Power is just the ability to effect change — energy over time.
Growing rice is power; and considerably more people have obtained power, as defined by imposing their will on their immediate environment, in the pursuit of feeding their families than any other use of power I can think of.
I think that’s the point here:
In associating power with bad things, you’re narrowing your perception of what power is, and hence limiting your ability to accrue it towards positive ends — eg, feeding a lot of people.
I think power itself is neutral; kind, manner, and use matter.
To put it in a fantasy context:
- Gandalf in Lord of the Rings is considered wise for refusing the One Ring and seeking to destroy it;
- but there’s no doubt that Gandalf is powerful — he beats both a balrog and the Witch King in 1v1 personal combat;
- and he’s okay with accepting more power — he accepted a ring of power from the elves.
Personally, I think you can’t be virtuous unless you’re dangerous.
To the point about side effects, varying degrees of power bring other things with it...admiration, jealousy, competition, responsibility, etc...and most people can't and won't perform well under such pressure.
While Gandalf is a good 'perfect' example, Frodo exemplifies the struggles of everyday people a bit better. We can see through the storyline how Frodo constantly struggles with the ring, and how close he comes to succumbing to it(Sam too!).
Frodo is a little simpler and a little kinder than we are; in much the same way that Gandalf is wiser — and so the ring can’t truly tempt Frodo the way it does Boromir (save your family!) or Gandalf (save the world!) or Galadriel (save your people!).
- - - - -
And you can see the problem in the real world — people like the WEF and UN bureaucrats want to “use the ring” to solve public health and global warming. Which has brought us to the edge of global war, because their lust for power has overcome any good urges and they’re partway through a modern Four Pests program that will cause mass famines — and justify seizing family farms for their own enrichment. To save the environment.
But how do you oppose that without creating opposing power structures?
The trouble is that inexperienced or immature people with power gravitate toward control of others and lack self control. If you ever worked for a “straw boss”, you’ve seen what happens.
In settings where organizational power and obedience is paramount, organizations usually seek to grow this ability to control oneself - military officers start as nominally in command but guided by sergeants. As officers move up the ranks, training focused on leadership and control is a core part of life.
In high function professional organizations, usually leaders succeed to a point based more on the personal influential power than explicit power. People usually listen to a distinguished engineer even though they have little explicit control of anything.
The thing about power is that it seems to be a corrupting force more often than not. If I had to take a guess, more people have started out with good intentions and gone to the dark side than the other way around. I think for this reason a lot of "wise" people avoid power like the plague.