"The fundamental concept in social science is Power."
-Bertrand Russell
"Social power is involved in every instance of interaction."
-Joel Charon
"Every social act is an exercise of power."
-Amos Hawley
Power
It comes to this: dwarf-throwing contests,
dwarfs for centuries given away
as gifts, and the dwarf-jokes
at which we laugh in our big, proper bodies.
And people so fat they can't
scratch their toes, so fat
you have to cut away whole sides of their homes
to get them to the morgue.
Don't we snicker, even as the paramedics work?
And imagine the small political base
of a fat dwarf. Nothing to stop us
from slapping our knees, rolling on the floor.
Let's apologize to all of them, Roberta said
at the spirited dinner table. But by then
we could hardly contain ourselves.
-Stephen Dunn |
Power. It's an uneasy word. It's a word that we don't like to acknowledge in proper company. Perhaps we may even shy away from it in improper company, because to admit it is to make it crass. And it is certainly a word that social scientists are uncomfortable yet obsessed with. Social scientists understand that power makes the human world go round, but they have a devil of a time defining it. One of the reasons that it is hard to define is that it is ubiquitous. (That's a good word, it means something is universal, everywhere.) Social scientists see power everywhere, yet most of us don't. We are sometimes aware when power is used against us, but we rarely see it when we use power. And if we do see it, we tell others and ourselves amazing stories about why our use of power is right and good. (Think about the stories we used to tell about why slavery was right; think about the stories society now tells about why denying homosexuals equal rights is right and good. And there were some pretty good stories that the people told themselves as they blew up the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.)
In Chapter 7 we took a good hard look at political power. And some of what Chapter 10 in your textbook looks at is political power as well. But it also looks at or gives hint to other forms and expressions of power. And that's what we want to do in our treatment. We want to look at power more generally, at how it can function in daily life. What are some of the quiet, and not so quiet, ways that power is expressed in our society? It's not all politics. In the following sections we are going to look at how power is used in personal relationships, in school situations, between friends, through culture, and through charismatic and rational/legal organizations. But before we do that, what is power?
Your textbook begins with Weber's notion of "achieving one's will." And then Charon goes on to talk about that in terms of potential, actual, and exerted power. Charon also notes the importance of resources, influences, control, and the opposite of power: powerlessness. Part of your individual activity for this section will involve you finding out just how important having power (not being powerless) is for our development of a healthy self-concept and self-esteem. In addition to Charon's list of potential, actual, and exerted power we can think of power as the ability to influence the behavior of others. Types of influence include persuasion, such as from a salesperson or advertising-we are persuaded to do something; authority, like your teacher-as we believe in the right of the person to influence our behavior; coercion, like when a robber uses a gun to rob a bank.
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Another way of thinking about power is through exchange theory. Exchange theory maintains that all human interaction is based on the exchange of goods and/or services. These goods may be actual objects (like a guitar), symbolic objects (like a class grade), or emotional entities (like love). And services can likewise be physical (a massage), symbolic (a marriage ceremony), or emotional (sending a get well card). So according to these theorists every time we interact we are looking to make some profit. It could simply be the feeling of belonging to the group or self-affirmation; or it could be more concrete and specific like a date for Saturday night. But the "catch" of exchange is, well, EXCHANGE! In order to get something, we have to give something. And here is where power comes in.
Power in exchange is based on two things: value and alternatives. The more valued a service or good is perceived to be, the more power the person who has that good/service will have. For example, let's say that Joe has a black PRS electric guitar for sale, and Mark has a red Fender Stratocaster for sale. And let's further imagine that the two guitars are of equal street value, so generally speaking they are worth the same amount of money. BUT, because I only play black guitars and I absolutely lust after PRS guitars, Joe will have more power over me in the exchange than Mark. In fact, so great is Joe's power that I would probably pay twice as much for the PRS than for the Fender. UNLESS I have alternatives! Now if Joe has a black PRS and Susan and Albert and Samantha also have black PRSs for sale, then Joe's power over me is limited (thank god!).
So power comes in lots of different packages. It can be blatant, as in the form of the police, or it can be subtle, as in the professor that holds the grade you need or the person that has the physical/personal attraction that you want. Power can also be ugly, as when we create stigmas around social difference (see Dunn's poem above). Power is a feature of normal, day-to-day interactions, as well as a feature of structure and culture.
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