The Role of Power in Relation to the Human Condition - Research Paper Example

? The Role of Power in Relation to the Human Condition The Role of Power in Relation to the Human Condition Power can be defined as the authority or ability to do something in a specific way. Power is a very interesting phenomenon to be studied and is dependent upon human condition which in turn depends on the social, cultural and personal context of the person’s environment and surroundings. Power can be attained in many different ways such as by being in a legitimate position to exercise power, being charismatic enough to make people follow you at their will or being in a position where one can exercise illegitimate power by coercion or forcefully. Power is a very important and significant concept as well as a very confusing and relative term at the same time. This is because it depends on the kind of power that a person possesses in a certain situation and specific role. A person, at any one time is very likely to experience different forms of power such as expert power, referent, reward or coercive power (Flyvbjerg, 2009). There are also several sources to exercise power which include knowledge and expertise, charisma, coercion, persuasion, knowledge, social class, aggressive or manipulative. Power is not necessarily negative. It exists in both forms, positive as well as negative (Noordin Yahaya, 2011). A person who has a high authority can always use a positive way to exercise power and can also use a negative way to exercise his powers. Power can be used by using different tactics such as the concept of using soft power and hard power (Galbraith, 1983). Soft power refers to more collaborative ways of exercising power while hard power uses more harsh ways of displaying one’s power in a more manipulative manner. Moreover, power can be used in other ways like rational and irrational. Power is a good and a bad thing at the same time. When used in a productive way, that is to help others, to help humanity, to help society leaving apart all the desires that have power, it can produce great results. On the other hand if power is used in a negative way that is to get what you desire and that also might be unethical, by hurting people or by using power to take coercive actions can lead into a disaster (Ghandchi, 1998). As clear from their names, rational power means to influence others with logic while irrational power means coercing them to do something without any logical explanation or understanding. Another way is to use power in a unilateral or bilateral way. Bilateral use of power involves two way communication and ways of convincing people, negotiating with them, listening to what they have to say and implementing things that seem right. On the other hand, unilateral power involves person making decisions of his choice regardless of caring about others opinions and considering oneself as absolutely correct; not ready to face any kind of criticism. In the three novels that will be under consideration for this analysis; The Alienist", "The Thin Man", and "Snow in August", we will see what they have in common and how they can relate to concept of role of power with respect to human condition. All the three novels being discussed below have some form of power under discussion and each of them refers to a different form of power, how it affected the individual and how it can help achieve one’s goals, or how it has negatively affected a person in achieving what he wanted to. To begin with “The Alienist”, which is a psychological thriller and revolves around a diverse forensic team to help investigate on the issue and find a serial killer. In the context of this topic, what is important here is the fact that the forensic team constituted of a police secretary, a journalist, two detectives and the alienist himself. This means that the power of decision making in human context belonged to these 5 members regardless of what their roles in other contexts of life were. For instance, the journalist has a different position of authority in his job and so does the police secretary. However in context of this case and the human conditions of the investigation team, all members have an equal power and responsibility when it comes to the specific case that is being referred to over here. The novel is a very interesting suspense thriller which talks about these characters in detail describing each one of them and their roles in life. Undoubtedly, the relationship of humans with power is extremely complicated. It changes as a person grows, it changes as a person advances and grows, it changes with the position and authority of a person and it changes time to time in the regular cycle of life that also pertains to age. In an occupational sense, it increases as a person gets promoted. All in all, we see that at any given time, a person is facing several different roles of power at the same time. In some instances, the person may have practically zero power in decision making and at the same time in another role/context or position of the person may have virtually all the power that is required to make a decision. Hence, it is not wise to underestimate the level of power of a person by judging his role in one position or his place in one line of authority because each person has a different role in different aspects and different parts of life. Another novel under consideration here is “The Thin man” which is another very interesting form of the explanation of one’s power and authority in the context of human condition. The main character of the novel named Nick is a very famous detective who then falls in love with a girl called Norah and ultimately leaves his detective side of life, moves away from it and plans to stay away from it forever. The point to be noted here is that even after he leaves that position, the world does not believe him because being a detective generates suspicions in the minds of people. This definitely relates to the level of power being talked about over here. When he is a detective, he can act as being someone else, can change his persona, clothes, aura and attire completely to help him with his job. However, when he actually does leave everything related to this power and position, even then people do not believe him and think that he is probably hiding this role of his for the purpose of his work but this is not actually true. When Nick gets tired and fed up of all this nagging he plans to put the hat back on top of his head which then makes him get back to power all over again. Again, the point of concern here in the context of power is that he wanted to get rid of this power and role of being a detective, and the human condition that he was facing led him to leave playing a detective and instead lead a content and happy life with his love, for whom he had left the detective work. For him it probably meant security of life after leaving such a dangerous job which could be life threatening for him, and the social security that he wanted was what he was looking for when he left his work, but unfortunately, the world did not want him to leave it, neither did they let him do so and after all the troublesome times that the world had given him, he had to be back to being a detective. The third novel being talked about here is Snow in August which is as interesting as its name. It is a very beautiful story about an eleven year old boy who becomes friends with an elderly Jewish Rabbi which seems like an unlikely match, and even turns out very dangerous for both of them because of the environment and the situation at that time. Power in this context has an indirect but important relation as mentioned in the novel. The boy who is so young learns the wonders of Torah, that is; the lessons of Torah and achieves the concept of power in terms of strength which he wishes to use to avenge the attack on his best friend. Both these people, the eleven year old boy Catholic boy and the Jewish guy who is much older, help each other learn different things and makes them a pro with greater strength in terms of power which they required according to that period of time, for the purpose of combating the situation in the early 19th century that was going on. All in all, all these three different novels talk about different dimensions of power such as strength in “Snow in August”, decision making power and authority in “The Alienist” and the social context of power of relationships in “The thin man”. As mentioned above also, power is a very interesting yet vast concept which has many different aspects to it and can pertain to social, economic, political, cultural, position power, coercive power, authoritative power, manipulative power, power of knowledge and power of charisma. In addition there are numerous other ways to determine power according to human situation. Power is a concept that has been researched upon very thoroughly and has been dealt with in several different contexts. Humans have also been seen to enjoy different kinds of power in different circumstances and different situations even at the same time. In simpler words a person may have a very high level of political power and may use the power of manipulation or coercion to get things done, but he may have zero charismatic power or expert power in another case. It is basically the ability to influence others where power applies and that, as mentioned above can be done in several ways. So in conclusion, we can say that power is not a bad thing. It is the use of power which makes it better or worse. For instance, if power is used in a wrong way to achieve your desired results and to get what you want leaving all others aside; it can be a big disaster for the society. On the other hand, if power is used in the right manner, it can lead the whole society towards success. In short, the use of power is what is important as a whole; it can make your life and destroy your life depending on how it is used. Work Cited Belkaoui, A. R. (2004). Accounting Theory. Cengage Learning EMEA. Fabozzi, F. J., & Drake, P. P. (2009). Finance: Capital Markets, Financial Management, and Investment Management. John Wiley & Sons. Flyvbjerg, B. (2009, April 1). Bent Flyvbjerg. Retrieved January 22, 2013 Galbraith, J. K. (1983). The Anatomy of Power. Houghton Mifflin. Ghandchi, S. (1998, December). What is Power. Retrieved January 22, 2013 Hoffman, W. M. (1996). The Ethics of Accounting and Finance: Trust, Responsibility, and Control. Greenwood Publishing Group. Ingram, R. W., & Albright, T. L. (2006). Financial Accounting: Information for Decisions. Cengage Learning. Noordin Yahaya, M. A. (2011). Relationship between leadership personality types and source of power and leadership styles among managers. African Journal of Business Management , 9635-9648. Warren, C. S. (2010). Survey of Accounting. Cengage Learning.     Read More