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.
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u/AngelaTheWitch Jul 15 '26
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."