Final Vote for Plan B Person of the Year for 2016

[MajGenl.Meade]

[oldr_n_wsr]

Define "sane".

[Big RR]

Sane--A subscriber to the sour grapes theory; one who is nnable to obtain power, but then says (s)he didn't want it in the first place.

[rubato]

No, that is just wrong.

" ... But great as is the influence of the motives we have been considering, there is one which outweighs them all. I mean the love of power. Love of power is closely akin to vanity, but it is not by any means the same thing. What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it is easy to have glory without power. The people who enjoy the greatest glory in the United States are film stars, but they can be put in their place by the Committee for Un-American Activities, which enjoys no glory whatever. In England, the King has more glory than the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister has more power than the King. Many people prefer glory to power, but on the whole these people have less effect upon the course of events than those who prefer power to glory. When Blücher, in 1814, saw Napoleon's palaces, he said, «Wasn't he a fool to have all this and to go running after Moscow.» Napoleon, who certainly was not destitute of vanity, preferred power when he had to choose. To Blücher, this choice seemed foolish. Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the causal efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men.

Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates. In the happy days before 1914, when well-to-do ladies could acquire a host of servants, their pleasure in exercising power over the domestics steadily increased with age. Similarly, in any autocratic regime, the holders of power become increasingly tyrannical with experience of the delights that power can afford. Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of power will derive more satisfaction from a refusal than from a consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying «No» than from saying «Yes». It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive.

But it has other sides which are more desirable. The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique. In politics, also, a reformer may have just as strong a love of power as a despot. It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities. If your capacities are theoretical or technical, you will contribute to knowledge or technique, and, as a rule, your activity will be useful. If you are a politician you may be actuated by love of power, but as a rule this motive will join itself on to the desire to see some state of affairs realized which, for some reason, you prefer to the status quo. A great general may, like Alcibiades, be quite indifferent as to which side he fights on, but most generals have preferred to fight for their own country, and have, therefore, had other motives besides love of power. The politician may change sides so frequently as to find himself always in the majority, but most politicians have a preference for one party to the other, and subordinate their love of power to this preference. Love of power as nearly pure as possible is to be seen in various different types of men. One type is the soldier of fortune, of whom Napoleon is the supreme example. Napoleon had, I think, no ideological preference for France over Corsica, but if he had become Emperor of Corsica he would not have been so great a man as he became by pretending to be a Frenchman. Such men, however, are not quite pure examples, since they also derive immense satisfaction from vanity. The purest type is that of the eminence grise - the power behind the throne that never appears in public, and merely hugs itself with the secret thought: «How little these puppets know who is pulling the strings.» Baron Holstein, who controlled the foreign policy of the German Empire from 1890 to 1906, illustrates this type to perfection. He lived in a slum; he never appeared in society; he avoided meeting the Emperor, except on one single occasion when the Emperor's importunity could not be resisted; he refused all invitations to Court functions, on the ground that he possessed no court dress. He had acquired secrets which enabled him to blackmail the Chancellor and many of the Kaiser's intimates. He used the power of blackmail, not to acquire wealth, or fame, or any other obvious advantage, but merely to compel the adoption of the foreign policy he preferred. In the East, similar characters were not very uncommon among eunuchs. ..."

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

No, that is just wrong.

yrs,
rubato

OK thanks, but I don't understand your banter.

[Econoline]

Meade - Me neither.



rubato -

[Sue U]

Shorter rubato (as I understand it, and I very well may be wrong): Attraction to power is not inherently good or bad, nor a sign of corruptibility or moral/mental infirmity. It is the quest for power that ultimately motivates people to act, and whether that action is useful and progressive or damaging and oppressive depends on the individual and the society in which s/he functions.

[Joe Guy]

So, the conclusion is that Lord Jim's vision of himself ruling Plan B is motivated by his quest for power. Also, given the makeup of Plan B and the type of individual he is, he would very likely be damaging and oppressive to the membership if he accomplishes his goal.

[MajGenl.Meade]

So, the conclusion is that Lord Jim's vision of himself ruling Plan B is motivated by his quest for power. Also, given the makeup of Plan B and the type of individual he is, he would very likely be damaging and oppressive to the membership if he accomplishes his goal.

And he's not sane. Don't overlook that.

(He thinks he's the Lord)

[oldr_n_wsr]

I used to think sanity was overrated.
of course I was insane at the time......






I still might be

[Crackpot]

Did I forget to mention I'd have won the popular vote if it wasn't for all the illegal voting?