{"id":1542,"date":"2014-05-17T15:30:04","date_gmt":"2014-05-17T20:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1542"},"modified":"2014-05-17T15:32:39","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T20:32:39","slug":"poem-changing-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/17\/poem-changing-kings\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Changing Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>When I was a child<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>I crapped in my pants<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Today I am a king in the world<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Now I make others crap in their pants<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>This is the indigestible truth<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Of too much power<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>That cannot be changed<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Even by changing kings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Few people disagree that absolute power corrupts absolutely.\u00a0 Still, most people will gladly accept a little corruption, if it is backed by a little power swinging their way.\u00a0 Of course, corruption seems much worse if we are on the short end of it!\u00a0 Power is not distributed equally among humans, and those privileged to possess it, routinely wield it for their own advantage.\u00a0 Whether through unconscious bias and egocentricity or just plain selfishness, imbalances of power in human relationships leads to corruption.\u00a0 Even with good intentions, those with greater power end up molding the world into their image, at the expense of the reality of other people&#8217;s lives which are disproportionately discounted.\u00a0 Who of us would not want the magic wand of power to mold the world to fit our ways?<\/p>\n<p>Relinquishing power is not common, and might even be considered foolish by conventional wisdom.\u00a0 The point is not to relinquish any and all power.\u00a0 The point is not to have substantially more power than others.\u00a0 This is rooted in recognizing that power differentials lead to human corruption; or, perhaps better put, lead to a corruption of human community.\u00a0 In fact, relinquishing power in order to help establish a more healthy balance of power in human relationships <strong><em>is<\/em><\/strong> a form of exercising power.\u00a0 This form of exercising power witnesses to an understanding of a higher power present in reality, that more egalitarian balances or power produces better humans and human community.\u00a0 The sad truth is that most people have more faith in fascism or other forms of concentrated power than they do in egalitarian human relationships.\u00a0 This is almost universally true when those with lots of power are aligned with our own particular interests. Even better yet if I am the benevolent dictator!<\/p>\n<p>Large power imbalances typically result from and are maintained by violence.\u00a0 A relative surplus of power quite predictably leads to a lazy humanity perpetuated by force, routinely re-&#8220;making&#8221; humanity in the mold of those wielding the power.\u00a0 The purview of power is expediency, playing into our bias for our own ease rather than than often difficult work of building healthy human community.\u00a0 The natural ascendency of the masses rooted in their common and democratic (in the sense of majoritarian) everyday reality can only be put down by large power differentials driven by elites.\u00a0 Historically, there have been numerous rationalizations by elites to justify their minority rule over the masses.\u00a0 None of these rationalizations can stand as they are founded on the bankruptcy of violence.\u00a0 Violence is not persuasion; it is overwhelming force.\u00a0 Violence is what people rely on when reasonable persuasion fails.\u00a0 Of course, violence is persuasive in the sense that any human act carries with it the power of modeling how humans should act.\u00a0 However, violence does not lend itself to reasonable human relationships.\u00a0 Violence is the lowest form of community.\u00a0 It should be no surprise that violence leads to more violence.\u00a0 I actually like surprises!\u00a0 If we meet violence with non-violence, there can be some really cool surprises made possible.\u00a0 If we want something more than violence, the inevitable outcome of large power differentials, then we need to do something else.\u00a0 We can do better.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was a child I crapped in my pants Today I am a king in the world Now I make others crap in their pants This is the indigestible truth Of too much power That cannot be changed Even &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/17\/poem-changing-kings\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[400,397,331,229,627,272,628,108,329,432,159,460,305,579,505,629,594,658,94,110,491,513,316,601,423,517,53,264,421,163,389,380],"class_list":["post-1542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-balance","tag-change","tag-community","tag-conventional-wisdom","tag-corruption","tag-democracy","tag-egalitarian","tag-elite","tag-expediency","tag-faith","tag-fascism","tag-foolish","tag-humanity","tag-image","tag-lazy","tag-minority","tag-play","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-power","tag-present","tag-privilege","tag-rationalization","tag-reality","tag-relationships","tag-selfish","tag-short-poems","tag-surprises","tag-truth","tag-violence","tag-wisdom","tag-work"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>POEM: Changing Kings | Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun&#039;s Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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