorities” in question as “the powers that be.” The two expressions seem to be functionally equivalent, at least in many circumstances.
If you look up the Neo-Vulgate translation of Rom. 13:1, you find the Latin word potestas, which means “power.” For instance, the power possessed by the tribunes of the people in republican Rome was called potestas tribunicia.
If you look up the German translation of the same passage, you will find St. Paul admonishing the Romans to submit to the state's Gewalt, or “the state’s power.” Gewalt, however, is much more than mere power; it implies violence. For instance, a derivate of this word, vergewaltigen, means “to rape.”
These three possible translations of exousia show that there is considerable overlap between the concepts of authority and power. On the one hand, authority and power are not identical. After all, might does not make right. On the other hand, authority and power cannot be completely separated. Indeed, authority without power is a joke.
Is there any way to understand power and authority? The neatest way of thinking about this is, I believe, as follows. Authority can be defined as the right to use force, and power can be defined as the ability to use force. These two terms, however, are not mutually exclusive; instead, power needs authority, and vice versa. They each complete the other.
My discussion is, of course, completely inadequate for such a complicated topic, so I hope some of you will contribute your insights.
4 comments:
Another interesting point of etymology is that one of the Spanish words for "power" is "poder," which literally means "to be able." So, in Spanish, power is quite literally the abiliity to do something.
It's interesting that you write that "power needs authority, and vice versa." A throw-away phrase perhaps, but it opens an interesting line of thought.
Though power does, in a certain sense, "need" authority, events do not always run in that direction. In other words, what are we to do when a center of power arises without authority? One answer would be to find some authority for it. The other option would, of course, be to remove the ability to exercise power.
Neither one of these possibilities are particuarly desirable in a democratic society. Authority comes - directly or indirectly - through electoral mandates. If someone (or some institution) already held the power before the election, serious doubts would arise as to whether or not the election was free. On the other hand, depriving someone not merely of the legal right, but of the physical ability, to do something often sounds like heavy-handed government interference. (Think about intellectual property laws. Most people admit that the laws should probably stand, in some form, but woe to him who suggests that the government should hack into computers to go after the ability to pirate files.) Implicit in this is the American notion that individuals have the right, the authority, to do pretty much anything they are able to do. Rare indeed is the case where there is popular support for ending the ability. (Gun control comes to mind as one of those few exceptions.)
Perhaps implicit in this is a kind of Social Darwinism as well, the idea that if someone has gone to the trouble of acquiring the power to do XYZ, they deserve to have the authority to do it as well.
But perhaps this disconnect exists not only in modern democracy, but also in nature (at least it's contemporary fallen version). Though a father's general authority over his children does not extend so far as to beating his children to smithereens or sending them off to slave labor camps, he may very well possess the power to do both.
Even before the Fall, I suppose that authority and power were sometimes mismatched. What limited the abuse of power was not its absense but a perfect ordering of desires. Thus, perhaps the dual discussion of "authority and power" needs to have "will" added to it.
Steve, you think you could put together an etymological discussion of that term as well? :-)
I promise, Aaron, no more etymology for a while.
True, centers of power can arise without any formal authority, as you say. For instance, a large company can amass power in a small community because the town depends on it for work, money, etc. It has power. But, does it have authority? I think authority depends, in such a case, on the use to which the power is put, on the ends of the power. Perhaps we should say that a power gains authority as it acts for the right ends?
I think that's a weakness in my analysis--I look exclusively at more formal institutions, such as the state and the family, while there are many other organizations that possess authority of some sort. We need to recover some sense of the many different forms of authority.
Etymology aside for the moment of this sentence, power is validity in that it intends so. Any claim to power therefore intends validity. Everyone claims it and few ever achieve it. This means that power is never effectively claimed and that it is always effectively acclaimed.
The ancient Chinese book Laotse is known in the west as Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching). This translates literally as Way Power Classic. The upper case here is only used to indicate title.
Chapter 1 defines way and Chapter 38 defines power. Each word in the entire book cannot be understood unless all are understood while the book remains misunderstood until each word is understood.
Way is in a sense that cannot be called the way. The Way is entirely foreign to Chinese. The same applies to power and classic.
This book is not esoteric or mystical. It is way of everyday practicality powering the reality that all people are one family.
The book's greatest mystery is its simplicity.
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