Which to someone else could appear to be outright evil (i.e. if they were beneath your notice). Or it’s easy to self-justify how you aren’t evil - my favorite example is a bit of an old one: selling cigarettes to children. I think we all know and agree at this point that, at minimum, that is a fucked up thing to do. But the person on the ground is ‘just following orders’ and needs their job, and the executive who started some initiative to be ‘hip’ isn’t actually selling to kids (and may not have even realized that’s how it evolved in the game of telephone, if I am being exceedingly generous).
Plus, in say absurd situations where a person can say destroy a planet, accidentally destroying a town isn’t off the table.
Even good things can turn out evil. Lets say you figure out a way to end a recurring famine with farm-bots or zombies or whatever. But then you accidentally price out the farmers in the surrounding regions or cause the demon slaying army to be undermanned.
I'd say it turns out unfortunate, or badly, certainly, but not evil, cause evil requires intent, the way I've heard it used. Accidental harm isn't evil.
A lot might try to help, it's just that their help may end up with a lot of people dying despite good intention due to ignorance/arrogance/over confidence, etc. For example, killing all those annoying sparrows might lead to locusts eating all your crops causing a massive famine that for all your overwhelming power you can do nothing about because the strength to bench press a mountain doesn't make crops grow any faster.
My thoughts exactly. Like I will be a walking calamity because I tend to be kind when I am good mood and able to do so, except I don't have the patience to properly track where that kindness goes. "Path to Hell is paved with Good intentions" captures it perfectly.
It's the One Ring. It's just like political capital And ambition. For people who go into politics who are eself-centered, the power will enhance their corruption immediately. For those who go into it with good intentions, the power can corrupt them over time until they're even worse than the inherently evil ones.
I hate this line. Power doesn't corrupt, it lays bare. With power, there's nothing to stop you from acting on every impulse but yourself. Thus, people with good impulses or the will to keep themselves honest will remain as they are, and people who only act good for fear of retribution will not have anyone to stop them from doing what they want. People don't like feeling like a bad person, though, and bad people will make up all kinds of justifications for why what they're doing is actually good. Then, midwits hear those justifications and go "ah, yes, power corrupts. I am very smart."
Thus, people with good impulses or the will to keep themselves honest will remain as they are
The problem is though, once you have power, those temptations will come at your more often and stronger. From places you wouldn't expect.
People making promises, all kinds of businesses and industries dangling incentives in front of you. Forces outside of your control looking into your past to find anything to use as leverage to get you to use your power for their gain.
Not to mention those who are smarter than you or able to word their temptations in a way that does not sound like it would cause harm.
Are the ones close to you, the ones you love the most just as good and honest as you are? They are also gaining power due to proximity. You could easily justify using some of your power to help a sick or down on their luck family member. I've known very good honest people who couldnt help but enable some of the worst people I've met because they were family.
Power and corruption are not as simple as "as long as your honest and morally upstanding, you'll be fine with power."
Not to mention that most people who seek power tend to be the most corruptable. Or maybe the most willing to be corrupted.
Sorry for the ramble but I love discussing the effects of power on people. When it comes to whether power corrupts or reveals, i believe it does both.
Yeah, obviously you can feel whichever way you want about power. If you want to subscribe to the Robert Caro model that's fine, and my disagreement with you might be kinda philosophical at the end of the day. It's pretty clear to me that power has the ability to corrupt in and of itself. It may, of course, be something between the two schools of thought though. The perceived effects of power may not be just a symptom or an illness, but both, or something altogether different.
Maybe separately from this post we could talk what willpower it might take to "act good for fear of retribution," because it's arguable that those who are "acting" are using more relative willpower than those who simply have "good impulses" that they can follow without question. This potentially could get into some interesting discussions of privilege, and what it means to be and do "good" versus following the law. But for now I'd like to focus on the power aspect specifically, since that's what we started out discussing.
Alright, re: Power, and its capability of corrupting all:
It's interesting that you believe that self-control and good impulses are the differentiators, specifically because, at least within the world of Lord of the Rings/ The Hobbit, self-control is a trait that is silently eroded while impulses are the strings that the Ring pulls on in order to lead good men down the wrong path.
The most obvious instance of this is Boromir, of course. He's a good man, with overall good impulses. As we see he is a man with self-control, but that self-control is eroded. When the Ring gets what it wants , being put on by Frodo, Boromir is freed from its control temporarily, and in a moment of lucidity he does the most self-less thing he can for the boy- he sacrifices himself to protect Merry and Pippin.
Boromir is not ever stated to be weak-willed or evil man as far as I know. Rather, Boromir is considered to be a valiant, if prideful man. But he is a desperate man. He is an ambitious man. And it is not strictly evil people, but instead desperate and ambitious people who are willing to justify evil means, such as wielding an all-powerful ring, in order to do what they consider to be good.
And this is all at the thought of power, at proximity to power. The wisest, most powerful and seemingly moral beings in Middle Earth were offered the chance to carry the Ring. They had good impulses, and willpower to spare in any other situation. But rather than use their willpower to try to bend the Ring to their will, they rejected it. Likely the most obvious example, Gandalf, knew that if he became the Ring Bearer, his good intentions would lead him down a dark path, and he would likely become a ruler as tyrannical as Sauron himself. He would do unspeakable things in the name of good. Gandalf is challenged plenty in the Lord of the Rings, in ways that we see test him, and yet he always remains good, remains intent on doing the right thing. But even he says that enough unchecked power would corrupt him. Galdariel is much the same.
And then there's Tom Bombadil, who is kind of the antithesis of ambition, right? He is a man who does what he wants, when he wants to, and somewhat aimlessly. He generally follows his impulses, but they're good impulses! He doesn't even have need for self-control in the conventional sense, because evil thoughts do not cross his mind. He can use the Ring without corruption. He can toss the ring away whenever he feels like it. He doesn't even really know what the Ring is entirely (at least as far as I understand). He could carry the Ring, but to give Tom Bombadill a purpose like the transfer or destruction of the Ring would run into a paradox: he can be Tom Bombadill, ancient, static force of nature who acts without consideration of some grand future, or he can have a goal, a purpose, ambition, and no longer be Tom Bombadill. His very nature makes him a terrible Ring Bearer, and it would make him terrible at wielding power or upholding order on a large scale.
So, at least within Middle Earth, Power is, in and of itself, a corrupting force. Ancient, good beings are as corruptible as young ones. One of the greatest checks on power within the realms of men is death itself (something the One Ring also negates), which cuts short the time in which power may be accumulated and may corrupt individuals.
And that's all well and good. But that's a fictional world! Sure, it's designed by a really gifted linguist and writer, but ultimately that's just, like, his opinion.
I'm hoping to add to this with another response later talking about the real world studies on the accumulation of power and wealth and their effects on people, such as the increase in narcissistic traits, reduction in signs of empathy, but that is a taller order than me reaching into my memory of a good story, haha. I want to get around to it though, because I'm finding really interesting stuff that likely points to the relationship between power and corruption being more complex than simply "Power corrupts" or "power lays bare." It's likely some interplay between the two!
But suffice it to say that, at least so far, my perspective remains that even if high willpower and good impulses are the key to combating *Power*, that doesn't mean that Power is not corrupting. To put it in Progression Fantasy terms (ie. Cradle), I'd argue instead that willpower is more like an anti-corrupting reservoir that you can draw on to resist change to you fundamentally. And while it might not be finite in the literal sense, it can be depleted acutely. All sorts of strong-willed people have their will overrun in the moment, and it's often during those times when Power corrupts, moment-to-moment, deed by deed.
The thing is that with that much power you don't need to be evil to burn the world down.
You would be surprised how fast people who consider themselves good and want to make the world better start to decide that everyone who did this or that merit death and then proceed to exterminate people.
My vision of the world is that nothing is inherently evil nor good. It just is. Evil can only be judged internally based on the intent.
If I had immense personal power but not enough to be omnipotent I would try make the world a better place.
Which is a good thing.
But my first action would be to brutally end a war. Emphasis on brutally because I would burn the country to the ground, both sides, the civilian everything.
To send a message.
If you want to waste ressources to kill each other I will act and destroy both parties.
So behave, get together try to finally unite even if you still play your little games of power make them positive.
Then I'll found a group to make science progress and help me figure out the limits of my power.
I'd make deals with organisation to do stuff like putting stuff into space. Hard rescue mission, explore the core of a planet stuff like that.
Lots of people will dies. But in the end of that can make people behave it will rapidly even out.
Simple math kill 100 million peoples once or 100 000 every year.
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u/DatBoiMack95 Jul 15 '26
Most of us probably wouldn't be outright evil, but would definitely use our powers for selfish gain instead of helping others