Power and Personhood: What Power Means to Me on an Individual and Community Level

Friedrich Nietzsch once said “To exercise power costs effort and demands courage.  That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it.” Nietsche goes on to say that this failure of assertion is cloaked by the virtues of forbearance and patience, and while I don’t agree with this assertion, I agree with the rest of Nietzsche’s ideas about power. It comes in many forms, and many stages– and while some of those forms and stages are not accessible to all of us, we all possess power and the ability to exercise it in some way. 

As someone who’s engaged in leadership, advocacy, and organizing for over 8 years I’ve dealt with power in all forms and stages. If I had to define it concretely, I would say that power is the social production of an effect that influences the capacities, capabilities, and conduct of other actors. That effect can be derived from money, or the potential of violence, or the reputation one has in a nation, state, or community. But power at its core  really just means the ability and capability to enact change. Change that can be good or bad. When I started my journey of leadership, I wielded little power. I was a freshman in highschool, starting nonprofit advocacy by volunteering for the American Red Cross, I felt invisible. I knew little, and thus was able to change little, even as I saw things needed to change in the system to do the good we were capable of doing. As the years passed, I became president of our school’s chapter, and learned to speak up.  It was not an easy transition. It had been internalized that I had no power and thus no significance. But over time, I learned to contribute to the club with my time and knowledge, and in return I was allowed to take on more responsibility. When I gave my time to organizing the club’s funds, or looked into communicating with the school’s admin for our club’s needs, I was seen as a valuable member. Being recognized pushed  me to continue to contribute and to speak up,  and made me recognize that the very nature of contributing empowered me– literally.  The more I contributed my opinion given power through my leadership and knowledge of policy and community, and used that power to arrange food drives, blood drives, and redistribute resources. 

Gaining that power was also absolutely critical to my sense of personhood. Recognizing my ability to create change and influence others made me more confident, and actually increased my empathy and moral courage. It is worth noting that power does tend to corrupt, and I saw this firsthand in college. When I became a student senator (a position I never dreamed of holding before my confidence increased) I witnessed my peers deride their student body, marginalized communities, and take hours berating each other. The power they possessed wasn’t grand, nor was it trivial, and certainly was wielded brutally at times. It was treated as a zero sum game– that power was a finite resource and one could only gain any by taking it from someone else. This practice felt completely antithetical to what I experienced through community centered leadership and the American Red Cross. I gained power only by showing that I cared about my community and had things to offer, and was entrusted with more responsibility the more I showed that care. It’s what ultimately led me to believe that the purest form of power comes from community, and recognizing your own agency. When you treat power as a zero sum game, it means that you are willing to sacrifice people and what they need. That is often framed as for the greater good- but it’s not how I want to be as a person or leader. If I was going to create change, I was going to do my best to make sure people weren’t hurt. Compromise happens, as well as the necessity to stand up to those in power who are perpetuating inequity for their own gain, even as they cite it’s for the greater good. But I refused to take part in the practice of the necessary evil. Centering power as a necessary good and a community resource led me to host events, create safe spaces, and distribute resources for my community and led for us to come together. That’s why marginalized communities coming together to enact change is so powerful– and often seen as dangerous. To distract us from the innate power we all possess, and the fact we can combat those who possess immense amounts of power unfairly derived (those with high socioeconomic status for example), marginalized groups and communities are often pitted against each other or distracted with fear mongering.   In the face of hate, misuse of resources, and bitter violence I truly believe the most powerful thing is to come together in spaces of love and celebration. To keep going, together. 

Power, in that sense to me,  is doing what you can to be better and inspire the same in others around you–whatever that scale looks like. I choose to do community advocacy because it allows me to wield power responsibly and to see firsthand the people I’m impacting and influencing. When we amass so much power that we no longer see the direct consequences of our actions or influence, it means that the power we have is degrading the other virtues we ought to possess– and isolates us from those who have not yet gained the ability to make change or withstand unfair change. I witnessed this time and time again standing up to university administrators in the face of a housing crisis, bigotry on campus, and cost of living strikes– so concerned with university reputation and finances they forgot the very students they were serving. So power is neutral on its own, but to me means to wield it well you must gain the kind of power that comes from inner wealth, kindness, and community building that makes sure you have more virtue than power. Even the patience and forbearance that Nietzsche warns against. 

So what should power be to you? That’s up to you! But power doesn’t have to be a zero sum game. Gaining yours doesn’t mean denying others. I hope the ways you define power define your personhood kindly and compassionately, with community over personal gain centered– because that’s what the best power advocates for.