Replacing Power-Over with Power-With

I was watching Caroline Myss’ presentation I think with the title of Reflections, which she did sometime between 2016 and 2020. She made the comment that the US was founded on the power dynamic of the master/slave.

There was an internal ping and I said “No, that is how humanity as a whole viewed – and still views – power. That idea was not just one nation, nor one place, nor one point in history. The only model of power was that one person has power, and the others do not.” That resonated, a whole body shudder. I made a voice note and thought “I need to explore this further.” Then … stuff happened. Didn’t get to it. Didn’t get to it. Time passed.

Now I’m listening to an episode of Coffee Break with Your Soul, and the guest is a gal by the name of Deborah Eden Tull and she mentioned how humanity is so confused about power. That is when I had to stop what I was doing to start this post. I am actually monitoring my pressure canner as I can up some steak bites. Multitasking!

Let’s zoom out a bit. I tend to perceive the whole more so than the individual, so I look at Humanity as a whole and how the experiment of Us is moving toward our inevitable conclusion. So when I address the following below, take things from this abstract whole-view which can get as individualistic as subcultures with a larger group, but that’s about it. Not personal, not individuals – groups, wholes.

Because of other agendas at play right now, the US has become the scapegoat for the master/slave dynamic, but at the time of the founding of the country (late 1700s) that perception was the norm and not in any way the exception. It’s interesting to see that dynamic being called up on stage and vilified by the people who are in the shadows working to enslave the world. The irony!

I think what we – humanity as a whole – are working on right now is redefining power. We’ve had literally thousands of years of “might makes right” which leads to the master/slave dynamic. “I have the power to kill/beat/starve/fire/arrest/fine/shame you, so you must do what I say.” Any person supporting Cancel Culture is very much indulging in this master/slave power dynamic but in a very disempowered – or small self – space. “If you don’t do what I say, if you don’t shut up or you don’t fire that person who’s saying things I don’t like, then I won’t visit your store anymore and I’ll get all my friends to publicly shame you into compliance. I’m the master here, the one claiming the power, and you have to obey.” There’s no genuine power in the “might makes right” traditional way, but is instead the power of a bully pushing around people who aren’t interested in fighting.

“When the Violence causes Silence
We must be mistaken”

The Cranberries, Zombie

Anytime you can get someone to willingly give up their power, that is a shadow manifestation of what true power is capable of. It’s shadow because it’s coming from a place of fear, a sense of “I have to crush you so that I feel like I have some control.” Humans are very much about control – it makes us feel safe. Thinking about our ancestors trying to make their way in a huge terrifying world, if you knew what to expect you could feed yourself and your family – you could survive. If you can control things, you know what to expect.

Anyone who says “just give me this control, it’s for your safety….” No. That’s another tactic for stripping power from another. Safety is a very attractive, seductive word, but it’s a lie. Remember the emotions and where they are coming from? Hitting someone in the sense of safety is a 1st chakra tactic, exciting survival instincts, and successfully shutting off the brain … unless the listener is practicing discernment!

But how can we redefine Power so that we collectively step away from a master/slave or strong/weak dynamic? I think actually one reason the US has come to serve as the scapegoat so thoroughly – the culture and people – is that by and large, we have huge swathes which are living in a model of cooperation — we are already working to redefine the concept of Power, and that’s a no-go for those who want to remain locked in the past imagining they are all powerful when in truth that is a delusion. The delusion of separation. The delusion of not-enough-ness.

Here is the best example I can think of: There are millions of Americans who drive, and our traffic is amazingly coordinated and runs smoothly. It’s like a beautiful dance, watching it play out sometimes. And I’ve driven from the Beltway in Washington DC to the 405 in Los Angeles. While I have not driven in other countries, I’ve certainly been on the road and … Holy moley – the traffic is terrifying. It’s an amazing crush of random driving and squeezing past with millimeters to spare, if that. Here we have rules, we all know them, and for the most part we all mutually agree that it’s in our best interest to cooperate and work together to keep the traffic flowing smoothly and safely. One time, I’ll yield – next time, you yield. It works so beautifully, and sure there are folks who get impatient but by and large, it’s testament to the power of human cooperation.

Perhaps that’s the new model? Cooperation. The old dynamic can’t allow for this new model to exist — the adherents to the old model MUST destroy it. In order to do this, first they have to reach into the past and resurrect a killed institution, one which hasn’t existed for over a hundred years, pulling in issues which were largely all made illegal more than 50 years ago and have been fading as they should — only to blow them up and make them seem as if they are still alive. Resurrection! Talk about nothing else. Kill cooperation! Reinstate the old, dying dynamic which requires that one has the power, and the others do not. Reinstate the master/slave dynamic! As an aside, this would not have worked if the wounds had been addressed and healed, and clearly there is much healing to do. Shouldn’t we take this opportunity to actually work on healing?

Communism/Socialism are both built on this dynamic. Because that was the dynamic, capitalism has shifted into it by a huge degree. Now we have folks like Schwab working to ensure that only a handful of people have all the money, all the land, all the power … and the rest of us are just serfs to make sure they get their food and luxuries. Very much a Hunger Games sort of scenario. Not sure about you, but I’m not down with that.

Of all the economic models I’m aware of, the underpinnings of capitalism is one I very much like. That is: anyone with a good idea or the imagination and drive to do something, can pursue it. How beautiful is that! Empowering, uplifting, takes a there-is-enough approach. I know when I started a business it was with the idea that I would be able to provide jobs for people, livelihoods. That’s not a greedy foundation, that’s a foundation of service. Everything about our modern world is because of this spirit of genuine entrepreneurship – that is: if you can see a way to make the world better, do it. But getting paid before delivering the goods? Hrm. Then making it a law that business MUST put profits first? That’s BS, and very much serves the investors and their interests. I get it, but it destroys the soul of the concept, and indeed has done exactly that. Everyone who talks about the ‘evils of capitalism’ is usually referring to this near pathological greed – which is not a product of the entrepreneurs in general, but of the investment machine. And believe me, that attitude is not in any way limited to capitalism.

I still say we need a new word for it. Everything we have on that front is literally over 100 years old and the entirety of the 20th century played them out ad nauseam. Are we REALLY going to keep rehashing old, dead ideas which have proven their flaws over and over and over again – with the blood of literally millions? Or are we going to forge new ground?

As both a student of history and of human consciousness, I can say that it’s not that history repeats itself — it’s that if lessons are not learned, they keep coming back. We did a bang up job of glossing over the horrors of the 20th century, so much so that we now have lots of people saying “I think communism is a great idea!” And others saying “Nazis weren’t socialists!” And “the holocaust never really happened.” I really hate to think that we spent a century drenched in blood and learned so little.

And yet, here we are, still playing out the master/slave power dynamic because it’s the one that we are most familiar with. The one we’ve inherited. Sure, chattel slavery is legally outlawed worldwide by this point (even as late as the 1990s), but it still happens. Even so, our ideas of power have shifted – it’s not so much might anymore, it’s money. The ones with the money have the power. And they will continue to do so, until we decide that money just isn’t that valuable and we decide to exercise our discernment by paying attention to which emotions are being pushed in us. Once we collectively decide that we value is something other than money, this will be the case.

Another comment that Deborah Tull had is about our fear of Power. That’s something I often overlook, and I can’t. I know that when we start to embrace our TRUE power, not the power-over (the master/slave old dynamic) but the power-with (the new cooperative dynamic), it’s like that’s when the illusion of separation begins to fall away. Our ego-selves fear that. Why?

Is it because the ego believes that if the illusion of separation were dropped, that it would cease to be relevant? It’s my current perspective that as long as we are individuated and in a physical system like this, the ego is needed. It won’t be king, as it is now though. Instead, it would become a tool in the hands of a larger Self.

In fact, the power-over paradigm only works from the illusion of separation. When we know that we are One, the idea of disempowering another is anathema.

Tull is actually doing the work of the archetypal Woman – walking into the Darkness (the roots) to bring everyone into their full humanity, their power.