[PKop]

Everything has always been about power to one degree or another. Even living in a comfortable political environment where you don't have to worry about this stuff and can live in peace...first requires power. The key is getting people to think it is bad to play at the same game being played against you. Even freedom itself can be defined as the degree to which one has power or not.

[proc0]

To be clear, the power I'm talking about is about controlling people. There can be peace without needing to hold power against other people... unless they are the ones wanting the power. So for example, self-defense is not about power.

> Even freedom itself can be defined as the degree to which one has power or not.

That sounds like "power" in ability, as in to do something, which is not the same as the "power" used in Critical Theories and other political ideologies. Freedom is not about power, and is defined in contrast to power. You want freedom from something that is controlling you, or has power over you.

[PKop]

If one, or a group, or a nation or whatever..does not have power, then they only have freedom granted to them by actual power. That is not actual freedom, it is dependence on the benevolence of the powerful.

Talking of power relations isn't really incorrect re: critical theory, probably where they go wrong is somehow pathologizing power itself. It is good to be powerful. It is bad to be weak.

Often times one does have to apply power against other people, do you disagree?

People like to abstract out the nasty parts of this stuff and think rules, or laws, or documents, or mutual discussion can somehow erase the problem of needing to have power to see one's interests and will realized.

But rules and laws and principles are broken all the time.. by whom? The powerful of course. And simply deferring to some abstraction in and of itself can not compel anyone to follow it; it must be backed up with power to enforce.

The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.

[proc0]

> If one, or a group, or a nation or whatever..does not have power, then they only have freedom granted to them by actual power. That is not actual freedom, it is dependence on the benevolence of the powerful.

That's stretching the definition of freedom to absolute levels. So no one is truly free unless you have control of powerful armies. That would mean that throughout history only the very powerful have been truly free (which would be a bit cynical). I think that's not the case and I would claim that modern first-world countries have been consistently moving towards more freedom, and not just for the most powerful.

Power can be decentralized away from individuals into groups of people and institutions. Throughout history civilizations have constantly evolved in the direction of more decentralization of power, from dictators and kings to representative republics. Sure even now the power is concentrated at the top, but we could be close to another political breakthrough because of technology, which would further decentralize power, and allow more freedom.

> It is good to be powerful. It is bad to be weak.

By definition not everyone can be powerful at the same time, since power is measured by exerting it on someone else. This means that thinking it's all about power is the same as saying "the ends justify the means", since power is the end and everything else is determined by it.

> Often times one does have to apply power against other people, do you disagree?

Sure like in self-defense.

> But rules and laws and principles are broken all the time.. by whom? The powerful of course.

In today's day and age, it's usually the corrupt. We're supposed to know better, and we should have laws that prevent certain things, but of course there are always corrupt people trying to game the system. Power tends to corrupt, which is why decentralizing tends to help.