It’s interesting, there’s 2 times you can learn about who someone really is: Make things hard and take away their power, or make things easy and give them power.
You never know, people who are really good in one circumstance are really bad in the other or vice versa. You see it though, people who were decent when they were poor or even when things were normal; give them an ounce of power over others and suddenly they become tyrants. It’s an easy thing to fall into, especially when you have never been trained in the exercise of power and you think that once you have power you have a duty to use it early and often.
I think that often gets lost on people, as you say, being powerless isn’t a virtue, and lots of people go off the rails the moment they get even a hint of power
It’s interesting, there’s 2 times you can learn about who someone really is: Make things hard and take away their power, or make things easy and give them power.
You never know, people who are really good in one circumstance are really bad in the other or vice versa. You see it though, people who were decent when they were poor or even when things were normal; give them an ounce of power over others and suddenly they become tyrants. It’s an easy thing to fall into, especially when you have never been trained in the exercise of power and you think that once you have power you have a duty to use it early and often.
Power corrupts, even petty power can do that to the weak.
For sure. It isn’t a virtue to be powerless to help or harm people and choose to do neither. Virtue is in having the choice and making the right one.
I think that often gets lost on people, as you say, being powerless isn’t a virtue, and lots of people go off the rails the moment they get even a hint of power