The insight that "power corrupts" (with or without the addendum "and absolute power corrupts absolutely") was an insight that emerged only from the end of the nineteenth century - as Tom Shippey notes in his analysis of the subject in JRR Tolkien: author of the century.
In ancient and medieval times, power was not regarded as corrupting, but instead was thought to reveal the nature of its wielder. Power did not of itself corrupt a good Man.
Yet by the middle 20th century the idea that power of itself actually makes all people worse (even when they started out good) was a truism - evidenced all around us, and around the world.
My understanding of this phenomenon of corrupting power; would include that it was related to the emerged of the characteristic modern consciousness; a consciousness that is alienated - cut-off from God, the world of spirits and the group-mind of Men.
Modern Men are existentially detached from The World in ways that were not possible in the remote past.
In ancient times, a power-wielder was innately embedded in a social and spiritual world, such that to a significant degree he could not help but express the values and will of this broader world and its perspective. In other words; ancient Man was not a detached being, therefore responsibility for his power was always somewhat dispersed, and power was (spontaneously, unconsciously) wielded in a "groupish" way.
(Exceptions are usually due to pathology, to some form of insanity.)
Only in more modern times, and gradually, has power been able to interact untrammelled with the self-centred and selfish nature of a power-wielder. The corruption of power operates as a kind of feedback loop, within the alienated self.
A further development has been the way in which power became embedded in bureaucracy, in The System - so that it is seldom very clear to what extent a leader actually has power.
People typically are only given power when they are regarded as being the kind of person who will "do what they are told"; and those who do not obey, are rapidly got-rid-of So that many apparently powerful people feel themselves to be, and indeed seem to be, almost helpless in the face of constraints of a systemic nature.
If, as many people say, the US President is "the most powerful person in the world"; then the world has recently seen a situation in which the US President was known and acknowledged to be mentally incapable of wielding power; and yet things carried on much the same.
This suggests that when an individual is said by official sources to be wielding power and making decisions; then it is probable that this is untrue: it is an expedient illusion propagated to the public; perhaps in order to conceal who, or what, it is that is really making the decisions and deciding the strategy.
This may be done for various reasons, including evasion of responsibility, or making effective resistance to power more difficult.
But another reason for pretending some person has power, is that an image of the powerful individual tends to induce a worship of power in many people.
George Orwell was very sensitive, perhaps over sensitive, to this. Writing in the 1930s and 40s - he saw this worship of power as a common attribute of the intelligentsia - of academics, functionaries, authors, artists, commentaries, journalists etc.
Orwell's usual target was the radical left, including its literary lions such as GB Shaw or WH Auden. Such might, for example, delight in imagining details of the retribution to be wrought "when the revolution comes". Including the supposition of an attitude of calm, unyielding, masterful objectivity with which "necessary measures" are inflicted.
But he saw analogous worship among figures of the right, including (for instance) Nietzsche, political theorist James Burnham, and the Roman Catholic converts such as Hilaire Belloc - who Orwell believed admired their Church mainly because of its potential or actual power.
Among intellectuals, power worship is evident in the brutal relish (even sadism) with which such persons describe, or fantasize about, the forcible exercise of power - the overmastering imposition of will.
There is, indeed, an almost-sexual gratification evident in this kind of vicarious triumphalism - a quality of self-stimulation in the writing, which (when noticed) becomes often embarrassing, and disgusting.
The power worship that Orwell described almost a century ago is, of course, still endemic among intellectuals across the board of political and religious affiliation; and in much greater volume due to the expansion of the mass and social media.
Power worshipping fantasy is easy to find, and hard to avoid among intellectuals; apparently because it soon becomes habit-forming, addictive, seemingly a compulsion; and few are immune to it.
Although there is plenty of the naked and raw power worship of the "crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women" type; this impulse may be somewhat concealed by euphemism and pseudo-therapeutic affectation. As when the cruel exercise of power is enjoyed, but self-excused by the pretence it is done "for their own good", or "the greater good".
Power is an unavoidable reality of this world; as Tolkien recognized. We cannot opt-out of the subject.
As usual with sins, the sin of power worship occurs at the level of motivation - and I mean real motivation, not manufactured rationalizations.
We must judge motivations; yet motivations must be inferred - they cannot be proven from "evidence, or by "logic".
The dominance of power worship in oneself, or another person, is therefore a matter that each must discern and judge for himself, as honestly as he is capable of doing.
And few of us are spontaneously true witnesses to our own motivations - it takes an effort.
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