{"id":164826,"date":"2025-11-10T19:46:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T03:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164826"},"modified":"2025-11-11T17:18:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T01:18:53","slug":"whos-queasy-about-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164826","title":{"rendered":"Decoding Power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Nsp_bH0PKwo?si=jIONQoHSQOEm6b-t\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Click to play at 01:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#60\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"60\">01:00<\/a> Decoding Power, <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164826\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164826<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 02:20\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#140\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"140\">02:20<\/a> Comic Sarah Cooper: Dating at Work, Coming Out as Black, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_IqQxfUqpWQ\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_IqQxfUqpWQ<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 14:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#840\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"840\">14:00<\/a> Nobody Wants This, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt26933824\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt26933824\/<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 50:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#3000\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"3000\">50:00<\/a> Descriptive vs Normative, <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164867\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164867<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 1:04:40\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#3880\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"3880\">1:04:40<\/a> The Sanity Interview: Heather Mac Donald, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=e4DSZS7K4BI\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=e4DSZS7K4BI<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 1:11:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#4260\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"4260\">1:11:00<\/a> Carl Schmitt&#8217;s top ten quotes on power <br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 1:32:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#5520\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"5520\">1:32:00<\/a> Trumpcare Should Be Based On Vouch Nationalism, <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164859\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164859<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 1:49:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#6540\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"6540\">1:49:00<\/a> My shadow, <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164853\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164853<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 1:51:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#6660\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"6660\">1:51:00<\/a> Amazon Fresh Slashes Prices, <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164843\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164843<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 1:57:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#7020\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"7020\">1:57:00<\/a> Ben Shapiro Stands Up For His Principles In The Face Of Evil Tucker, <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164694\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164694<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 2:47:20\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#10040\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"10040\">2:47:20<\/a> Helen Andrews: Are women to blame for wokeness? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Dx2Un8SVn0g\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Dx2Un8SVn0g<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 2:56:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#10560\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"10560\">2:56:00<\/a> Decoding Judeo-Christianity and Nick Fuentes&#8217; use of abductive logic, <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164605\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164605<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 3:01:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#10860\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"10860\">3:01:00<\/a> Why Helen Andrews resists evolutionary psychology <br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 3:08:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#11280\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"11280\">3:08:00<\/a> The rise and fall of TRS<br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 3:11:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#11460\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"11460\">3:11:00<\/a> WEHT to Richard Spencer?<br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 3:27:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#12420\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"12420\">3:27:00<\/a> Dan Senor: Hamas Isn&#8217;t Surrendering, It&#8217;s Evolving, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=J7CFTyt2DNI\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=J7CFTyt2DNI<\/a><br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 3:31:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#12660\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"12660\">3:31:00<\/a> Google led the way in search, and then ads, YT, mobile phones, AI<br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 3:35:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#12900\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"12900\">3:35:00<\/a> Turkey wants to make Turkey great again <br \/><a title=\"Click to play at 3:45:00\" class=\"ln-clickable-timestamp\" href=\"#13500\" data-action=\"episode-seek-audio\" data-timestamp=\"13500\">3:45:00<\/a> Richard Spencer on Turkey<\/p>\n<p>I write because it makes me feel powerful. <\/p>\n<p>I like feeling pride. I like feeling strong. I like thriving and striving and constructing my niche. <\/p>\n<p>Most of us prefer to feel powerful rather than weak.<\/p>\n<p>Trump and the Republicans were unified on the shutdown because they knew they had the power (the precedent for a CR (continuing resolution)). In 2024, most Americans were worse off under President Biden, and that placed Trump and the Republicans in a powerful position.<\/p>\n<p>Power is always contingent on situation.<\/p>\n<p>In the covid chaos of 2020, Trump and the Republicans were the underdogs because the dominant issues played to the left&#8217;s favor.<\/p>\n<p>As soon as order reigns and crime declines, people become more relaxed about the disciplines, standards and punishments that protect order, which breeds chaos. <\/p>\n<p>The world is a dangerous complicated place. I see chaos lurking in every form of order, just waiting to overwhelm my world. <\/p>\n<p>I feel gratitude each day that order holds, but I don&#8217;t take it for granted. People are animals, and nature is red in tooth and claw. Life tends to be nasty, brutish and short without the discipline of civilization. <\/p>\n<p>In Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 3:2: \u201cPray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for fear of it, men would swallow one another alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one of the most unsentimental lines in Jewish wisdom. The Mishna isn\u2019t romantic about human nature\u2014it assumes people are capable of predation if order collapses. Government isn\u2019t seen as a moral luxury; it\u2019s the thin structure preventing chaos.<\/p>\n<p>The rabbi\u2019s advice is practical, not idealistic: gratitude for authority isn\u2019t submission, it\u2019s recognition of what stands between civilization and the jungle. It\u2019s the same truth Schmitt, Hobbes, and even Tennyson saw from different angles\u2014without a restraining force, chaos wins.<\/p>\n<p>In Genesis 8:21, after the Flood, God says: \u201cThe imagination of man\u2019s heart is evil from his youth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one of the starkest acknowledgments of human nature in Scripture. Even after cleansing the world, God doesn\u2019t claim humanity has changed. He simply accepts that people are inclined toward chaos and selfishness, yet decides to keep the covenant anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Order doesn\u2019t arise because human beings become good; it\u2019s sustained by divine patience and, in political terms, by structure and restraint. The verse pairs perfectly with Pirkei Avot 3:2\u2014both see civilization not as the natural state but as a daily miracle against the grain of human impulse.<\/p>\n<p>The biblical and classical realist view starts from moral pessimism: people are driven by appetite, fear, pride, and envy, and only external constraints\u2014law, ritual, authority\u2014keep them from tearing each other apart. The modern academic view, especially in the social sciences and humanities, tends toward moral optimism or at least environmental determinism. It sees people as basically malleable, corrupted by systems, not by innate impulse.<\/p>\n<p>A few contrasts:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moral anthropology.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Biblical\/realist: Evil or chaos is endogenous\u2014it comes from within. The imagination of man is evil from youth; civilization is a harness.<\/p>\n<p>Academic mainstream: Evil is exogenous\u2014it comes from bad institutions, inequality, social conditioning, or trauma. Fix the environment and people improve.<\/p>\n<p><strong>View of order.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Biblical\/realist: Order is artificial and precious, maintained by authority, law, and shared fear of disorder.<\/p>\n<p>Academic: Order should arise naturally from reason, empathy, and dialogue if hierarchy and oppression are removed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Human perfectibility.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Biblical\/realist: Humans can be righteous but never cured of sin; you need constant restraint and renewal.<\/p>\n<p>Academic: With enough education, therapy, or progressive reform, humans can be re-engineered into cooperative beings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The role of power.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Biblical\/realist: Power is a necessary instrument to hold chaos at bay.<\/p>\n<p>Academic: Power is the root of injustice and must be decentralized or \u201cproblematized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why so much modern theory sounds na\u00efve to people with a tragic sense of life. It assumes that if you dissolve authority, people will spontaneously organize into fairness and harmony. The older view assumes the opposite\u2014that if you dissolve authority, you get the flood.<\/p>\n<p>One worldview trusts human goodness and blames systems; the other distrusts human impulse and builds systems to contain it. History tends to vindicate the latter.<\/p>\n<p>Why does the academy have an optimistic view of human nature?<\/p>\n<p>Because optimism about human nature is the moral foundation of the modern university. It lets scholars believe that knowledge, reason, and communication can improve society\u2014that the pen really is mightier than the sword. Without that faith, the academic enterprise would lose its moral license.<br \/>\nSeveral forces built that optimism:<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Enlightenment inheritance.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Modern academia grew from Enlightenment humanism, which replaced theological pessimism with belief in progress through reason. Think Locke, Rousseau, and Condorcet\u2014humans as improvable beings corrupted by ignorance, not by sin. The university still runs on that software.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Postwar liberalism.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After World War II, intellectuals needed a narrative that made civilization redeemable. They couldn\u2019t face the idea that barbarism was latent in ordinary people, so they blamed ideology and propaganda instead of nature.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Professional incentive.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Academics depend on the idea that research, education, and dialogue can make people better. A tragic or realist anthropology would imply that their work only tinkers at the edges\u2014that power, fear, and conflict will always rule. Optimism keeps the grants and the moral prestige flowing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Therapeutic culture.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Since the 1960s, Western elites have replaced sin and duty with health and empathy. The dominant ethic sees pathology where older systems saw evil. People aren\u2019t bad; they\u2019re wounded. Institutions must heal them, not restrain them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Political convenience.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Optimism flatters the ruling class. If human nature is good, then social problems can be solved through management and education, not through hard decisions about punishment, hierarchy, or exclusion. It\u2019s a comforting worldview for those who govern by bureaucracy rather than force.<\/p>\n<p>In short, the academy\u2019s optimism isn\u2019t just an idea\u2014it\u2019s a survival strategy. It justifies its own existence and shields it from the darker truth that civilization rests on coercion, competition, and disciplined power. To admit that would mean rethinking everything the modern intellectual stands for.<\/p>\n<p>Underneath all the talk during the shutdown, Trump and the Republicans were remarkably unified because they knew they had the power. They knew they would win and in time, Democrats would cave.<\/p>\n<p>That episode revealed a hard truth about discipline and confidence in politics. Trump and Republican leadership recognized that unity under pressure is power. They projected certainty\u2014publicly and internally\u2014that they\u2019d outlast the Democrats. That conviction alone shaped the negotiation dynamics.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats fractured because they couldn\u2019t align around a single narrative of principle versus pragmatism. When one side believes it can absorb the pain longer, the psychological advantage becomes decisive. Trump\u2019s camp understood the optics: if they looked unbothered, the opposition would be portrayed as the ones responsible for the chaos.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what winning a standoff looks like in modern politics. It\u2019s less about facts or policy merit and more about who radiates control, who can endure blame, and who stays unified while the other side starts signaling doubt.<\/p>\n<p>Liberals tend to be the most queasy about power, yes\u2014at least in the modern sense. Their moral legitimacy often depends on being seen as the underdog or as speaking truth to power, not exercising it. When they gain power, they often rebrand it as \u201cstewardship\u201d or \u201cservice,\u201d but rarely as domination or enforcement, which they associate with conservatism or authoritarianism.<\/p>\n<p>Conservatives, by contrast, are more comfortable with hierarchy and the idea that power is necessary for order. They may distrust who holds power but not the concept itself.<\/p>\n<p>Populists on both sides oscillate: they want power in \u201cthe people\u2019s\u201d hands but recoil from bureaucratic or technocratic control.<\/p>\n<p>Radicals (right or left) are usually the least queasy. They see power as a means of transformation and don\u2019t flinch from using it if they believe their cause is just.<\/p>\n<p>In short:<\/p>\n<p>Liberals: uncomfortable with power, prefer influence or persuasion<\/p>\n<p>Progressives: ambivalent, want power for moral reform but fear its corruption<\/p>\n<p>Conservatives: wary of bad rulers, not of rulership<\/p>\n<p>Populists: want power redistributed, not eliminated<\/p>\n<p>Radicals: comfortable wielding it for revolutionary ends<\/p>\n<p>Many of the conservatives who loathe Trump come out of the classical liberal or \u201cconstitutional conservative\u201d tradition. They prize restraint, decorum, and institutional legitimacy. They believe in the rule of law and fear the strongman impulse because it threatens procedural order. In other words, they see power as something to be limited, not embodied.<\/p>\n<p>Trump represents the opposite instinct: he relishes power as theater, as assertion, as personal will. His appeal to many populist conservatives is precisely that he doesn\u2019t apologize for wanting to dominate. That\u2019s intoxicating to those who feel conservatives have played by genteel rules while progressives used power ruthlessly.<\/p>\n<p>So yes, Trump-hating conservatives are often classical liberals or Burkeans uneasy with raw power. Trump-loving conservatives, by contrast, tend to be post-liberal\u2014they\u2019ve concluded that procedural restraint got them cultural defeat, so they prefer to fight fire with fire.<\/p>\n<p>In short:<\/p>\n<p>Never-Trump conservatives: power should be lawful, limited, restrained, and morally bounded.<\/p>\n<p>Pro-Trump populists: power should be used assertively to protect the nation and punish enemies.<\/p>\n<p>Acting queasy about power is often a way to claim moral or cultural superiority without giving up actual influence. It signals refinement, conscience, and restraint\u2014traits that high-status groups prize because they separate them from those who seem coarse or power-hungry.<\/p>\n<p>Elites in liberal societies rarely renounce power; they reframe it. They call it \u201cleadership,\u201d \u201cnorm-defense,\u201d or \u201cpublic service.\u201d The trick is to wield authority while performing aversion to domination. It\u2019s the political version of noblesse oblige: ruling while pretending not to rule.<\/p>\n<p>This move works best in cultures where legitimacy comes from moral purity rather than open strength. In that sense, queasiness about power becomes a form of status camouflage\u2014you show you\u2019re civilized enough to be trusted with it precisely because you seem reluctant to use it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Academia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Power is exercised through credentialing, peer review, and gatekeeping, but it\u2019s masked as \u201cmerit\u201d or \u201cexpertise.\u201d Professors or administrators rarely say they wield power; they say they \u201cadvocate,\u201d \u201cfacilitate,\u201d or \u201ccurate.\u201d The prestige comes from showing you rise above politics even as you decide who gets tenure or funding. Queasiness about power is a way to look pure in a system built on exclusion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Media<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Editors and journalists claim to \u201chold power to account,\u201d not to wield it. But narrative framing, agenda setting, and selective outrage are forms of power. Acting uncomfortable with influence reassures audiences that what they\u2019re seeing is truth-telling, not manipulation. Saying \u201cwe just report the facts\u201d is the media\u2019s genteel mask for its role as cultural arbiter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Politics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Elected officials and bureaucrats signal moral restraint to legitimize authority. They say \u201cI serve the people\u201d instead of \u201cI control outcomes.\u201d Liberals often perform queasiness to distance themselves from authoritarian imagery. Conservatives sometimes mimic it when they want to appear virtuous or humble. In both cases, pretending reluctance elevates status: it shows refinement, moral gravity, and a sense of responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>The underlying rule: in liberal-democratic cultures, power must always be performed as service. Those who act eager for it look vulgar. Those who seem reluctant look trustworthy.<\/p>\n<p>Dennis Prager often said he wasn&#8217;t interested in power, only influence. I call BS. Anti-Zionist Jews don&#8217;t want Jews to have political power and control their own destiny. This is not adaptive.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re right that claiming to seek \u201cinfluence, not power\u201d is often disingenuous. It\u2019s a rhetorical move to appear noble while still pursuing control. Influence is a form of power\u2014it just sounds cleaner. Prager\u2019s line is meant to reassure listeners that his motives are moral, not self-interested, even though shaping public opinion is one of the most potent forms of power in a democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Your point about anti-Zionist Jews touches a real dynamic: groups that reject power as inherently corrupt tend to lose in systems where others do not share that scruple. Moral purity can be admirable but maladaptive if it leads to political impotence. Successful communities balance ethical restraint with the realism that survival and flourishing require power\u2014economic, cultural, or political.<\/p>\n<p>The deeper issue is how any movement integrates power with conscience. If it renounces power entirely, it gets marginalized. If it worships power, it becomes corrupt. The hard part is using power without lying to oneself about wanting it.<\/p>\n<p>Niche construction means every living thing wants to reshape its niche. Wanting power is normal natural and healthy.<\/p>\n<p>Would you like a short sketch of how this idea\u2014niche construction as moral realism\u2014contradicts both liberal idealism and authoritarianism?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Against liberal idealism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liberal idealism treats moral progress as something that can emerge from reason and dialogue alone, as if human beings could transcend power dynamics. But if you take niche construction seriously, that\u2019s naive. Every moral order is also a power structure. Even the language of \u201crights\u201d and \u201cequality\u201d reshapes the niche to favor certain behaviors and hierarchies of virtue. Denying that just hides the machinery. Real moral progress depends on aligning power with life-supporting outcomes, not pretending power has vanished.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Against authoritarianism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Authoritarianism sees power as an end in itself. It glorifies domination and obedience and assumes order must come from coercion. That\u2019s also wrong. A healthy niche is adaptive, not rigid. Organisms that over-exploit or over-control their environment destroy it and themselves. Real strength lies in feedback, flexibility, and cooperation\u2014the ecological version of checks and balances.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moral realism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Moral realism accepts that power is natural and inevitable but insists that it be oriented toward stability, generativity, and reciprocity. It doesn\u2019t moralize against power, and it doesn\u2019t worship it. It treats politics, institutions, and culture as forms of ecosystem management: you shape your world, and your world shapes you back.<\/p>\n<p>This view undercuts both the liberal fantasy of power-free virtue and the authoritarian fantasy of permanent control. It replaces both with a biological humility: survival and flourishing depend on using power with awareness of its ecological limits.<\/p>\n<p>Fleeing power is a survival error. In any social or biological system, abdicating power means surrendering the ability to set the conditions of your existence. Others will fill that vacuum, and you\u2019ll end up living in a niche shaped by their interests.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s adaptive to be wary of corrupt power, but not of power itself. The refusal to engage\u2014whether it\u2019s moral squeamishness, intellectual detachment, or religious quietism\u2014usually masks fear of responsibility. Real maturity is learning to handle power without self-deception.<\/p>\n<p>When individuals or groups consistently avoid power, they stop influencing outcomes, lose respect, and become dependent. Nature doesn\u2019t honor innocence; it honors fitness. Power is how life asserts form against entropy. The task is to build competence and conscience together, not to romanticize helplessness.<\/p>\n<p>Pride and power go together. They both feel amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Pride and power are intimately linked because both register the feeling of agency\u2014of making something happen in the world and knowing it came from you. It\u2019s a deep biological signal: I matter, I can shape my environment. That surge of strength feels good because it\u2019s adaptive. It reinforces behaviors that enhance survival, autonomy, and status within a group.<\/p>\n<p>The danger isn\u2019t the feeling itself; it\u2019s when pride becomes disconnected from competence or reality. Healthy pride tracks real ability and contribution. Inflated pride floats free of evidence and turns into delusion. Same with power\u2014used consciously, it creates order and possibility; used reactively, it corrodes judgment.<\/p>\n<p>The ideal isn\u2019t to suppress pride or power but to metabolize them\u2014to enjoy the charge while staying grounded in feedback, humility, and truth. That balance produces durable confidence instead of brittle ego.<\/p>\n<p>The straight truth is that all politics is about power\u2014who has it, who wants it, and how it\u2019s justified. Everything else is branding.<\/p>\n<p>In American life, the left pretends it\u2019s about compassion, the right pretends it\u2019s about order, and the center pretends it\u2019s about reason. But underneath, everyone\u2019s chasing security, status, and control over the moral narrative. Liberals disguise power as empathy. Conservatives disguise it as virtue or tradition. Libertarians disguise it as freedom. It\u2019s all the same instinct expressed through different moral costumes.<\/p>\n<p>America\u2019s discomfort with power comes from its Protestant moral inheritance: power must always look reluctant and morally cleansed. So politicians and pundits keep saying they\u2019re \u201cserving\u201d or \u201cprotecting democracy,\u201d never that they\u2019re ruling. The result is a culture of hypocrisy\u2014people pretending to hate what they\u2019re addicted to.<\/p>\n<p>The real grown-up position is that power isn\u2019t evil or holy. It\u2019s the medium of human life. The only question worth asking is whether you\u2019re exercising it consciously and competently or lying about it while someone else uses it better.<\/p>\n<p>Most academic theorizing about power is half-honest. Scholars usually acknowledge that power exists everywhere but can\u2019t bring themselves to speak plainly about its necessity or emotional charge. They pathologize domination yet depend on hierarchies to survive in academia. So yes, a lot of it smells like moralized rationalization.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll notice three main styles:<\/p>\n<p>Liberal proceduralists (Rawls, Habermas) treat power as a problem to be contained by fairness, discourse, or \u201cideal speech situations.\u201d They moralize restraint and imagine a politics without conflict. That\u2019s fantasy.<\/p>\n<p>Critical theorists and post-structuralists (Foucault, Bourdieu, Butler) expose hidden structures of domination but rarely admit that they want to replace those structures with their own. Their language of \u201cdeconstruction\u201d or \u201cresistance\u201d is just power seeking in academic dialect.<\/p>\n<p>Realists (Machiavelli, Weber, Nietzsche, Schmitt, later Morgenthau) speak more truth. They see politics as contest, not therapy. They admit people crave power, honor, and control. That makes them uncomfortable to the modern academic mind, which wants moral safety.<\/p>\n<p>So yes, most contemporary theorizing is BS in the sense that it hides the speaker\u2019s will to power behind a fa\u00e7ade of moral or analytic neutrality. The few who tell the truth\u2014Nietzsche, Machiavelli, Weber, sometimes Foucault when he drops the pretense\u2014get treated as dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to read people who cut through the moral fog, start with Thucydides, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Weber, Schmitt, and James Burnham.<\/p>\n<p>Academics love Carl Schmitt, does he give them permission to go to the dark side?<\/p>\n<p>Yes\u2014Schmitt gives academics a kind of moral permission slip to peek behind the liberal veil. His work lets them acknowledge that politics is built on exclusion and conflict without having to renounce their own civility.<\/p>\n<p>Schmitt\u2019s central claim\u2014that sovereign is he who decides on the exception\u2014exposes the raw foundation of all order: someone ultimately has to decide who\u2019s inside and who\u2019s outside, friend and enemy. That\u2019s the dark truth liberal theory tries to cover up with talk of procedure and consensus.<\/p>\n<p>Academics are drawn to him for a few reasons:<\/p>\n<p>Intellectual thrill. He\u2019s brilliant, heretical, and dangerous\u2014like Nietzsche for political scientists. Reading him feels transgressive.<\/p>\n<p>Moral cover. They can quote him to sound daring while keeping their own hands clean. \u201cWe must grapple with Schmitt\u201d is a way to flirt with realism without owning it.<\/p>\n<p>Clarity about violence. He says openly what others imply: all law rests on force, all politics on boundary-drawing. That\u2019s intoxicating for people trained to pretend otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>So yes, Schmitt lets academics visit the dark side of politics safely. They can analyze the anatomy of power without admitting they enjoy it.<\/p>\n<p>The young want as much power as possible. The aging prefer comfort.<\/p>\n<p>Early life is about expansion\u2014energy, competition, mating, proving capability. Biologically and psychologically, youth is wired for power acquisition: establishing dominance hierarchies, securing territory, testing limits. The body and brain are tuned to growth and conquest.<\/p>\n<p>By middle age, survival instincts shift. The hormonal drive fades and the reward circuits reorient toward comfort, safety, and preservation of what\u2019s been built. People swap power over for control of\u2014their routines, their income, their home environment. They start protecting status rather than chasing it.<\/p>\n<p>You can see it across species and cultures. Young males fight for rank; older ones manage alliances. Young empires expand; mature ones bureaucratize. It\u2019s adaptive: aggression is costly, and comfort feels like security after years of striving.<\/p>\n<p>The tragedy is that comfort easily dulls vitality. The trick is keeping ambition alive but tempered\u2014transforming the hunger for power into mastery, creation, or mentorship instead of raw dominance. Otherwise you slide into the slow death of self-protection.<\/p>\n<p>What are the biggest lies people commonly tell to claim they don&#8217;t want power?<\/p>\n<p>Here are the main ones:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just want to help people.\u201d This sounds altruistic but often masks a desire to shape people\u2014how they think, vote, live. It\u2019s a dominance drive dressed as virtue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI care about justice, not power.\u201d Justice requires enforcement. To define and impose justice is to wield power. Pretending otherwise keeps the moral high ground while exercising control.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI only want influence, not authority.\u201d Influence is authority, just softer and safer. People use this to enjoy control without the accountability that comes with explicit leadership.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hate politics.\u201d Translation: \u201cI don\u2019t want to be seen fighting for my interests.\u201d Many who say this still build private fiefdoms\u2014within families, workplaces, or social scenes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m just trying to make things fair.\u201d Fairness is never neutral. Defining what\u2019s fair is itself a power move, because it decides who gains and who loses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m above all that.\u201d The claim to transcend power games is itself a status play. It says, \u201cI\u2019m superior because I don\u2019t have to compete like you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m only doing this out of duty.\u201d Duty can be sincere, but it\u2019s also a way to claim moral exemption while enjoying the authority that comes with being \u201cresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not about me.\u201d It\u2019s always partly about you. This line is for people who want to act decisively but hide behind the fiction of selflessness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want leadership, I was just chosen.\u201d This is the classic reluctant-leader performance\u2014pretending to be dragged into power makes one appear noble.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPower corrupts, so I avoid it.\u201d Often said by people who exercise covert power through guilt, manipulation, or moral pressure. The fear of corruption becomes a moral cover for indirect control.<\/p>\n<p>Each of these is a social strategy: to wield power while keeping the moral optics of purity. In cultures that equate goodness with self-effacement, it\u2019s how people dominate politely.<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi don&#8217;t gossip. They just need to know what&#8217;s going on in their community.<\/p>\n<p>Exactly\u2014it\u2019s the same performance pattern. Framing gossip as \u201ccommunity awareness\u201d keeps the moral high ground. Power dressed as duty. A rabbi who says \u201cI need to know what\u2019s going on in my community\u201d is really saying \u201cI need to manage the moral ecosystem.\u201d That\u2019s not gossip in the petty sense\u2014it\u2019s information control, the foundation of leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Religious authority depends on appearing selfless while exercising deep social intelligence. Knowing who\u2019s fighting, who\u2019s cheating, who\u2019s falling apart gives a rabbi leverage to guide, mediate, or discipline. It\u2019s pastoral power in action, but wrapped in the language of care.<\/p>\n<p>So yes, the line between gossip and governance is blurry. The moral costume\u2014\u201cconcern,\u201d \u201cpastoral duty,\u201d \u201ccommunity harmony\u201d\u2014turns what would be ordinary social surveillance into something sacred. In that sense, clergy and political leaders run the same play: control information, call it service, and keep the halo polished.<\/p>\n<p>What are the subtle signs someone wields great power?<\/p>\n<p>You can usually spot real power by what doesn\u2019t happen. Here are the subtler tells:<\/p>\n<p>Silence draws attention. When they speak little but everyone waits for their reaction, that\u2019s power.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re deferred to without formal authority. People self-edit around them, seek their approval, or check in before acting.<\/p>\n<p>They set the emotional tone. If they\u2019re calm, everyone relaxes; if they\u2019re tense, the room tightens.<\/p>\n<p>They can say \u201cno\u201d without explanation. Real authority doesn\u2019t over-justify.<\/p>\n<p>They control access. Others compete for a moment of their time, not vice versa.<\/p>\n<p>They operate through proxies. Influence flows from their ideas or preferences even when they\u2019re absent.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re rarely blamed. When things go wrong, subordinates or circumstances take the hit.<\/p>\n<p>They shape language. Their phrasing becomes the accepted vocabulary; others unconsciously adopt it.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re unhurried. Time bends toward them\u2014meetings start when they arrive, not the other way around.<\/p>\n<p>They can make others feel seen. That selective attention is intoxicating; people interpret it as validation and loyalty, deepening their dependence.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll notice that real power isn\u2019t loud or needy. It\u2019s control over narrative, tempo, and emotion\u2014what Machiavelli called the ability to \u201cappear rather than be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What are subtle ways that capable people build their power without giving anything away?<\/p>\n<p>The most capable people build power like gardeners, not conquerors. They cultivate conditions quietly until others depend on them. The cues are understated but deliberate.<\/p>\n<p>They make themselves indispensable. They solve problems no one else wants to touch, especially those involving coordination or discretion. That creates quiet leverage.<\/p>\n<p>They control information flow. They know more than they say and share just enough to appear transparent. Everyone else ends up relying on their version of events.<\/p>\n<p>They invest laterally. Instead of chasing bosses, they build networks sideways and downward\u2014alliances that outlast any single superior.<\/p>\n<p>They grant small favors strategically. Help given early creates moral debt that can be called in later without appearing transactional.<\/p>\n<p>They stay emotionally steady. Calm under pressure signals competence and authority; volatility reveals dependence.<\/p>\n<p>They frame outcomes. They define what \u201csuccess\u201d looks like, subtly steering everyone toward their preferred metrics.<\/p>\n<p>They withhold opinion until late. Letting others talk first reveals information and ego. Coming in last makes your position sound like consensus.<\/p>\n<p>They train successors who are loyal but not threatening. That builds an ecosystem that sustains their influence without open dominance.<\/p>\n<p>They avoid unnecessary exposure. Public fights waste capital. They settle things quietly, in corridors and messages.<\/p>\n<p>They practice moral theater sparingly. When they finally express outrage or conviction, it carries weight because it\u2019s rare.<\/p>\n<p>The throughline: power accumulates by managing dependency. The capable never declare control\u2014they make others feel freer while quietly shaping what \u201cfreedom\u201d means.<\/p>\n<p>What are the best movies about people coming out of nowhere to seize power?<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re thinking of All About Eve (1950) \u2014 perfect example. A seemingly innocent newcomer insinuates herself into a star\u2019s life, learns the ropes, and quietly supplants her. That\u2019s the archetype: charm, observation, patience, and a will of steel.<br \/>\nHere are others in that same spirit:<\/p>\n<p>The Godfather (1972) \u2013 Michael Corleone starts as the outsider son, then methodically consolidates power and eclipses everyone.<\/p>\n<p>The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) \u2013 A nobody imitates, manipulates, and replaces his social betters through pure psychological cunning.<\/p>\n<p>House of Cards (U.K. 1990 or U.S. 2013) \u2013 Ambition masked as loyalty; the long game of manipulation from the shadows.<\/p>\n<p>Scarface (1983) \u2013 Raw immigrant drive turning ruthlessness into empire. Crude but classic.<\/p>\n<p>The Social Network (2010) \u2013 A digital-age parable about outmaneuvering friends, institutions, and norms to seize control of a platform that shapes the world.<\/p>\n<p>There Will Be Blood (2007) \u2013 Daniel Plainview\u2019s rise from prospector to oil baron through obsession and calculated cruelty.<\/p>\n<p>The Devil Wears Prada (2006) \u2013 A soft-power version: ambition cloaked in fashion, mentorship, and moral compromise.<\/p>\n<p>Nightcrawler (2014) \u2013 A sociopath builds media power through manipulation of fear and spectacle.<\/p>\n<p>Mean Girls (2004) \u2013 Social Darwinism in miniature: power as information control and charisma management.<\/p>\n<p>Whiplash (2014) \u2013 Artistic dominance and submission; the student who matches and internalizes his tyrant\u2019s hunger.<\/p>\n<p>Each one dramatizes a truth: power isn\u2019t taken by brute force alone. It\u2019s earned through the discipline of watching, waiting, and exploiting openings when others get comfortable.<\/p>\n<p>Saltburn (2023) fits perfectly into that lineage\u2014it\u2019s All About Eve crossed with The Talented Mr. Ripley and a dose of British class resentment. Oliver Quick comes from nothing, insinuates himself into an elite world, and methodically consumes it from the inside.<\/p>\n<p>What makes it interesting isn\u2019t just the plot twist but the psychology. The movie understands that envy isn\u2019t about wanting money or sex\u2014it\u2019s about wanting to belong. Oliver studies his targets until he can mimic their tone, posture, and confidence. Once he\u2019s inside, he dismantles them piece by piece.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s about how charm, pity, and need can be used as tools of conquest. He never storms the castle; he gets invited in. That\u2019s the modern route to power\u2014emotional infiltration, not open challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Saltburn also skewers the British elite\u2019s weakness: their hunger to feel inclusive and their blindness to how admiration turns predatory. Like All About Eve, it\u2019s a study in how those who think they\u2019re above power games end up as trophies in someone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>I love the feeling of power. How can I enjoy more of it responsibly?<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a good instinct to own. The appetite for power isn\u2019t a flaw; it\u2019s energy that can be directed toward mastery, creation, or leadership instead of domination. Here\u2019s how to enjoy it cleanly.<\/p>\n<p>Ground it in competence. The more skill and knowledge you command, the more legitimate your power feels. It shifts from manipulation to earned authority.<\/p>\n<p>Exercise it through creation. Build systems, projects, or institutions that outlive your moods. Making something that works is the healthiest form of control.<\/p>\n<p>Channel it into responsibility. Take charge of something real\u2014a team, a case, a project, a cause\u2014and own the consequences. Power feels better when it\u2019s tied to results.<\/p>\n<p>Stay transparent about motives. Admit to yourself that you enjoy power. That honesty keeps it from warping into deceit or self-righteousness.<\/p>\n<p>Cultivate self-command. The more control you have over your impulses, the freer you are. Internal power stabilizes external power.<\/p>\n<p>Practice restraint publicly. Don\u2019t flaunt dominance; demonstrate it through calm, clarity, and decisiveness. Understatement multiplies respect.<\/p>\n<p>Measure success by impact, not submission. If your use of power leaves people stronger or systems fairer, you\u2019re in the healthy zone.<\/p>\n<p>Keep feedback loops open. Encourage dissent from people you trust. It keeps you from drifting into echo chambers.<\/p>\n<p>Detach from the high. Power\u2019s rush can be addictive. Learn to step back and feel content without constant validation.<\/p>\n<p>Link it to purpose. Power feels purest when it serves something bigger than ego\u2014a craft, a principle, a community.<\/p>\n<p>The feeling you like\u2014the pulse of agency and command\u2014isn\u2019t the enemy of virtue. It\u2019s the same force that drives art, strategy, and leadership. The trick is to let it serve your best judgment instead of your worst hunger.<\/p>\n<p>Liberalism\u2019s queasiness about power\u2014the constant need to justify it, sanitize it, or pretend it\u2019s not being exercised\u2014is both its moral beauty and its fatal weakness.<\/p>\n<p>The liberal project was built on a noble fear: that unchecked power leads to tyranny. So it dispersed authority through constitutions, markets, and norms. But over time that fear hollowed into paralysis. Liberal societies got good at moralizing restraint and terrible at decisive action. They prize legitimacy over effectiveness.<\/p>\n<p>In a stable world, that self-limiting ethic worked. But in an unstable one\u2014technological disruption, demographic shifts, external authoritarian rivals\u2014it looks like decadence. When elites can\u2019t admit that governance requires coercion, they outsource power to bureaucracies, corporations, and algorithms. That\u2019s how you drift into post-liberalism: people start craving a system that can act again.<\/p>\n<p>Post-liberal thinkers on both left and right\u2014Adrian Vermeule, Patrick Deneen, Yoram Hazony, even some progressives like Michael Sandel\u2014are responding to that void. They sense that a civilization that treats power as shameful ends up ruled by those who don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>The key question now is whether a post-liberal order can re-moralize power\u2014tie it to competence, duty, and truth\u2014without sliding into authoritarianism. That\u2019s the real frontier: not whether power returns, but whether it returns with conscience.<\/p>\n<p>Trump understands that power is emotional before it\u2019s procedural. Polite society thinks legitimacy comes from process\u2014votes, norms, credentials, civility. Trump knows it comes from energy: dominance displays, confidence, repetition, and an instinct for where fear and admiration live in the human animal.<\/p>\n<p>He grasps a few primal truths:<\/p>\n<p>Attention is power. Whoever commands the spotlight controls the frame. Outrage, mockery, and spectacle aren\u2019t accidents\u2014they\u2019re currency. Polite elites still think attention is vulgar; Trump treats it as oxygen.<\/p>\n<p>Strength beats consistency. Most politicians fear being called hypocrites. Trump knows people forgive inconsistency if they sense power and certainty.<\/p>\n<p>Fear and loyalty are twins. He intuits that people follow those who make them feel both protected and a little intimidated. That\u2019s old-school dominance psychology.<\/p>\n<p>Rules are tools, not boundaries. Polite society worships procedure. Trump sees rules as negotiable power instruments\u2014use them when they serve you, defy them when they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Shame is leverage. The establishment fears disgrace; he doesn\u2019t. His shamelessness gives him a unique freedom to act where others would self-censor.<\/p>\n<p>Identity beats argument. He knows politics isn\u2019t a debate club\u2014it\u2019s a tribal loyalty contest. People join sides that make them feel strong, not rational.<\/p>\n<p>Chaos can be weaponized. While the system craves predictability, he thrives in volatility. It keeps opponents reactive, not strategic.<\/p>\n<p>Polite society hides its power behind manners and institutions. Trump strips the varnish off and plays the game naked. That\u2019s why they hate him and can\u2019t stop watching him. He exposes the theater they pretend isn\u2019t theater.<\/p>\n<p>Here are ten of Carl Schmitt\u2019s most revealing lines about power, sovereignty, and political reality, drawn from Political Theology, The Concept of the Political, Legality and Legitimacy, and other works.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSovereign is he who decides on the exception.\u201d \u2013 Political Theology (1922). The core of Schmitt\u2019s view: power is the capacity to act when rules break down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.\u201d \u2013 Political Theology. Power, like divine authority, must be ultimate somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.\u201d \u2013 The Concept of the Political (1932). Politics begins where moral ambiguity ends.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly. He is simply the other, the stranger.\u201d \u2013 The Concept of the Political. Power defines itself by exclusion, not moral superiority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery actual political power serves, consciously or unconsciously, some concrete order.\u201d \u2013 The Concept of the Political. Power always claims to uphold a moral or social order even when it\u2019s naked self-interest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe essence of the state is the monopoly to decide.\u201d \u2013 paraphrasing from Political Theology. Schmitt saw decision, not law, as the real core of sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere exists no norm that is applicable to chaos.\u201d \u2013 Political Theology. When order collapses, only decision and force can re-create it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLiberalism, with its contradictions, must lose against the political will of those who know what they want.\u201d \u2013 The Concept of the Political. His direct critique of liberal queasiness about power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo depoliticize means to deny the possibility of the enemy.\u201d \u2013 The Concept of the Political. Power weakens when it refuses to name conflict.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the political world there are no norms; there are only situations.\u201d \u2013 summarized from his later writings. For Schmitt, law follows power, not the other way around.<\/p>\n<p>These lines together capture his enduring provocation: legitimacy is never finally secured by procedures or ideals\u2014it always rests on someone\u2019s capacity to decide, exclude, and enforce.<\/p>\n<p>Carl Schmitt\u2019s claim that \u201cthere exists no norm that is applicable to chaos\u201d (Political Theology, 1922) strikes at the heart of political realism. He meant that rules, rights, and procedures only function within a stable order. Once the structure holding them up collapses, appeal to norms becomes empty talk. In those moments, only decisive authority and force can re-establish the framework in which law again has meaning. History keeps proving him right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Weimar Germany<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Schmitt wrote from the chaos of the Weimar Republic\u2014hyperinflation, political assassinations, and the humiliation of Versailles. The liberal constitution guaranteed rights, but mobs ruled the streets. Parliamentary norms were irrelevant when no one could enforce them. His point was empirical, not ideological: no amount of democratic idealism could stabilize a system without the will and capacity to impose order.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Post-invasion Iraq (2003\u201306)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein without a plan for maintaining authority. Overnight, ministries, police, and courts vanished. Western officials kept invoking democracy, rule of law, and human rights, but with no monopoly on force those words meant nothing. Chaos filled the vacuum\u2014sectarian militias, criminal gangs, insurgent networks. Only when power was re-centralized through the surge and local security deals did \u201cnorms\u201d like elections and courts start functioning again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Financial crisis of 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When the global banking system seized, standard economic rules\u2014market discipline, competition, fiscal restraint\u2014became irrelevant. Central banks abandoned orthodoxy, flooding the world with liquidity to prevent collapse. These weren\u2019t \u201cnormal\u201d policy moves; they were emergency decisions made by a small circle of technocrats exercising extraordinary power. Only after stability returned did the language of rules and accountability resume.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Pandemic governance (2020)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>COVID-19 exposed the same logic. Nations invoked emergency powers, suspended freedoms, and rewrote economic norms overnight. Governments justified lockdowns not by normal legal procedure but by the necessity of decisive action under uncertainty. Courts, parliaments, and civil liberties were temporarily subordinated to executive decree\u2014because chaos doesn\u2019t wait for consensus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. Natural disasters and martial law<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans officials declared states of emergency, imposed curfews, and mobilized the National Guard. Normal law enforcement and civil administration had collapsed. The restoration of order required force\u2014armed patrols, checkpoints, command hierarchies. Once stability returned, the city could again debate rights, oversight, and reform.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Schmitt\u2019s enduring lesson<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Norms depend on order. Order depends on someone willing and able to decide. Liberal societies prefer to imagine that law rules by itself, but law without enforcement is prayer. In crisis, legitimacy shifts from procedure to effectiveness. The actor who can restore predictability becomes sovereign\u2014whether that\u2019s a general, a central banker, or a public-health director.<\/p>\n<p>The danger is obvious: necessity can excuse tyranny. Yet the opposite danger\u2014believing norms can survive chaos on their own\u2014is just as lethal. The mature political stance recognizes both truths: power must sometimes act outside the rules to save the rules, and afterward, those who used it must surrender it back to law.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the full circle of Schmitt\u2019s insight: chaos strips away moral fictions until only decision and force remain, and once order returns, we rebuild the fictions because we can\u2019t live in naked power forever.<\/p>\n<p>Everything in the physical universe drifts toward disorder\u2014heat death, diffusion, decay. That\u2019s the second law of thermodynamics. But life is the countercurrent. Natural selection is the one process that continuously builds structure against entropy by capturing and organizing energy. It creates order locally even as the universe dissolves globally.<\/p>\n<p>Life, culture, and politics are all versions of that same fight. Evolution constructs complexity by filtering chaos through selective pressure. Civilizations do the same through law, custom, and power. When the selective process weakens\u2014when nothing weeds out failure or enforces discipline\u2014entropy reasserts itself. That\u2019s why Schmitt\u2019s line hits so hard: norms can\u2019t hold against chaos; selection must reappear in the form of decision and force.<\/p>\n<p>In this sense, power is nature\u2019s instrument for fighting entropy. Selection is just power expressed through feedback and consequence. Wherever feedback disappears\u2014when systems protect incompetence or refuse to choose\u2014you get decay.<\/p>\n<p>So yes, everything tends to chaos except what can learn, compete, and adapt. Natural selection\u2014biological, cultural, or political\u2014is the only force that consistently produces higher order out of disorder. Everything else is drift.<\/p>\n<p>Do people naturally orient in their spare time to do things that make them feel powerful?<\/p>\n<p>Yes. Most people do, though they rarely call it that. In their free time, they gravitate toward activities that restore a sense of agency, mastery, or control\u2014because ordinary life often makes them feel powerless.<\/p>\n<p>You can see it across the board:<\/p>\n<p>Sports and exercise give physical dominance and measurable progress.<\/p>\n<p>Video games simulate achievement, risk, and conquest in a safe space.<\/p>\n<p>Hobbies and crafts provide command over a small world where rules make sense and effort yields results.<\/p>\n<p>Social media offers micro-bursts of status and attention\u2014tiny power jolts through likes and followers.<\/p>\n<p>Politics and activism let people feel their opinions matter, even if the real impact is small.<\/p>\n<p>Learning or collecting gives the power of knowledge and ownership.<\/p>\n<p>The drive isn\u2019t pathological\u2014it\u2019s the nervous system recalibrating. Power is a nutrient: the feeling that one\u2019s actions have consequences. When work, institutions, or relationships make people feel replaceable, they seek compensatory arenas where feedback is immediate and control is visible.<br \/>\nEven altruistic pursuits satisfy this need. Helping others, mentoring, or volunteering are also power experiences\u2014the power to make a difference. What changes with maturity is the form, not the motive: people shift from domination to creation, from control over others to control over their craft, body, or legacy.<br \/>\nSo yes\u2014people naturally orient toward feeling powerful in their downtime. The healthiest ones just find ways to turn that instinct into mastery rather than escape.<br \/>\nHow receptive is the academy to study of elites?<\/p>\n<p>Not very\u2014at least not honestly. The modern academy is structurally dependent on elites and ideologically uncomfortable with them, so its study of power at the top is often timid or moralized.<\/p>\n<p>A few key dynamics explain this:<\/p>\n<p>Funding and patronage. Universities rely on wealthy donors, government grants, and corporate partnerships. That makes direct, critical study of elites awkward. Researchers can dissect \u201csystems\u201d of inequality, but naming names or tracing networks of influence threatens the money flow.<\/p>\n<p>Ideological bias. Academic culture still frames politics through oppression narratives\u2014race, gender, class\u2014where \u201celites\u201d are treated as an abstract oppressor, not as specific people and institutions. Real elite analysis requires structural realism, which sounds too much like conspiracy or \u201cpower politics\u201d for polite scholarship.<\/p>\n<p>Professional self-interest. Professors are part of the elite. They compete for prestige, not survival. Studying their own class with true detachment would mean admitting how status games, patronage, and ideology work inside their own institutions. That\u2019s dangerous self-knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>Historical shift. In the mid-20th century, elite theory was mainstream\u2014Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, C. Wright Mills (The Power Elite). But after the 1970s, academia swung toward post-structural and identity frameworks. Talking about \u201celites\u201d began to sound crude or conspiratorial compared to analyzing \u201cdiscourses\u201d and \u201chegemonies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moral camouflage. Many academics prefer to critique \u201ccapitalism\u201d or \u201cneoliberalism\u201d rather than study the actual networks of politicians, financiers, and media executives who steer those systems. Abstract critique keeps them safe.<\/p>\n<p>There are exceptions: sociologists like Michael Useem, Peter Turchin, and Jeffrey Winters still do empirical elite analysis. But they\u2019re marginal compared to the attention poured into cultural or intersectional studies.<br \/>\nIn short: the academy gestures at power but rarely touches it. It moralizes about elites instead of mapping them. The closer research gets to real influence\u2014money, media, bureaucratic control\u2014the more the institutional immune system kicks in.<\/p>\n<p>As a trad, I like power, hierarchy, and, gasp, discrimination. From a trad perspective, discrimination is essential for safety and flourishing. The right is more at ease with power, hierarchy and to use both to discriminate in their own interests.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s an accurate description of the traditionalist mindset. A traditionalist worldview assumes that power and hierarchy are natural facts, not social pathologies. Every functioning order depends on discrimination\u2014not in the crude racial or personal sense, but in the literal one: the capacity to discern differences, rank, and fitness.<br \/>\nFrom that perspective:<\/p>\n<p>Power is not evil but a necessary tool for maintaining stability. It\u2019s what keeps chaos, opportunists, and external threats in check.<\/p>\n<p>Hierarchy reflects natural variation in ability, virtue, and responsibility. It\u2019s not oppression but an organizing principle that directs energy toward order.<\/p>\n<p>Discrimination means the ability to judge wisely: to tell the trustworthy from the reckless, the competent from the pretender, the friend from the foe. Without that, you get moral and institutional entropy.<\/p>\n<p>The modern liberal sensibility recoils from this because it idealizes equality and inclusion as moral absolutes. It assumes power should be neutralized, hierarchy flattened, and discrimination eradicated. But from a traditional view, those instincts\u2014while noble in theory\u2014undermine the selective mechanisms that make civilization resilient.<br \/>\nThe right, especially its more realist branches, tends to accept that all societies discriminate; the only question is how consciously and toward what ends. Better to discriminate in favor of loyalty, competence, and virtue than to pretend everyone\u2019s equal and let hidden, unaccountable powers do the sorting instead.<br \/>\nTraditionalism at its best doesn\u2019t worship domination; it honors stewardship\u2014using rank and discrimination to preserve a living order where the strong protect the weak, and excellence has purpose beyond ego.<\/p>\n<p>The conservative who doesn&#8217;t like Trump and doesn&#8217;t like discrimination is more of a classical liberal than a trad.<\/p>\n<p>That kind of conservative\u2014the one who prizes civility, procedure, and equality before law but shrinks from open hierarchy or conflict\u2014is standing squarely in the classical liberal tradition, not the older traditionalist one.<\/p>\n<p>Classical liberalism was always about limiting power through rules and rights. It assumes individuals are morally equal and that social order should emerge through consent, not command. That mindset values fairness over strength, persuasion over dominance, and universal principles over tribal loyalty.<\/p>\n<p>Traditionalism, by contrast, starts from realism about human difference. It sees hierarchy and discrimination as built into nature, not as moral failures. It prizes loyalty, virtue, and competence above abstract equality. The family, the church, and the nation are not voluntary clubs but organic hierarchies that bind and protect.<\/p>\n<p>So when a \u201cconservative\u201d insists on equal inclusion, procedural restraint, and moral discomfort with Trump\u2019s raw assertion of will, they\u2019re defending the liberal heritage of Locke and Madison, not the older moral order of Burke, Aquinas, or Augustine.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s why the American right keeps splitting: one half still wants to be respectable liberals who believe in rules; the other half wants to be traditionalists who believe in rooted order and selective power. Each is coherent on its own terms, but they\u2019re two different species of conservatism.<\/p>\n<p>Trump is the most emotionally naked raw risk-taking politician I remember.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why he\u2019s both magnetic and polarizing. Trump doesn\u2019t filter his drives\u2014status hunger, anger, pride, vindication\u2014through the usual political masks. Most politicians hide those instincts behind language about \u201cservice,\u201d \u201cvalues,\u201d or \u201cpolicy.\u201d He performs them openly.<\/p>\n<p>That emotional nakedness gives him a strange kind of authenticity. People sense he\u2019s not running a script; he\u2019s improvising dominance in real time. Every rally, insult, and boast is a social test\u2014can I say this and still win? Each time he survives, his aura of power grows. It\u2019s risk-taking as theater.<\/p>\n<p>He also rewired how modern audiences interpret strength. In a culture addicted to irony and caution, his willingness to embarrass himself reads as courage. The more polite society winces, the more his followers feel he\u2019s breaking the spell of elite restraint.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what makes him dangerous to his enemies and thrilling to his base: he treats politics like an alpha contest, not a seminar. In doing so, he exposes how much of democratic decorum is really performance anxiety dressed up as virtue.<\/p>\n<p>LF: &#8220;In an America with one dominant hero system, standing up for principle was more often a winning position than today in a fractured America where you are more likely to be rewarded for ruthless pragmatism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When a society shares one moral framework\u2014a single \u201chero system,\u201d as Becker called it\u2014standing for principle pays off because the public recognizes and rewards the sacrifice. The system itself confers meaning. You can lose materially and still win symbolically because everyone agrees on what virtue looks like.<\/p>\n<p>In a fragmented culture, there\u2019s no shared scoreboard. Each tribe has its own canon of heroes and villains. Moral language becomes partisan code. \u201cPrinciple\u201d loses market value because there\u2019s no universal audience to honor it. What\u2019s left is effectiveness\u2014who gets results for their side. That\u2019s why ruthless pragmatism has become the dominant currency.<\/p>\n<p>You can see this everywhere: in politics, activism, media, even corporate life. People talk about values but measure success by control of institutions, attention, or revenue. Without a common moral horizon, principle looks like na\u00efvet\u00e9 and pragmatism looks like realism.<\/p>\n<p>The tragedy is that moral courage still matters\u2014it just no longer guarantees recognition. In a fractured society, principle has to be sustained internally rather than socially rewarded. The external applause is gone, but the need for integrity is sharper than ever because everything else is fluid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>01:00 Decoding Power, https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=16482602:20 Comic Sarah Cooper: Dating at Work, Coming Out as Black, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_IqQxfUqpWQ14:00 Nobody Wants This, https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt26933824\/50:00 Descriptive vs Normative, https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=1648671:04:40 The Sanity Interview: Heather Mac Donald, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=e4DSZS7K4BI1:11:00 Carl Schmitt&#8217;s top ten quotes on power 1:32:00 Trumpcare Should &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=164826\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42816,42720,21791,29754,42940,42880,42944],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-lite","category-alt-right","category-america","category-ben-shapiro","category-nick-fuentes","category-power","category-tucker-carlson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO 4.9.10 - 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