#3 Part 1: What is power?

What does it truly mean to have power, and how does it impact our daily lives? This week on The Panopticon, Anne Frankenstein and I tackle the complexities of power, exploring its relationship with knowledge, truth, and even sex. Join us as we discuss how we perceive and experience power through aspects such as youth, money, beauty, intellect, and more.

We'll reference the works of Foucault and other philosophers to better understand the nature of power and how truth can be relative. Discover how the Panopticon structure and politics illustrate the connection between knowledge and power, and how government, truth, and power shape our society. Plus, we'll explore the intriguing dynamics of sex, power, and control, discussing how manipulation of our sex drives can be wielded as a source of power.

From the role of victimhood and equality in power dynamics to the illusion of representation, we'll take you on a thought-provoking journey through the intricacies of power and its influence on our lives. Don't miss this fascinating exploration of the complexities behind power, knowledge, and truth, as we attempt to unravel their impact on our world.

Twitter is @ThePanopticon84

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Panops Con. I am Nature's Gamble here this week with Anne Frankenstein. Our question this week is what is power? Last week we discussed kind of the introduction to the Panops Con, described what we were going to talk about in subsequent podcasts Specifically what is power and what is its relationship with forms of power, ie democracy, monarchy, aristocracy and so forth, and what its relationship is with the people, the multitude, if you will. And so this week will be Anne and I's attempt to kind of help answer that question. We know we're not going to answer it in full because there's various theories and we're going to be talking about some of these various theories. 

Speaker 1: Next week we'll talk about the elite theory, we'll talk about Marxist theory, pluralistic theory and so forth going down the way, and there's more We understand that We might talk about that within the framework of these theories that we have planned This week is helping answer the question what is power for us, for the common folk, for Anne and for nature's gamble? Anne, do you have any opening comments? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a musical that was created in the 80s. It was off-broad, it was not Broadway, it's called I think it's called Yours Anne. It's a musical about Anne Frank and you know that the attic, attic, attic, up in Amsterdam, you know It's pretty good. It's almost like I had no idea it existed and I found it last year randomly on Apple Music and it's really good. It's got some good numbers in there. 

Speaker 1: Well, do you want to talk about why you've named yourself Anne Frankensheim? 

Speaker 2: No, and I feel attacked by you asking that question. No, i'm gonna switch it up, so, no, i'm not gonna answer that. 

Speaker 1: Well, i mean a lot of people with an aggressive, a lot of a lot of. You know you're claiming that. You know you claim my question is an attack, but many who listen to this podcast, or at least a lot, will view you naming yourself Anne Frankensheim as an attack, as disrespect to what Anne Frank represents. 

Speaker 2: Well, many are idiots, they have to dig deep. Frankenstein, right? Very interesting character in the canon of literature. He's a monster, it's a monster. They them are a monster in that story because, frankly, anne, frankly, because he was under misunderstood and the world treated him with ignorance and violence. Anne Frank, much the same, they treated her with ignorance and violence. 

Speaker 1: I don't know if you did. Also play on words. You said, anne, frankly, did you do that on purpose? 

Speaker 2: No, but when it comes down to it, my lovable nieces make fun of me. Much the same way. Anne Frank was made fun of by whoever and Frankenstein was made fun of for being ugly, but they call me Anne Frank because my hair. So I'm re appropriating that. You know, i'm seeing, i'm taking. I'm adding power to that by embracing my trauma from the event in which my nieces made fun of me. 

Speaker 1: By taking on the name of a young lady who was killed in the concentration camps. 

Speaker 2: Well, you know, in Frankenstein, the movie, frankenstein takes a young girl by the lakeside and wants to be friends with her. But she's horrified by the sight of this undead creature before her and she screams and he stifles her mouth because he doesn't want to get, you know, caught. Basically He has no nefarious intent on like, he doesn't want to diddle this little girl, he just wants to make friends with her because he doesn't know he's just born, like by the scientist, like a day before. So he's like who's this young creature before me? I'm gonna go make friends with it. Well, she's horrified and he ends up killing her on accident. So actually Frankenstein was a gentle creature. Society made him less, so Let's get on. This is getting weird. Let's move on to this discussion. 

Speaker 1: Okay, what is power? Alright. so, frankenstein, what is power You? 

Speaker 2: can call me Ann. What is power? Of course you would throw it to me first, wouldn't you? Well, let's just say, i like how you talked about what power is to us And I'll just throw this out there for the common folk. What power do we have when we interact with one another in the public sphere? Well, you've got youth. Youth is power, money is power, beauty is power. This is like free association type stuff. Experience, intellect is power. You know I'm trying to think of not like power, not on a grand scale, power like a small scale Money. Health is power, traitivity, position is power, can be power like power, positions within an organization or within your own family structure. The father, the mother have a certain amount of power, they have authority. But on the grand scale, like what with the philosophers? power? 

Speaker 2: I would think with Foucault, for example power is knowledge, power is truth, and we can break that down just without really looking at him so much or what he says about it. I can ask you the question, you know how, if truth is power, what does that mean? What do you think that means? Well, first you would have to describe. I couldn't hear you, by the way, if you were talking. 

Speaker 1: No, i wasn't talking to you, i was thinking. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, true, you would have to define what is truth also. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, if truth, if using the definition that you're using or you're characterizing from Foucault, you're absolutely right. What is truth? And I guess, since we're talking about Foucault, you would have to define how he, or understand how he defines truth. 

Speaker 2: Well, i think truth is a perception right. It relies on perception. In one sense, truth is an established thing based on consensus. It doesn't have to be, though. It can also be something that no one believes in, except one person, let's say but the rest don't agree or don't see that, but so that's the kind of game. It's unstable. I don't think it's a definite truth is, in my opinion, not something that I mean you could say you know what's that old axiom? If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a noise? We could look at that as a metaphor for truth. If something happens but no one's there to see it, did it actually happen? I mean, yes, let's say it's an earthquake, happens, but no one's around. Oh no, oh no. Sorry, i missed. If I'm beguiled by this axiom, i'm still trying to figure it out. That's why What do you think that axiom means? Well, i mean, if a tree falls in the forest? 

Speaker 1: I don't think it has, necessarily. I think I know what you're talking about, but I don't think that has anything to do with the truth necessarily. I mean we could talk about it, i do, but I do, because it's about reality. 

Speaker 2: It's like it relates to what I'm talking about how truth is a perceived thing. It hinges on perception. If no one's in the forest to hear the tree fall, it didn't fall, or you know. You can't not just hear it or see it, feel it. 

Speaker 1: Because presumably, if a tree falls, it's gonna, it's gonna make vibrations. And I think what you're getting at is if a human is not there to perceive it, to include with all its five senses, does it exist? But just because a human can't feel it to include all its five perceptions, other, you know well what about the other creatures in the world And what's our relationship with the other creatures in the world. I mean, you could ask, if a human can't observe other creatures, do they exist? 

Speaker 2: And yeah, but with respect to this, respect to us humans, it doesn't matter. Other creatures don't really matter so much, in the sense that, like so is there a truth outside of humanity, outside of human perception? Right, and that's what we can. that's kind of what the argument is is like well if you make these huge claims that truth is power, So you're. if you're saying truth is all about perception and the consensus within a group, or it could be even be an individual's understanding of truth. 

Speaker 1: I think. I think what you're getting at is what I think is is, typically, when we think of truth, it's a universal standard that applies no matter where you're at in time or space or status. 

Speaker 1: And again, going to universal truth, where we're going to is, or what we're talking about a little bit, and in typically we keep it within the human context, but, as we were kind of discussing on a philosophical level, is it's outside, even outside of human perception itself. 

Speaker 1: Truth should be its own thing and should be, should apply to the universe, if you will, regardless of humanity being there or not, you know. And so if the universe was here before humans and something like a tree was here before humans, then you would have to say that the tree exists, regardless of our ability to see or not. Because if you say that if the humans can't see it or feel it or aren't there, then everything before our invention, if you will, us human beings, didn't exist And everything after the extinction of the human race doesn't exist. For me, personally, i think the universe is bigger and beyond humanity. So, to answer your question, truth or the tree does exist, you know, just because we're not able to hear it or feel it or whatever is irrelevant, because the universe is bigger than us, which then you tie into the definition of what folk all will lose to is truth, is power. 

Speaker 2: Let's look at it this way, if we're going to take this statement truth is power. What are the different ways that can ring true within the realm of politics, for example? or reality, or life? the truth, let's say that there are these, you know, definite truths that we base our lives on you know, one could be like physical truths. 

Speaker 2: You're defined by unlimited or, yeah, you're limited by your body, by the fact that you were born, let's say, into poverty. That's a truth that's like empirical truths that you can witness with your eyes throughout the day. You know, if you run your car into a garage it's going to cause a certain reaction. so that it's like empirical scientific truth. 

Speaker 1: I guess Physics Well then this is what goes back into what you were talking about. Inclination with this statement is that truth is relative, because I don't think poverty is necessarily a universal truth. It's relative because poverty in the United States, someone who's you know poor in the United States, may be completely different than someone who's poor in Africa. And then even within the United States, poverty is relative. It can always be worse. So I guess, much like truth poverty can be is relative as well. 

Speaker 2: So being states, of being being poor in one air, one space is different from being poor in another. It's relative, okay. So truth, i mean, that's why I'm thinking too, truth is a relative thing because it's based on where you are, you know, it's based on perception of the person in that space that, whatever given space they're in, i think more, but I think a better word perhaps than truth is knowledge. 

Speaker 1: Knowledge is power, because truth is such a, you know, nebulous, relative, relative lofty knowledge. Having more information than the next guy or gal, i think gets more in line to what foe call was getting at. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, in fact, his one of his books is called power slash knowledge, and that plays into the Panopticon structure itself, is the reason why the guard tower folks, you know behind the windows up in the tower, who can't they? they have all the power, in the sense that they can see into every cubicle, every cell around them, they have access. They're privy to all the knowledge, all the things happening within that given cell, and that gives them a certain amount of power and control. But in terms of like let's think of grant, let's think of politics How does knowledge give one a certain amount of power? 

Speaker 1: Well, let me, let me go back to the, the Panopticon, just kind of adding to what you're saying is okay. 

Speaker 1: So I agree with you using that. that description is the guard within the tower has more knowledge than the prisoners. Presumably, in an ideal state, the guard can see every cell from his position. Now, if you add technology, they have cameras and more. so, whereas the prisoners and they can, whereas the prisoners have no idea, whether or not, have no knowledge to stick with that term of whether or not the guard is in there or not And, more specifically, whether or not the guard sees that particular prisoner at that particular time, which forces the prisoner to assume if, if they're wise, that they are being observed, even though they may or not be, they may or they may not be. 

Speaker 1: they don't know, and I think a relationship to that is, for example, the internet. We don't know if the watch, watch tower, the guard, sees us at all times or at a particular time. So one must assume, or should assume, or one option, as is the prisoner, is to assume that whoever had the watch tower, whoever's in the watch tower, is watching us. That is a form of control and advantage on the watch watch tower's part. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, because if we're, you know, to take the internet, for example, well, part of the panopticon that plays into this is that the guard tower has knowledge of all the cells at any given moment, right, and so they can also. And the person in the cell can't see what's going on in the next cell, but the guard tower can. So there's a relationship there that the cell, the person in the cell, doesn't have access to. They don't know what's next to them, for example, or what things are happening in the next cell. The guard tower does. And so the guard tower has a certain amount of advantage there, because relationships are now set up, and I'm talking about in, you know, in our time, with the internet, the people with access to all our activity, whether it be banking, social, private information, you know, private texts, private related they can start formulating relationships that we're not aware of, or that that only we are aware of, or no, no, they can establish relationships beyond our awareness. That gives them an advantage in some way. What that advantage is, i don't, i mean we could talk about. 

Speaker 2: But Yeah, and also, if knowledge is power, if you're aware of something, then you can start making relationships that can help you decide, kind of where to go. It can help you plan out things. It can help you in terms of a power position. It can help you increase your dominance or maintain your power, like with a chess move, for example. If you're playing chess, you're aware of some secret strategy that Dum-Dum isn't your opponent. Well, that's an advantage. It can help you set up strategies and set up an attack or to win. Basically, Yes. 

Speaker 1: So I think there's opportunities, there's advantages. I don't think those are necessarily power itself. Those are ways of gaining power in the end, certainly if you win that game as an example In the game of life. definitely because you're trying to. chess is a game, life is a game. there's rules, so you either excel at those rules within the game or you create new rules by breaking them or by just changing them. I'm not sure that defines power, but knowledge, i think it does. 

Speaker 1: Knowledge gives you advantage to get a better advantage or opportunity to gain power. 

Speaker 2: I'm not sure if life is a game. If life is a game, and with power being the objective and increasing one's power or maintaining one's power, what are the tools of that? if life is a game, money being one, a position, having a position where you can change the rules or you can make adaptations or adapt, you can establish the law. What else? Knowledge, money, resources. And you said, knowledge doesn't necessarily equal power. 

Speaker 1: in that I think knowledge is an advantage or a means to gain power, just like money is more so a means than even knowledge to gain power, because money itself is a symbol and that can change Is an acknowledgement. So the US dollar has been the king king dollar for quite some time, But once that changes, then the dollar is no more powerful. You could have $20 million in your bank account. 

Speaker 1: And if that gets usurped somehow with crypto or a multi-polar world where other types of fiat currency gains what the dollar represents, the power that the dollar has had or at least represented, then the dollar becomes worthless. So I think power seeps through things like currency, things like knowledge, or at least our means to gain the power. And I guess how I would define power. What I use is the ability of one to impose one's will on people, places and things. That's how I would define power, or at least the application. 

Speaker 2: And money is a tool. 

Speaker 1: Money is a tool. 

Speaker 2: Knowledge is a tool. 

Speaker 1: Yes. 

Speaker 2: Other people can be tools, so relationships can be a tool one uses in order to maintain or achieve power. Right, i mean, that's. I think. essential too is power is established based on your relationship to another person or to society. 

Speaker 1: Exactly, it gets back to folk calls. Folk call a little bit as well. You know relationships, there's power, there's power dynamics, at the very least. In everything as kind of you were describing, especially relationships, There's a time and place where one person is higher on the hierarchy and that that that relationship could change. So if I go to the doctor's office to get a checkup, the doctor's in a position of power. But if I am a let's say I am a pro golfer and that doctor wants to learn how to become a better golfer, well, when that doctor comes to me I am in the position of power. So kind of goes back what I was saying with knowledge and you know, i guess maybe that's what. 

Speaker 1: I call is saying is your knowledge of my knowledge of golf? doctor's knowledge of medicine provides them a position of power within a certain context. 

Speaker 2: In society. I was reading Russo last night, jean Jacques Russo, and he has two discourses, which is basically two different essays. The first is to explain how arts and sciences and culture has brought about a decadence of civilization to civilization, and then the second, more important essay is about a discourse on the how, the is it the how the arts and no on the evolution, basically, of the inequality among men. And so he starts. Basically he says that we're by nature and not a communal type of creature, we're meant to be alone out in the wilderness with very little contact with other human beings, and that we're naturally good I think is what he's saying Whereas opposed to someone like Hobbes, john Locke and those types where we're naturally like a malevolent creature, where we are rubber bad, and so society for them seems to be set up on this relationship of contention And that, what with Hobbes and Locke, what we do when we gather together is we are trying to unify with one another in order that, so that we can combat life, which is a nefarious thing, is it's an evil. 

Speaker 2: You know, real existence is evil Because we're we're trying to survive it and it's trying to kill us. That civilization is a way for us to kind of unify and combat it together, whereas we so it seems that almost like we should have never been, like civilization is a perversion of humanity and that it almost be better not to be in a union. And so if you, if you are, since we are in society together and civilization it's a state of corruption, and so where do you go from there? And why was I going on that? basically to show that, yeah, i forgot where I was going, really, that I forgot. 

Speaker 1: Well, i think I'm not. I haven't read so, but Bentham I have understanding of. But I think they both agree Now correct me if I'm wrong that both acknowledge the state of nature as chaotic in our anarchy, if you will, and that in order to bring stability and equilibrium requires some, some form of government or some form of state. you said civilization, but even within the civilization you need some sort of managing mechanism that brings stability. 

Speaker 2: Hobbes argues for the state, whatever form that looks like, to bring stability, and so I'm not sure I know he was concerned about the state, because the state especially the man you know, becomes an entity on its own that manages not civilization, and its goal is not necessarily fairly equilibrium, its goal is to establish power and expand power, and whereas being alone out there in the wilderness on your own, which is what he thinks is our natural inclination, is a state of purity, because there's that power relationship doesn't matter there, It's not established. 

Speaker 2: In fact, civilization sets up the inequality and the government which is a manifestation of the negative impact of civil, of civilization. That government is in fact a perversion of humanity, Whereas I think Hobbes and them think it's a necessity and that we're naturally inclined to be together in that government. Both the Rousseau and Locke and them are trying to establish politics like a theory, political theory to help kind of maximize the benefit for humanity and civilization. Rousseau wants to kind of limit the state, if I'm understanding or trying to, this is where truth comes into it like, and Foucault's commentary on Rousseau is that. Remember in Foucault, where he talks about transparency, that the. 

Speaker 2: Panopticon. You want to be able to see everything, because if you do, then no one can be, you know, creating alternate sources of evil states or evil. I mean, one reason why they went they were kind of combating the king and the revolution started happening in the 1700s is that there was the kingdom and the lords and the people in power were behind a screen. You couldn't see what they were doing, what they were planning. So if you have this idea of truth that everyone needs to be honest and open and power needs to follow in line with that, well then this chance for equality among humans in a civilization can come about, and that's, you know, when the Enlightenment is during this period. Rousseau is a part of that. This exalting of the idea of truth being one of our main guides in politics for sure is, i think, is part of that is like truth might not. Yeah, okay, so I'm again losing me. This is very difficult for me. 

Speaker 2: Again, i've stated I'm not really good with theory, so I'm going to be deviating from my train of thought many times, so you'll have to pick up the pieces. 

Speaker 1: Well, i mean theory is. Theory should be just that A theory. You have a question, you do your research and then you come up with a general description of, or a general answer to, what your original question was. It shouldn't ever be rock solid In my mind. Much like a scientific, you know the scientific method you just move the conversation along with perhaps more better questions than actual answers. So we're just trying to, we're trying to develop our worldview, you know, as we described in our intro a couple of weeks back. So we're not claiming to be in any position of authority, whether it be within a system or with our thoughts. 

Speaker 2: You know, So, yeah, Okay. So truth, right. Transparency let's say, let's take that word. Is that essential to power If you take transparency? 

Speaker 1: to gaining power. 

Speaker 2: I know what everyone's doing, you know, and it's an accurate description of the reality of what everyone's doing. That gives me an amount of power, a huge amount. Now, people in positions of power in some sense they have to be transparent, but in another they don't. They have to create the illusion of transparency, and that's where the complexities come in. To all these terms, truth, knowledge those aren't really. There's no consensus about those either, about those definitions. 

Speaker 1: No, not worldwide. certainly The truth used to be, when we were small, at the kind of family clan tribe level, was always contained within that family clan tribe. But as we became interactive with other tribes, it seemed like the expansion of that truth expanded beyond the tribe. But what if the two truths from two different tribes contradicted each other? And so I think it goes back to what you just said and then what we've been saying this whole time. It's relative to one individual, but then it requires some sort of organization or, more importantly, some sort of influence for one person to influence the other, to take on either a new truth or convince that person that well, i'll just leave it at that, just to take on a new truth or alter their original truth, yeah, and there's positions in not only the family but on a macro level of society. 

Speaker 2: there are positions that people hold that almost compel us to believe in their transparency or that in their authority on truth, one of those being the father, the mother, right initially at least, they hold a certain amount of cachet And then, as you grow older, while you start seeing the fissures in their authority and then you look beyond you can go back in the day, the priest, your preacher. they definitely hold and held a position that compels us to almost see what am I trying to say. They have a certain cachet that people think what they're saying is true. 

Speaker 1: Position of authority, i think is a good one. 

Speaker 2: Authority. Authority, but not necessarily one that we're, i mean one that we are almost conditioned to feel that they naturally have some authority, that it's just legitimate. 

Speaker 2: But on the flip side also, we might know that they're not legitimate but there's nothing we could do about it, or we don't want to do anything. We're afraid of them. So part of, i think, a position of power that is establishing truth, you also have to be afraid of it, in some senses Like a godlike, they're almost godlike. You would think of a judge or even a president back in the day, the religious figure, religious authority, or it could be just based like literature. If you're a writer, you have these established writers, the canon, who are celebrated for being great writers, and you have to deal with that as an up and coming writer. Either follow them or hold what they did as valuable and worthy of emulation, or struggle and try to create your own style, your own position within that canon. So this goes back to what we're talking about. The truth has to be conveyed by a person of authority, a person in power, not necessarily. 

Speaker 1: That's why I mean, i think, a person of influence. That's why truth is such a. It's a hard one to grasp, it's a slippery one, because truth can be. I mean, jim Jones had a truth, had a worldview, had a paradigm, if you will, but that didn't mean he had a large scale. That doesn't mean he had power in us. Now, he had power over the people that followed him. 

Speaker 1: But not enough power to influence on a more mackerel scale. So in a power, you could argue, is relative as well If you take that perspective. So I don't think, i don't think you need truth. Truth doesn't need to come from a position of power. Truth can be, as we were saying, a nebulous. You could even say truth can be as a weapon or a means to power. I mean, arguing what truth is or trying to describe what truth is is almost trying to describe what God is, because each individual is going to have his own, his or her own view, and then that individual, within the context of a smaller group let's say he goes to church the organization is going to have its own view. I can have my own view of truth, i could have my own truth, but I don't have any power. So I think where it lies is people need to, are trying to convince others, influence others, to buy into whatever they're trying to sell. In this case we're talking about truth, and so truth and power you know they're related. 

Speaker 2: You could say there's a relationship. But, if you can control what people hold as being true, that established. It's a tool like back to what you're talking about. It's a tool for establishing, maintaining, achieving power. If you can manipulate the truth, because we put, we invest a lot in it. Like people, just humans in general, we rely on having a concept of the truth, and that's the sort of weakness in a way of us is that we need some sense of truth, i believe, because it implies it gives us a stability to which to operate. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that kind of goes back to the truth. I think truth we divine, or at least we provide a framework for truth. I mean, it's so nebulous, it's confusing, but we do it through other means. We try to establish, we try to understand as human beings, this world, and there's different truths out there that sell their wares, whether it be a Protestant church, whether it be a Catholic church, whether it be Muslims, jews, what have you And that applies to other, to ideology as well that all have truths that don't necessarily coincide, that aren't universal, as I described earlier. And I think it's their ability to influence people who are undecided or even decided, but changed their mind that their truth is the right truth, not necessarily the universal truth. And I think what we're talking about, or at least for me, it's not the truth, it's a world view. How you see the world can be described as a truth, a world view a paradigm. 

Speaker 2: what have you? 

Speaker 1: So, like on power, for example, power I'm taking Bertrand de Jovenel's perspective in his on power, the natural history and growth of power is, he sees truth almost, i'm sorry. Power is an organism, if you will, or a parasite. And then he, along the way, he says well, maybe it's a symbiotic relationship between power and people and the forms of government, people places, things and so forth. So I try to. That's a world view, on power specifically, but also on the on how you maneuver through life. That doesn't mean it's the truth, it just means, you know, it's a world view on how I navigate the world. 

Speaker 1: Just like religion, there's certain rituals, islam, muslim stake, there's certain rituals that Catholics take, or Protestants or Jews, that help develop a world view, but not the truth. And so using the truth or a worldview or a paradigm and trying to convince others, i think that that's where you're going to make your money. But even the idea of truth being new, I'm saying there's. I'm saying there's not a truth necessarily, or you can. What we're saying with truth is that it really means a worldview and a paradigm. Islam has its truth, christianity has its truth, judaism has its truth. Ideologies have its truth. Different ideologies have its own truth. I think where you make your money is trying to convince others that your truth is either the right one, or the real, universal one, or the most practical one, essential one. 

Speaker 2: And this is where we get back to that narrative, that axiom If a tree falls in a woods, no one's there to hear it. Does it? did it happen That truth is is based on a relationship between individuals. 

Speaker 1: No, Yeah, i mean, i guess you could could stretch that axiom to. I mean, i see that that kind of example is different, more like a relationship with the universe as a whole. But even the fact that you know, when I opened up that usually when you say universal truth is a universal standard and it's supposed to be concrete no matter where you're at in time, space, humanity versus, but even that's a worldview, what I'm saying is there's really no truth. I'm saying there's a worldview and and a paradigm on how you see the world and how you manage the world. The paradigm and worldview helps you navigate the world. It provides a backdrop And once that backdrop is set, then you make decisions on everything in life based off of that backdrop. You know, let's say you're Christian or what have you that doesn't believe in drinking or even having sex outside of marriage or even getting marriage married. Those are all decisions the one makes based off of that backdrop. You know the counter worldview is to Christianity is like you're an anarchist 

Speaker 1: or individualist or a humanist or whatever, where you just make decisions based off of your, your impulses. There's really no traditional backdrop, although there is a back. You not having a worldview is almost is a worldview itself. So so that's why I keep going back when going back to football, and no truth is power or knowledge is power. I think knowledge, having information relative to you, know an individual you're reacting with on a one-on-one basis or an organization you're reacting with, is definitely an advantage, having knowledge that the other actor doesn't have. And going back to Penobscot, and again, the watchtower has knowledge that the prisoner does not have, and that's definitely an advantage to give you more power. 

Speaker 2: Okay, and where? let's talk about the university, then the university, the courthouse as well, are areas and spaces in which these things are established. Right Authority is established on not only knowledge but on truth. So we hold so, you know, the technology, silicon Valley. They were the avant-garde of this area of social media, for example, which enabled them to have access to all sorts of knowledge that no one else had. They were, they beat people to the punch, basically no-transcript. That gave them power right In the universities. This is where new innovations are happening, not only in the sciences, but also in the social sciences. You know, there's an establishment of truth going on in these universities. These climate change can be one Narratives, you know, politics, sociology, anthropology, all the different social sciences and sciences. 

Speaker 2: That's where truth is established. In the legal system, the courthouse, the Supreme Court, you could say law is established and there's truth embedded in that. The lawyers are establishing narratives that are attempting to sway the jury and the judge. It's working magic over them to make them believe in the truth of their argument. So control over the truth is power. You don't have to have knowledge that those of you who are beguiling or that you're attempting to control is power. What about the power at the human body level? Sexual attraction How is that power? Or even sex? 

Speaker 1: Sexual attraction. Well, okay, so now we can get into, even now, the human body, well within the human body. So you have the selfish gene book which I'm currently reading and trying to digest, and I'll have to read it two or three or four more times Just to have a better understanding, where I could articulate that. But I'll kind of describe how I see it now, which is again rudimentary and probably wrong. But you have genes, presumably that strive I'm not going to get into the book review here, necessarily. That can be down the house or down the way, but let's just say your genes on even more. 

Speaker 1: I can hear an echo there Is it me eating on average It seems as though that I hear my voice That somehow, some way, our genes are have determined that having sex is a way to transfer our genes from one host to another. And we do that by having sex. now, within the book that, it gets in the argument that sex might not be the most efficient because there's other species out there, not humans, but plants and things that don't need sex to spread its genes. It does it on its own. But the one that's on top right now, or at least it seems like most organisms, species you name it have sex, more so than those that do not, certainly the predominant one and the one in control. 

Speaker 1: So sex you could look at it from a functional standpoint is, is designed to spread genes from one host to the next and kind of spread and procreate itself. And that's the purpose of not only sex, but perhaps life is to just survive and spread your, your genes. And spreading your genes is kind of getting into. this is a long stretch, but it still has some tethers there the will to power, not only to survive, nietzsche states, and I'm paraphrasing Nietzsche says is not only survive, but it's to expand your power and your in your not he doesn't say genes, but let's say genes are part of power. So I think that answers your question kind of. on a very basic thing is you know? you asked why we have sex or what's the relationship of power and sex. 

Speaker 2: Yes, well, and to kind of play off of that, I guess I'm thinking more. I mean, i agree with you on what you're saying. That one means sex and power go hand in hand on many different levels. There's you know you have to, because there's a relationship there, unless you're just jerking off self, you know masturbating If it's between two people, or two or more, there's, there's a relationship of power set up there. Just do you know what I mean? between two people, one is dominating the other or there's a, there's a waves of being kind of the dominant one or the submissive. You do know what I mean. Like it's, it's kind of a push and pull between the two people. Some relationships it's more the one figure is more dominant than the other all the time or vice versa. 

Speaker 2: So I was thinking, though, when I was posing the question to myself is sex power? you know, how? does sex equal power? I was thinking more on the level of advertisement, public attention, getting you know like you can use sex as a tool, much like you can use knowledge in order to gain power. So I mean Bernays and the advertisers in the mid century 1900s got this down from the very I mean even before that people were using it in advertisement. That there's because it attracts us naturally. It's like a manipulation over our sex drive and our compulsion for sexuality, for sex, that we can be almost unconsciously directed by it in ways that are either that can enable or help establish someone else's power and someone else being a corporation, if they're selling soap or, you know whatever, a drink. So that's where I was kind of coming at it, that there if, if And then it made me think even more is like when you were talking about DNA, our hormones. 

Speaker 2: You know our physical chemistry, our physiology, stuff that works, subterranean levels that we're not aware of. So truth and knowledge is all you know and perception of that reality is all on a conscious level, Whereas the physical physiology and hormones and DNA is all subconscious, for a lot of it is anyways. So if one person has sort of control over that, there's a dominant, there's a power structure there that can be made or maintained. A lot of people think that the prevalence of pornography now in our media is in sense in. In some sense It's deep, it's venting any sort of sexual frustrations or or discontent with not having said you know like it re channels that energy and expels it. What do you think about that? Is pornography a tool for those in power? 

Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot. There's a lot there. I mean you have sexual you mentioned sexual relationships one individual potentially dominating one another or using sex as a tool or means to impose one's will, not only on that person that you're having sex with, but also getting to someone else in order to impose. Let's say you're, you're a woman. Or let's say I won't get into specific let's say you're a woman who wants to manipulate a king and you are seducing the king's right hand man, the one that the king listens to the most. You're gonna have sex with this person. You know, it's clear that this right hand man is attracted to you. Have, you have intercourse with this person? There's, there's, i mean getting in. Who's dominating who? who has a power over who? 

Speaker 1: at that particular case, the woman is using sex to get to impose her will on the king 10 attempts. So she imposes her will on that particular individual using sex. Let's say this individual falls in love with the seducer and, by proxy, the seducer starts to influence the king by whispering in the right hand man's ear and the right hand man whispers in the king's ear and the in the lady. The woman gets what she wants, presumably. So sex is a tool? I don't know. You know to, yes, there's different levels of authority and different levels of power, depending on what situation You're in. Now to your last questions. Can pornography be used as a tool to you said suppress And of rechannel our energy? 

Speaker 2: or our sexual energy, expel it in a way to almost pacify and to deflate or sap someone's power, because that energy can be fueled elsewhere. That can be a threat, you know, potentially. 

Speaker 1: Right, yeah, i mean it can. I think power pornography can be used to sap them. But then it goes back into, you know, individual acts of like masturbation which, presumably, if you're what, if you're watching pornography, i think that's what you're getting at, you're going to, you're going to masturbate to it, you're going to. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, that is what I'm getting at Which, which kind of which blocks the spread of one's genes, as I was describing earlier, but also all this other energy that has been built up to that particular point that could be used elsewhere. To you know, catch your prize If you're you know, whether you know if you're a man, as an example. There requires a lot of planning or a lot of execution, a lot of strategy and tactics to, to gain the or to course a woman, whether you're an, you know, a human animal or a lion. It takes a lot of resources, a lot of time and to to coerce, or whether it's through carrot or stick, voluntary, involuntary, what have you? But I don't know, i guess, are you asking. Is pornography deliberately employed? Can it be delivered? delivery employed to manipulate and coerce and use people to get what you want? 

Speaker 2: I mean I think you could argue that you could argue that that's a mechanism of maintaining, controlling the masses and controlling the power that the masses do hold authority, power, authority has always been wrapped, the sex has always been wrapped up in authority and power. 

Speaker 2: I mean the church, for example, has domination over the sanctity of sex, of sexual relationships. They help establish the laws around that less. I mean not so much now, but for years. You know there was a having control over what the sexual union between the public has been of, one of great concern for them, and I mean a lot of society was built on that. You know, the proper relationships for people, the reason for sex, the meaning behind it, has been established by people in positions of power. It's, it's important, you know, and I just don't know why. I mean, like you said, it could be that they're trying to control the future through sex, and whether that be through future believers, through future subjects, or wanting to limit that future of that of those people, i don't know It. Just it's definitely a component of power in many different ways. 

Speaker 1: And then definitely sex, sex, sex seduction definitely can is a tool. I mean, if you're a politician, you have some, some form of power. And a lady again I use kind of refine this analogy again a honeypot or a spy or what have you, from a different country or different organization, seduces you as a politician, you have sex. As a politician, you've given up your, your power, to that, that seducer. Now this goes back to the phone call knowledge, because now that seducer has knowledge that they didn't have before. That knowledge is I had sex with politician a. 

Speaker 1: Let's say politician a is a typical conservative Mary, christian. All of his cash is based off of a certain worldview Okay, that being a Christian, and all that. Now that that seducer has knowledge and therefore power over that particular politician. So that's where I can kind of relate with the knowledge is power thing is that lady never had that seducer, never had that knowledge before. They had sex. Now they have the knowledge And now the power. Execute, now the opportunity or the option to execute that power, to use that power by destroying you and then presumably increasing your status amongst that politicians enemies. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, or other people who are working with that said prostitute or who, what? whatever you were saying, the woman, the seductress can use the knowledge that they gained from that incident, or from whatever they learn, against them in the form of blackmail or whatever the just the threat of hey, we're going to out you, that that lands a certain power right there And that's with the see, the intelligence agencies that used blackmail apparently. For since the beginning, you know, setting people up almost, or taking advantage of people's non amoral behavior or violations, transgressions, using that against them in in struggles for power, have been going on for years, you know. And on the level of advertisement and seduction I like that word seduction because there's a huge part of that to advertisement to the corporate strategy is to. I mean, that's why Fox News has women who look What use be like drag queens or prostitutes. 

Speaker 2: You know they're just made up to the nines, their fucking faces contoured for days. You know their legs are exposed. That glossy, tanned leg is ever so present on the screen. They're beautiful, we, we are seduced by that. Where our attention is drawn to that. It's like a manipulation that I think is intentional on the, on the on the a part of these companies that are in the game of trying the media. So it's a tool, whether you know, whether it's power, yeah, what other sources of power? or what other definitions of power? 

Speaker 1: Creativity, well, I mean, i mean the ability to influence. So you have the, you know, you have the forms of power, which I would consider the forms of government. You have aristocracy, democracy, monarchy and so forth, but then you have the essence of power, as juvenile juvenile was talking about as an, as a parasite, as an organism, something's on its own, or, as you know, dna, that selfish gene where you have at the levels, is what's driving all this, where it's a micro organism or DNA chromosome that's really driving all this fighting. But if you even break it down to that, it's something trying to survive and then expand itself, whether it's at the chromosome level, the human being level, or even at the universal level, universe. 

Speaker 1: And I would say I think, i think that's one potential principle. you know, or truth is establishing, is establishing that, and then how that person or thing at the micro, or macro level accomplishes, that is through the application of power, which, in my opinion is the ability to impose its will on other things, people, places or things, Depending on what level you're talking about. So that's how I personally look at power. I mean, how else would you define power? 

Speaker 2: other than yeah, just to kind of expand on that is like okay, at the DNA level, the intrinsic, very deep human level of each individual. There's a drive there for power. But then you run it and let's say you were born, you know, like Rousseau's savage, noble, noble savage, out there in the woods, where you pretty much going to live by yourself. Well, you don't have any other people necessary necessarily to contend with in order to survive, or to you know, although you, well and then. But then your DNA and your body is also confronted with different outside pressures, not related to nature but are related to society and civilization. 

Speaker 2: That, in a whole number of ways, modern American ideas of equality, for example, well, dna at the human individual level really runs counter to that you could say. And there's a battle there going on between what society is saying and what your individual wants. There's a war there, i think, because on the one we have to navigate that We have to say I can't be bulldozed into every situation to take advantage of it where my needs are the only needs that matter. That would have worked in isolation in the forest with Rousseau's noble savage, but now I got to play this game of intrigue, of restraint and you know all of that. Within the realms of the well, within the realms of the elite, if we're going to go there, they have a different set of rules in which there that DNA side of them has a more, has more freedom to impose their will on others and to maximize their power to have it grow. I just think that's an interesting kind of off branch of what you were talking about. 

Speaker 2: That there, i mean go ahead. 

Speaker 2: That there's this negotiation you have to make. On the one level, you have these net. Well, let's take it from a gay person's perspective. Before being gay was okay. You have this natural desire to do something right? Well, some argue it's not natural, it's more nurture or an interplay between the two, and you're limited by the social confines, whatever you're born into. But you know, a gay person was born into back then And in some ways that's a limiting of your power. But let's not take gay. Let's let's think of something else. What if you're a very ambitious, intelligent person but you're limited? you're born into this and you're naturally that's all innate like. You're naturally intelligent and you're born into this lowly, low class position. You're, you're gonna be in a challenging position. If they are natural, incanation is trying to go for power. It's gonna be very hard And the success rate is probably not that great. You know to live a life where you achieve power despite your intelligence. Okay, i'm done. 

Speaker 1: Well, it depends on what level of power you're talking about. Now. If you are extremely intelligent, you should be able to use that intelligence as a means to gain power at a high level. Maybe not the highest level, because I guess a caste system is a way of, is a way of checking power or at least isolating power to a certain amount, a certain type of individual. But even within that caste, you should be able to own that caste if you're intelligent enough. 

Speaker 1: But even at the basic level, if you're intelligent enough you definitely can be able to control, say, your family, and then your neighbor, and then your block and then your town, and then, at least at the basic level, you should be able to control your neighborhood, if that's what you want, because again, it requires a certain characteristic that we've talked about of someone is one you have to have the will to power. to have power, you have to have the want you want to control things. And then, two, you have to have the ability to gain that power. You could be very intelligent and not have any desire for power at all. 

Speaker 1: And that being, maybe, you exert that intelligence into the arts or strictly the science. You invent things, but you don't want to get involved in how your inventions are used, things of that nature. You have no interest in power. In fact, you don't have the characteristics of power, maybe that awkward, awkward genius that doesn't even know how to interact and socialize with people. So you have to have the will in the way for power. If you want to increase. Now, if you want, you have the will on the way, and presumably part of the way is that you're intelligent, very intelligent, then you should be able to escalate up as far as you know, your culture allows, or even if you're really, really smart. 

Speaker 1: These are the geniuses you maneuver even past the ceilings that your culture has put in place to tame power, at least power from other people. You know the great man theory, who's able to come from the lowness and become great. Napoleon comes to mind. I mean, he came from a lower, lower tier, noblest if you will, not even from France, but he was able to become emperor. And so things of that nature, people of that nature, who are rare exceptions, are able to use intelligence, intrigue, but also have, whether it's innate or through conditioning gain power. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, a relentless ambition. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, relentless ambition, But again, that even requires a talent. I mean, a lot of us have ambition but just don't have the talent to channel that ambition into actual power. 

Speaker 2: Well, they have to have something of quality you know, whether it be intelligence, beauty, relationship, you know, a power position. They have to have an advantage, like a gift. Almost Now people can be gifted with something but then squander it because they don't have that certain, either that ambition or that focus, narrow focus, that drive for success or for excellence, like with Nietzsche, there's a will to power and creative people who have a desire to be perfect, like a desire for excellence and advancement and achievement. That's something to be celebrated, according to him, it would seem, because in only through those people can man achieve greatness and bring society up. Rather than you know, he talks about Christianity being a slave. Morality, because it's bringing the man down to the lowest common denominator. Equality is part of that. It's like everyone's equal. No, maybe not. And trying to force people who are innately special down to that level of lowest common denominator limits them and therefore limits humanity and civilization. Do you agree that? 

Speaker 1: I think victimhood this is to kind of expand on what you're talking about with respect to Nietzsche can be used as a means to to power, because you're bringing down what has traditionally been the form of form or representation or reality of what has been power in the past, as I described earlier. you know, here in the United States in the past has been typically white, protestant or at least religious, quaker, puritan, going way back. Family structure, traditional family, man, mary's wife, they have kids. It's been the power dynamic and narrative in reality for a couple hundred years. And victimhood can be used as a tool by the marginalized who've been the exception to that, who've been the outcast, and turn and flip it on its head by using equality as kind of the stepping stone to to take power from what has or who has been in power before. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like victimhood can be a virtue now, victimhood could be a but, as Nietzsche was describing. It brings down the greats. It brings down ambition, as you were describing. It brings down the will to the lowest common denominator, as you stated, in which the marginalized will flourish or at least take advantage of that situation. 

Speaker 2: And then where the danger of that is is, if that power shift happens, then the virtue of victimhood where Nietzsche would call it compassion, pity spreads throughout the culture, spreads throughout the civilization as a measure now, and that has catastrophic or negative effects on humanity as a whole, because now it's limited. By that, you know, growth is retarded or arrested Because are the great I mean, it seems like he says the great achievements in history? They're outliers, you know, they're done without any, they're by genius, but geniuses whose will are allowed to achieve, and a lot of that, it would seem, would predate kind of modern democracy. You know he was in the late 1800s, so he's talking at only 100 years after the Enlightenment, maybe 200, you know where the aristocracy had fallen only 100 years before. 

Speaker 2: I mean, we're relatively not that far from a system of power in which the aristocracy ruled for years. So we're still in the early stages, at least in the West, of the effects of democracy and modernization and this sense of equality. That's all kind of new in the human narrative of our in history. So we have yeah, the book's not closed on this, you know what I mean like the negative or positive influences of this idea of of equality. equity, i guess, is the word now. Equity of outcomes is what a lot of critics of this trend right now is that people's people are pushing for an equity of outcomes which they feel is a negative, has a negative impact on culture. 

Speaker 1: Right, and so I think the, as you were describing, victimhood becomes the norm, because victimhood produces results and produces a you know some power. But I think history will tell us, as you were saying, the book is not closed and it's relatively new for us the democracy in particular, and equality as well, we'll show, if you do your research and we'll talk about it here in future podcasts, that it's usually, you know, the survivor of the fittest, the strongest, will win. Because if, at some point in time, a strong man will look across the landscape and say these are all weak, spineless, nonactive, non will to power individuals that I see before me, whether it be in close proximity or at the level of a nation or state and I'm going to take it, it kind of goes back to Nietzsche's Superman, you know, the great hero theory and so forth or even, like we were talking about with Napoleon earlier, is, at some point in time, someone will take advantage of that. 

Speaker 2: In fact. In fact, it provides a breeding ground for tyrants, is what a lot of critics like Russo and Nietzsche felt Exactly, and so the equal, i mean equality of outcome. 

Speaker 1: You would have to impose that on a society like the United States is trying to do. But that requires an inequality of application, because the government is forcing a large portion of its people to not only believe it, the very least act and behave, but ideally to think a certain way that they don't want to believe in. That requires coercion, that requires power from the state and that's inequality in itself. So it takes inequality to even attempt, not to mention it will even work in a tent. An equality of outcome, so it requires an inequality of input to an attempt in the quality of output. It's not going to happen organically. It has to be imposed by something that is bigger and stronger and by, just by implication, saying bigger and stronger, that's inequality, that's not saying you're you know, that's just inequality. By saying bigger and stronger is inequality. That presupposes that there's something weaker than whatever is stronger, and so that's inequality. It's just. It doesn't. The logic doesn't fit. If you really follow the logic, there's no such thing as equality, it's all inequality. Now there it's a scale that is vertical, not horizontal. Now that doesn't mean. I mean equality of opportunity doesn't exist necessarily. You can try to climb that, that vertical hierarchy of power or what have you. 

Speaker 1: But to say and believe equality exists is a cult like principle to me. Whereas everyone's equal In theory it's be nice, it's a utopian view, but I don't know how you'd describe it. It'd be nice if everyone was equal, but that's like being, you know, saying that it would be nice if everyone was the same. I don't know if that'd be true If everyone was the same. Life would be very boring if we all looked alike, acted alike. There needs to be some sort of friction or competition to advance, whatever organism you're talking about, at whatever level. So to me, equality is I would I'm a defer to Nietzsche here is a slave servant week. It's a tool for the week. It's an opportunity to bring the high down and the down up and reduce it to the lowest common denominator. I don't think it exists. 

Speaker 2: A lot of people criticize Nietzsche because of the way people took his philosophies particularly the Germans in 1920, whatever on up the way the Nazis employed his philosophy, because along with eugenics and Darwinian theory that life is a competition, it's a struggle. Hitler's biography is called Mein Kampf, my struggle, that through struggle and Nietzsche relates to this is that through struggle, kind of the cream of the crop will rise, the best of that humanity has to offer, or the best that the species can accomplish through that struggle And it would seem that can lead down a dark path. 

Speaker 2: Democracy implies that there's going to that struggle is deflated or the state kind of minimizes that struggle to create, to make it easier to gain power for every individual, to set up a balance of sorts. 

Speaker 1: Well, i mean the Nazis lay lost, and a lot of times they use that as Hitler and those around him took Nietzsche's view of the Superman to the next level, that I am better than you. Not only will I do whatever it takes to get in the position of power, i will liquidate any lowers, and then they point to that as a reason for his failure, or at least the evilness of Nietzsche's theory and how it can be abused. But then you look at Stalin, who purged and killed a shitload of Jews for sure, but also his own, his own people, on a perhaps even a grand or scale before World War Two, during World War Two and after World War Two, and he was successful. And you could argue that he applied Nietzsche's at least fundamentals. He used an ideology in this, in this case communism, and spoke of equality as as an opposite of Naziism, but the tactics and ways were very much the same as as as Hitler, but he was able to succeed for a longer time than than Hitler. 

Speaker 1: Because even within this idea of equality and communism there's always now you get into the, you're not a true believer or you're not a believer enough And therefore you need to be purged. It happened in China as well, with Mao, you had these struggle sessions where you had adults crying like little babies because they were not patriotic to the cause enough, and so that's a that's a hierarchy and inequality in itself as well. You have the truly patriotic 100% ones who are clapping at all times, are not the first one to stop clapping. You clapped for you. Stop clapping first, therefore we will purge you. That's inequality and inequality of mindset as well. 

Speaker 1: But it's also a proof of my larger point that equality doesn't work. It can be, it can or it can be used as a means. As for coercion and horrific deeds, much like the Superman philosophy can be used and abused as well. 

Speaker 2: Or the capitalist philosophy. Capitalist ideology has perhaps been the most successful. On the face of it, you would seem, we tell ourselves that capitalist It's the fair way to go. But you look under the dark crags and and all the ways in which capitalism has operated, you would seem it's just as evil as these other methods. And all the while we tell ourselves it's we're the best or we're the most fair, we're the most gentle, the most humane system. Right, that's not necessarily so. Somehow it's worked. 

Speaker 2: Within the last 100 or 200 years It's been the most successful American capitalism, yeah, i mean, is it? does power have to be restrained? Does there have to be limits on power? in the grand scheme of things, like I know right now, there has to be. There's legal constraints which are being shattered every day. I mean, the Patriot Act was potentially an example of that where power enhances power through simply changing the law and and therefore that check on power that we thought the founding fathers had established is gone. The fact that Citizens United was established, making it to where you have to have money to have power or to even campaign, you know that's an elimination of a check on power. So should there be? but in the grand scheme of things, like just human humanity as a whole in our history, it would seem that that doesn't really matter, like power doesn't have to be constrained or restrained. 

Speaker 2: You had Roman Empire. The Roman Empire lasts for hundreds and hundreds of years. Is that a success? unrestrained power, i mean, that's what? what is our goal as a society, as civilization? to reach a utopia of unlimited, you know for long, the longest lasting culture, but we don't really know if that's even possible. I mean, you would look in the past. It's not. You can last 100, 200, 300, maybe, maybe a thousand years, but life is not stable. It's going to introduce all sorts of obstacles, changes and without the people knowing it's happening to, which is scary. You might be thinking you're on the right trajectory, but maybe that's like with, you know, if you're critical of democracy, what if that's going to create even worse circumstances for us? Yeah, that's what it does. That's what it does. What's next? What changes will be happening next? that, i mean what we have accomplished as human beings in the last 400 years, is mind-boggling. It's staggering. Do you know what you think? Since the renaissance Unless? 

Speaker 1: Relative to, i mean, if we're based on technology, yes, it would seem that the last 100 years or so has been an acceleration that history hadn't seen before, but I don't know if that assumption is correct or if that statement is correct. It seems as though it is based off of our criteria, that being flight, that being motorized things, medicine, technology, cell phones and internet, but have we advanced on the things that matter? I mean, these are some of the distractions that you were talking about. You were specific with pornography, but is technology a distraction? 

Speaker 1: You know, it's like all good things become tools of those types who want to gain power and manipulate others, and medicine being one. We saw that recently with COVID, and I mean Nutschia gets into this and his morals is what are morals. But you can also do that with technology or so. Quote unquote advancement. Perhaps we're going backwards Because yesterday was a better, more enlightened, if you will, to use that term And it goes back to what you were talking about with respect to Russo and Hobbes. How do you see the state of nature? If you look at state of nature as a overall benefit for humanity, then we are going backwards. Even if you use Russo's or Hobbes as an example, state of nature, you're going backwards because we're going away from the beginning. 

Speaker 1: If you take a progressive perspective, it's definitely and I don't mean this necessarily in a political sense that change is always good. Progress from point A to point B is always good, then we are advanced. But if you believe the family is the core, so I think, i think Russo went again I haven't read them but, based off your characteristics, went too far, as we're always meant to be alone. I don't, i don't adhere to that necessarily. I'm not Russo, i don't claim to be even close to him. But I think there was always a community, family starting first and foremost. But even a family couldn't do it by themselves. They needed a network, they needed relationships, they needed a community. Now smaller communities I perhaps agree with, and then you could even argue nomadic versus agriculture and so forth, and how power changed within that. I mean, i think, russo, or your characterization of Russo with dispersal, how you disperse power is you don't go into a large state or organization. You don't because that large state organization will be used by power to grow. 

Speaker 2: And that's where transparency needs to come into play, like we need to know what everyone's doing, so that that that imbalance can happen in a state, you know, in the government. The governments need to be transparent. Therefore, we need to have access to everything. That's why journalism has to exist, free press, we need to know, the public deserves to know, in order to take, to put a check on that power of the state. 

Speaker 2: Where you know Russo, it's not fair to say that he only believe that we are meant to be alone. But he said once you can't go back. Even if that was the case, that man was meant to be alone, you can't go back because it's already been perverted. He would say, through civilization, civilizations of perversion can't go back to its corrupt. So how can you minimize it now? Well, you create a government where, like you said, you minimize the state's power or you disperse it differently. There's no longer a king, there's a Senate. Make it more fair and less intrusive on the individual's rights, which is, you know, the individual. I mean that's the whole thing The individual. The creation of this idea of the individual is some of that is due to Russo and people like him who felt, you know, our nature is to be alone, our kind of to have a solitude in which no one's ideas of what is right or wrong is imposed on us or there's limits to that. We need to have a sense of individuality, because that's more attuned with our pure state. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i think that's perhaps where his idealism failed him, because that sounds like a kind of a modern day libertarian perspective. I won't mess with you, you don't mess with me, but that doesn't happen. The ones who have will to power will always mess with you eventually and get to you. And so you know, and if, using the power as an organism perspective, it's going to want to grow and it's going to find any host it can that is able to protect it, and it's either going to do that through coercion or through, you know, through coercion. There's different types of coercion, that being, you know, the carrot and the stick. So it's going to try to entice you by co-opting you, or it's just going to force it through, kind of some sort of violence or heavy handedness. And so I think that's always been there, even in, you know, the quote unquote state of nature has always been there, and hence one right, one reason why we're here, because it's power building on itself within now the state, now, going from what so was talking about, you know, kind of having representatives instead of a king, well, we just replaced the king with, now the managerial state. 

Speaker 1: Or, you know, 1945 to now the managerial state, now, perhaps, intelligence. The intelligence state has the power, but they use the will of the people now as kind of the sovereign. I'm doing this because the people want us to do it, and it's you know. The people in power can now hide behind the will of the people or hide behind. No one really knows who fucked up the war in Afghanistan, because there's so many people involved, whereas the king there's only one person to take the blame and that's the king, and I think that's the natural logic that juvenile was getting to is the king. The monarchy might have been the best case scenario to check power and having lower lords, if you will, who had some forms of power where the king had to go to the lords if he wanted to go to war and ask for lords assistant, both monetary and resources. 

Speaker 1: And so he argues that was a check on power and any responsibility. Anything that went wrong was on the king's head, literally. And now power has through what we call democracy or the will of the people, can now tax people without a vote and now can require their bodies as a resource for war and other things without a vote. So there's no check. It doesn't. The government, managerial class, the elite, whatever you want to call it. The regime does not have to ask or beg anybody. 

Speaker 1: Now They claim this is for the quality of all men, for us going to war in Ukraine. This is the equality, this is for democracy. This is a check. If Ukraine goes down, so does democracy, you know. So there is no check. And power, i think, is what I gained from that. When it becomes the will of the people, because who's, who's the sovereign, you know, first of all. First it was God, was the great sovereign, which gave a lot of power to priests and the popes, and so kings had to negotiate with the priests or with the pope specifically for his endorsement or for his resources. So we got rid of through the enlightenment, through the revolutions kings and yeah, kings, and rule, yeah, like one really put that nail into it. 

Speaker 1: But now we use this thing called this form, called democracy and, more specifically, the professional slash managerial class that can hide behind all all the smoke, and there's no one person, or even organization, that can take the blame, which is smart. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, but yet we still have the illusion of a king, and not what the king used to be. But you know, like big brother in 1984, there is no big brother. It's an illusion, right, it's just a figurehead for the party to create the illusion of an authority like a one person in its, in its playing off our, perhaps our need for that, our natural inclination to look to a leader, where in fact what's behind big brother is just a network of an elite who are controlling everything, but also with with the law, right. So law is established by the people in power And now they can create emergency laws. They have done it, they've done it recently that they we, that there's no accountability for, necessarily. I mean, it's just sort of a brief little well, we had the explanation of why they had to do it or they don't even really inform the public on what the law actually states, But they can always say, hey, it's the law. 

Speaker 2: Look you, your representatives voted in, so you feel representative government is In fact creates more inequality Between the people in power. And then the rest? Is that true? 

Speaker 1: I don't know if it creates more. I don't think. I don't think it's those two. I don't think that's what I'm saying. I might be saying it unintentionally, but I'm saying representative government doesn't exist. I'll say that. 

Speaker 2: Okay, okay. 

Speaker 1: It's it, the charade, but I don't know what. I haven't put any thought into what its relationship with inequality is. Now, i think represent representative government is supposed to represent everyone equally. Hence, you know, wyoming, with a very small population having the same amount of senators as, say, california, that's an attempt for on a kind of, on the theoretical level, for equal representation amongst the states. That's what it's supposed to represent. Now, in reality, i mean you could, you could argue that it doesn't. In fact people act, you know, state that it's unfair using the electoral system that it. So it's funny Folks who argue for equality generally argue for inequality. When it becomes for the elections, because they argue for popular vote were basically with whoever has the most votes wins, and that eliminates any voice for a state like Wyoming, because it's going to be. The argument is well, it's going to be New York and California that runs the show, because they have the most people there And people doesn't mess. The amount of people doesn't equate to the best culture or theory or politics, if that makes sense. 

Speaker 2: So well, and this would be. 

Speaker 2: this leaves the representative government vulnerable because on the one hand, okay, the person from Bumfuck Wyoming is going to get voted in, right And presumably based on the needs and issues of the local city or town or area, but then that person always also has to go back and serve other masters, especially if they're part of a party which, let's face it, the whole country, from the local on up, has been divided into, unnaturally divided into two camps, with the at the expediency for the expediency of power. 

Speaker 2: And so this is where culture, wars and identity politics and wedge issues are so useful is because the local issues of the town, yeah, they hold sway, right, they're important, but as long as you kind of keep the lights on and do all that stuff and stuff, ensure some sense of fairness there and property rights and whatnot, and an illusion that your tax money is going to the right place, there's still going to be divided on issues of identity and wedge issues. I think that's where people's hearts, i think a lot of times, are at, because they get wrapped up in it. They see what's on the news. that's where media becomes important narratives propaganda. 

Speaker 2: You're through your phone now. It doesn't matter if you're in New. York City or read the newspaper. you're going to get propaganda funneled towards you at all times And you're going to base your decisions politically your vote, that's assuming if the vote even matters now, which some would argue doesn't matter that that's the illusion, that that's the. The act of voting is just a kind of a pacifying about making us feel, oh, that we've contributed, that it is fair and that it is representative. 

Speaker 1: So yeah, i got to wrap this up, but kind of closing comments. I mean, i think Wyoming is a good, is an apt and relevant example of what you were just talking about. With respect, does the vote matter? and then does representation matter? I mean, that's the theory it should, but they just voted out Liz Cheney, who by all counts, not who, but Wyoming by all counts as a relatively conservative state, or not relative, but very conservative state if we use the conservative liberal paradigm, or no scale. And yet in reality she voted for the regime more times than for what the wants and desires of the state were, and so she was working for the regime And for the longest time. Her vote, their votes didn't matter. But you could argue the flip is that they just voted her out, so it seemingly worked. My, my thoughts on that would be if the regime wanted her to stay, she would stay, or maybe they found something for her that better suits her or puts her in a better position. I've heard rumors or seen she would. She might run for president or Senate or some other. And then there's outside politics stuff that you know generates just as much influence NGOs and think tanks and things of that nature. 

Speaker 1: But to wrap this up, we never intended to answer the question what is power? We're just trying to shape it, shape our understanding as best as we can And for me personally, to use it, use a definition of power or an analysis of power moving forward to this series as well. So provide a worldview, but also to help me kind of use as a base for future theories. So I'm you know, i'm using juvenile is on power kind of as my base And it'll be fun because our last episode in this series in a month or two is going to be a reflection on our conversations and has anything changed. But I will use this as a kind of a base moving forward. Next week we'll get into elite power, the elitist theory, which will be fun as well. 

Speaker 2: And what writers can we focus on or can? 

Speaker 1: the audience. I think we talk about Machiavelli's, the Machiavellians by John Burnham, who he gets into Machiavelli himself Pareto, Michelle and C right mills, the power elite. And then we get in C right mills, we can get to talk about that. 

Speaker 2: There's another work called Giants, the global power elite. Whereas C right mills is the power elite seems to be focused just on the United States, this one's a global right, brings it to the global level. I'm excited. I think this is going to be fantastic. Again, i'm most excited about, you know, surveillance and spy craft. But this is this is going to be a good start for me to kind of help build a framework to address those topics when we get to them and to kind of further my understanding of them. I think I tend to relate more to the elite theory, but that might be because I'm self defeated You know what I mean. Like I think there's nothing I can do to change things. Well, that type of theory would speak to me most. Maybe you know. 

Speaker 1: Right, so I'm excited. 

Speaker 2: I'm excited. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be fun. It's going to be a fun journey. All right, Until next time. thanks for joining us on the Panopticon. I am Nature's Gamble here with Anne Frankenstein. Until next time.