One of the books that I have seen being recommended many times, by many people is The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. As Greene states multiple times in the preface, power is a game, and a game that all must play. It is unbearable for a person to have no power, to have no power is to be helpless and without autonomy. I think that Greene uses power in an interesting context. He basically defines it as an amoral skill that is used to see circumstances. He also makes a fair point. Again, power is a game, and as he states, “in games you do not judge your opponents by their intentions but by the effect of their actions.”. Do a person’s intentions really matter? Especially when they do not change the outcome? I will stay away from the massive ethical question that arises from this, is morality judged based off a person’s intentions, or the result of their actions? For this first post elaborating on the concept of power, we will start with the first law, “Never Outshine The Master”. Outshining the master turns out not to be as positive as one would initially think.
Nicholas Fouquet
As an example of disobeying the law, Greene gives a story of Nicholas Fouquet, who was the finance minister for Louis XIV in the beginning of his reign. Fouquet felt as if he were falling out of favor with the king. To regain the king’s favor, he decided to throw a party of massive proportion.
The top tier of nobility from all of Europe was invited and an obnoxious sum of money was spent on a seven-course dinner with dishes that were invented just for the occasion. The party went deep into the night with all who attended agreeing that it was the best party they had ever attended.
Insecurity
Naturally, the day after the party Fouquet was arrested with the accusation of stealing from the country’s treasury. Even though, most of the stealing he had done was on the behalf of the king, and with the king’s permission.
From historical accounts, Louis XIV was known to be arrogant and had to be always the center of attention. With his finance minister throwing such a lavish party, the king probably felt that the minister was showing off his wealth. Basically, by throwing such a lavish party, Fouquet had offended the king by outperforming him in the things that the king should have been the best at: wealth and influence.
Galileo
As a scientist, Galileo depended on funding from rulers and other people of influence. A lot of research, even today, requires the same thing. Funding for research typically comes from government grants or some form of private funding from a company or entity.
As most scientists did during the renaissance period, Galileo would give gifts to the wealthy in the form of new inventions or discoveries. However, he changed his strategy when he discovered the moons of Jupiter. He attributed his entire discovery to the Medici family. The Medici family was a major political and financial dynasty in renaissance Italy, especially in the 15th century.
Jupiter had already been made a symbol of the Medici family, symbolizing their power. Galileo had made his discovery when Cosimo Medici II became enthroned, so Galileo essentially made a divine connection between the heavens and the coming of power of Cosimo II.
Sucking up?
After this dedication, Galileo was made the official philosopher of the court with a full salary. His days of begging for funding for his research was over. Why would Cosimo II grant Galileo such a valuable position?
Greene states that the answer is simple. “All masters want to appear more brilliant than other people”. Cosimo II probably didn’t care about the research that Galileo was doing, however, Galileo increased the prestige of his reputation.
From Cosimo’s point of view, he doesn’t want to just be seen as the financier of the research. By creating the divine connection between Cosimo’s rise to power and the discovery of Jupiter’s moons, Galileo essentially “shined” more than all others. Doing exactly what the first law of power describes.
Application
I think the main point of this first law is that people have insecurities. This goes for pretty much everyone. One way to see it is when a person starts to succeed in something, a lot of people will start to resent them or try to hold them back in some way. It goes along with the crabs in a bucket analogy. When one crab starts to climb out of the bucket, the others will try to pull it back down to prevent it from escaping.
When a person feels insecure, they can act out of character. Insecurity is a type of fear, and when an animal is fearful, they can lash out. Therefore, outperforming a superior can be deadly.
The part that can make following this law difficult is that different people have different tolerances for insecurity. Some people to an extreme extent where the smallest form of success is taken as a threat. Others can handle a much higher degree of confrontation before they start to feel threatened. This depends heavily on the situation and the superior, so it is important to understand how sensitive they are, so you do not accidently make them see you as a threat just by being yourself.
Initial thoughts
To me, this doesn’t seem like much of a problem unless the superior in question is an extremely vain person. Don’t get me wrong, this law does not mean that you need to be worried about offending anyone and that you need to be careful with every single person.
The people that know me know firsthand that I have no problem being myself. I don’t think a person should worry about what other people think of them, especially in a general sense. However, what I mean by these past two sections is that it probably wouldn’t be wise to go out of your way to make someone angry, especially if they hold power over you in some way.
Now if this confrontation must deal with a challenge to your principles as a person or if you feel as if it has questionable ethics in some way, go for it. However, if it has something to do with some petty power play, it would probably be best to be the better person, not prove that you are better than the person, and let the nature of power take its course. If a person of power plays petty games, their power will eventually erode.
Conclusions
People need power. Power is not only the control over people and the ability to force them to do certain things. Power is a game of control, control over other people, situations, and yourself. It can be used for good or bad, but it in and of itself is neither.
Power is needed to ensure safety. Safety is becoming a huge topic of discussion today as of this writing in late August of 2021. Safety is like money, no one cares about your safety or money as much as you do. So, if you do not have the power (or freedom) over yourself, can you really ensure your safety?
To your wealth and freedom,
James Forsythe
For more personal development and philosophy
https://jamesdforsythe.com/category/personaldevelopment/
To get Robert Greene’s book
https://www.amazon.com/48-Laws-Power-Robert-Greene/dp/0140280197
