Voltaire [Marie Francois Arouet]
Everyone wants to have power, because it is one of the most important needs of any normal person. And, as we can see, different people With varying degrees success seek to satisfy it. Someone satisfies this need by gaining power over his family, someone by power over his employees, and someone by power over the whole country. But in order to gain power, especially great power, it is necessary to have the necessary knowledge, skills and, most importantly, the appropriate psychology, which makes a person a leader, a leader, a strong personality capable of subordinating the will of other people. We see that people are divided into those who rule and those who obey. And they are completely different people. First of all, they are different in their mentality and in their psychological state. People who have power are very different from those who do not have it, and the psychology of power just studies the characteristics of the life and psyche of such people. For you, dear readers, knowledge of the psychology of power can be useful in that with its help and if you wish, you can gain a certain power, perhaps even very much, it will depend on how much you are interested in it. And also, if necessary, you will learn how to protect your interests from those who already have this power.
What is power
First of all, let's find out what power is. And then there is a lot of talk about power, and not everyone understands what it is. While our understanding of the psychology of power will depend on our understanding of power. Power, friends - this is submission. Or you can also say this - this is the ability and ability to subordinate the will of other people to one's will. And on the other hand, on the part of those who obey someone else's will, this is a tendency to obey. It is the desire and ability of some people to subjugate the will of other people and the inclination of other people to obey that give rise to power. That, in fact, is all. I know that the dictionaries give a different definition of power, but if you take a closer look at any power, you will see for yourself, without any philosophical reflection, that the root of all power is precisely submission and subordination, and then everything else is strung on this basis. So, first of all, it is subordination, and only then everything else, including the methods by which some people subjugate other people, with the help of which one person subjugates another person. If there is no submission, there will be no power. Be sure to remember this iron truth. No submission - no power!
But there is submission, so there is power. People are so arranged that they cannot help but rule and obey. Indeed, by nature, a person is inclined to dominate and command over someone, and at the same time to obey someone. Hierarchical instinct is responsible for these abilities. And depending on the conditions in which a person lives and how he is brought up, he develops either a master and a leader, or a servant and a slave. If you do not like the word slave, you can replace it with the word subordinate. Thus, it is precisely that personality that develops in us - which, according to nature perfect way fits into environment. That is, it is precisely those instincts that are activated in us that the best way contribute to our survival. After all, the main task of any living being is to survive. Therefore, what kind of environment a person will have depends on what qualities will develop in it. If a person is constantly suppressed, humiliated, insulted, scolded, punished, and also used physical force against him, forcing him to obey in this way, then the slavish instinct or the instinct of submission will begin to prevail in him - as you like, which will encourage this person to submission, to the service of other people, to worship them and to the fear of more strong personalities. In other words, violence and coercion, even if legitimate, is a low-quality form of power. After all, from a humiliated, depressed, devoid of any sense of self-dignity, a person turns out to be a bad worker, a bad warrior, a bad support for power. Over time, such a person becomes absolutely passive, indifferent to everything, mediocre and begins to degrade. If you instill confidence in a person and allow him to feel significant, strong, special, not to mention giving him the opportunity to control other people, then the instinct of domination, the instinct of power, the instinct of a leader, a leader will develop in him. This is how we get leaders and leaders on the one hand and servants and subordinates on the other. So you can see for yourself what is the difference between the instinct of power and the instinct of submission.
Instruments of power
Now let's talk about the tools that allow you to come to power and keep it, as well as the qualities that you need to have in order to use these tools. Physical strength is the most primitive instrument of power, but not the most effective. With the help of physical force, you can force people to obey your will, but this submission will not be effective and stable enough. When people are forced to do something that they do not want to do, people either resist or turn into passive, depressed, weak-willed, lack of initiative, indifferent, prone to degradation and, as a rule, degrading both mentally and physically beings. Of course, it is necessary to use physical force in order to hold power and maintain order in society, a team, a family, but this should be done very competently so that any violence, any use of physical force looks fair and legitimate. Without justice physical strength becomes the beginning of the end for the one who uses it. Because when people begin to confront the aggressor in a consolidated manner, the injustice of which unites people to fight him, then no matter how strong he is, it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about some person, a group of people or a whole state - ultimately he, they, it will lose. And if it does not lose, if, say, the state manages to suppress its citizens by force in order to force them to obey solely out of fear, then these citizens will begin to degrade and become embittered, and the state will not be able to rely on them at a difficult moment. So not everything is so simple in this life, you cannot solve all the problems and tasks in it by force alone. Because people need not only a stick, but also a carrot. In general, if it were possible to solve all problems and tasks with the help of violence, we would still have slavery [its primitive form] as the most effective model for organizing society, and we would solve all our issues exclusively with the help of force, not caring about its legitimacy and legitimacy. But even on the example of raising children, we see that with the help of physical force, with the help of violence, with the help of punishment, with the help of a whip, you will not achieve much. There must also be gingerbread, that is, encouragement, so that the government is really strong and stable.
Incentives, gifts, rewards, career, praise, glory - this is just the carrot that is needed to retain power. People need to be given something, they need to be fed, making them dependent on themselves, then they themselves will want to obey you. Therefore, the carrot is a very powerful tool of power, and often it is much more effective than physical force, the whip. If only those who have power had these gingerbread, and not only in the form of ideas, but also real material goods. You won’t be fed up with ideas alone, no matter how wonderful they are. So, as historical experience shows, it is more profitable to motivate people with carrots than with a whip, since labor productivity is higher precisely among those subordinates who are motivated by material gain, and not by fear. Though it should be both. People should always have a choice between fear and pleasure. There are also exceptions when some people can do something exclusively under pressure, then only brute physical force or fear of its use forces them to obey someone or something. It all depends on the mentality of the person. But I repeat, people should have a choice between profit and fear, between pleasure and pain, then it will be easier to control them. So, gingerbread alone is not enough, otherwise people will refuse to obey even for a very large reward. And without submission, as you remember, there is no power. Therefore, on the one hand, there should be a strict, and depending on the situation, very severe punishment for disobedience, and on the other, a solid reward for obedience. A smart leader understands this and skillfully uses both tools of power to motivate his subordinates. Everything should be in moderation. Impunity gives rise to permissiveness, and that, in turn, lawlessness and anarchy. And the lack of encouragement and praise makes people lazy and indifferent to everything they do. So you need to skillfully manipulate the carrot and the stick in order to maintain and increase your power over other people.
The next instrument of power is information. A very important tool, it should be noted. Whoever owns the information owns the world, as Nathan Rothschild or Winston Churchill said. But even without the words of these great people, I am sure many people know that information, knowledge, give strength. It's true, it's true. But this is not the whole truth. This is only one of the sides of the coin of power and power associated with information. There is another, I will write about it below. In the meantime, let's find out exactly how information and knowledge help to gain strength and power. And they do it very simply - high-quality information and useful knowledge help us to do it. right choice and improve the effectiveness of our decisions and actions. Do you know that our whole life is a constant choice in favor of something and to the detriment of something? We make choices every day, big and small. We decide what to do in this or that situation, what to buy, where to go, whom to meet, whom to ignore, what to spend our time and energy on, and so on and so forth. We, as if being in a labyrinth, are constantly choosing where to move, trying not to get into a dead end. It's like in Russian fairy tales, when you have to choose where to go - straight, left, right. And every decision, every direction has its own consequences, has its own price. With all this, we often do not even remotely imagine where our choice can lead us, what price we will have to pay for this or that decision.
So, the power of information lies precisely in the fact that it clarifies this issue for us. The information that we receive is like a prophet - it shows us what we can come to if we act in one way or another. It points us to an algorithm [sequence of actions] by which we can get somewhere or avoid something. It's like using a manual for life - the more you know, thanks to quality information and a rich personal experience the more reasonable and correct your decisions and actions will be. If you want, for example, to earn a lot of money - the necessary information will help you do this. It will tell you what actions you need to take and in what sequence, so that with a minimum of effort, with a high degree of probability, you will get the maximum positive result. Not bad, agree. But this is provided that the information you receive is of high quality, reliable, timely, and at the same time you know how to use it. But it is not so easy to get good information. Therefore, you need to be able to find it, select and analyze it. After all, information can be useful and harmful. Useful information must be collected, building from it complete picture of the world, and it is necessary to get rid of the harmful, so as not to poison your mind with it.
By the way, for the authorities, not only and even not so much information about money is important as information about people. Money without people is nothing, and there can be no power without people, because in this case there will be no one to rule over, no one to control. Therefore, friends, money, if you do not know this, does not rule this world - it is ruled by those who know how to control people with the help of money. Money does not obey anyone - it is people who obey other people, including for money. And when you know how to influence people, how to manage them, how to manipulate them, how to organize them, how to make them want something and be afraid of something, how to subordinate them to your will, you gain power over them. But you can invent money - it's not difficult task. Papers with numbers will be printed for you as much as you like - it is important to convince and force you to work for this paper, to obey it. And for this, such a tool as information is also used, with the help of which people are inspired by the value of money. And those who do not agree to appreciate them are punished. So when the power of information does not work, physical force is used.
The second, more important aspect of power associated with information is disinformation. This is what really allowed and allows you to manage people and have power over them. We are told that the main thing today is to be able to collect information, evaluate it, analyze it, and then use it competently. It is really important to be able to do it, but it is not the main thing that is needed in order to have an advantage over other people in modern world. Much more important is to create information and skillfully introduce it into society in order to manipulate it. And since it is unprofitable to disseminate high-quality and useful information for other people, those who need power and those who already have it, instead, these people actively spread misinformation in society, thereby encouraging people to make wrong choices and make wrong decisions. The struggle for power is war. And war is, as Sun Tzu wrote, the path of deception. Therefore, without deception, the war cannot be won. And people, as you and I know, have been howling with each other throughout their history. They are fighting for resources, for power, for the ability to subjugate others, and not to obey anyone themselves. Today, however, the war has been replaced by competition, when everyone is competing with everyone for a big piece of the pie, for a place in the sun, for power, for resources. And for this, disinformation is actively used - the most powerful weapon in any war. Wars, they, too, as you can see, have not gone anywhere. They were as they are. But mostly they are local. It is not profitable to wage global wars today, especially with those countries that possess weapons of mass destruction.
Thus, friends, it is deception, lies - that's what really matters, that's what gives strength, that's what allows you to gain power. Information, knowledge are also important, but lies are more important. Rather, more important is the ability to lie, misinform, confuse, manipulate society with the help of information resources, the ability to misinform the enemy. The one who knows how to lie, how to lie beautifully, will always have an advantage over those who do not know how to do it. And it can be stated with absolute certainty that the psychology of power is inextricably linked with lies. Therefore, many authoritative personalities lie, politicians lie, and constantly. Moreover, many famous people not only do not hesitate to deliberately mislead people, but do not even hide it. Why? Because no one asks them for lying. Because they are still believed, despite the fact that they regularly lie. Because people act on the words of authoritative liars, even after being repeatedly deceived by them. Submission, humility, support - this is what allows the authorities to exist and strengthen, including through disinformation. As long as people want to be deceived, they will be deceived. And about why people want to be deceived, we'll talk another time.
The next instrument of power is resources. The ones we can't do without. Resources are a very important support for power, without it it is impossible to subjugate the will of other people. Strictly speaking, for the sake of including resources, people strive for power, and therefore it is not surprising that having gained this very power, they take control of all the most significant resources in order not only to provide themselves with everything they need, but also to strengthen their power with their help. . The same media, financial and strong structure- these are all very valuable resources for the authorities, these are levers for managing society. For a single person, these resources are also valuable, because information, money and physical strength, as well as the power of weapons - this is all that with which he can subjugate the will of other people. At the same time, it is important to understand that there cannot be many resources - one should constantly strive to increase them. Otherwise other people will do it. It follows from this that the psychology of power is a predatory psychology, therefore, having power, a person will never be satisfied with what he has, and will constantly strive to gain everything. more resources and increase their power with their help. Starting from the media and ending with the vital resources that are important for each person, such as food, shelter, medicines, and so on, the authorities take control of all this. All sorts of pleasures can also be counted among the resources that the government seeks to manage and, as a rule, manages in order to close all aspects of human life. Thus, the authorities make dependent on themselves those whom it controls and thanks to whom it has this very power. When you are needed, when you are loved, feared and respected at the same time, you will be obeyed. And it is especially important for the authorities to make sure that there is no one to replace them. In fact, many people can be replaced, but those who, thanks to their cunning, strength, deceit, lies, come to power, will, of course, inspire everyone with their exclusivity and irreplaceability. Therefore, the ability to lie beautifully here again is extremely useful.
It is also useful to use lies for beautiful promises. This is also a very powerful tool of power, which every ambitious person who wants to subjugate the will of other people should be able to competently handle. Promises are the ability to project a beautiful future that people will come to under the guidance of the one who promises it to them. That is why politicians so many and so often promise a lot of good things, while, as a rule, without naming specific dates when this good thing will come. After all, the point is not to keep a promise, although partly this must be done in order to keep the fire in the eyes of people, but to constantly talk about a bright future, against which the nondescript present fades - thus hypnotizing people. In addition, even if you fulfill all the promises and thereby confirm your words with deeds, people still won’t calm down, and perhaps they won’t even say thank you, they just want more. They will demand more, forgetting about everything they already have. Remember how the old woman behaved in Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin’s fairy tale “About the Fisherman and the Fish”, remember what she said: “I don’t want to be a free queen, I want to be the mistress of the sea!” That's what the vast majority of people say. I mean, everyone wants more. Therefore, everyone who wants to gain power should not so much keep his word as speak beautifully and promise, promise, promise. Partially, you need to keep your promises in order, as I said, to stir up hope in people for a better future, so that they see that promises are being kept, so that they have the illusion that those who have been given power over themselves really deserve to manage them. This makes it easier for people to obey, they feel that it is fair to obey those who make their lives better.
Here it is also very important to understand that people need to be promised exactly what they, at least most of them, really need, as well as what they want. All people have their own beliefs, in some ways they coincide, in some ways they differ, but no matter what they are, they must be taken into account. Usually, if people are convinced of something, especially since childhood, when this or that information made a very strong impression on them, and critical thinking was not sufficiently developed to correctly analyze this information, and therefore they believed in everything they were told, it is almost impossible to convince them. This is a paradox of human nature - people can carry other people's knowledge, other people's ideas, other people's beliefs, while considering them to be their own and protecting them, even if they are wrong and even if they harm people. I think laziness is partly to blame for this - after all, having abandoned old, incorrect beliefs, you need not only to infringe on your Ego, showing it that you have been mistaken all this time, but also to form new beliefs in order to fill the void, and this takes time and strength. Therefore, it is easier for many people to remain with their opinion, not paying attention to its erroneousness, and sometimes even harmfulness for themselves. And if so, then for a person who wants to gain power over people, it is more expedient not to fundamentally change their picture of the world, but only to paint it with their own beautiful fairy tales. This is much easier than trying to convince people, and in some cases much more profitable. It may, of course, be wrong to indulge in the delusions of other people who harm them, but to achieve power, all means are good. Therefore, those who strive for power have no conscience and morality at all.
The next rather old and very powerful tool of power is faith. With the help of faith, you yourself know, you can manage millions of people, including those who are quite educated. It's just that some people believe in one thing, others in another. Some believe in God, others do not believe in him, which means they believe that he does not exist, without even trying to understand what God is. Someone believes in unverified scientific data, someone in a distorted or completely invented story, and someone in aliens whom they have never seen. It doesn't matter what a person believes, what matters is that he acts out of his faith. And this suggests that if you skillfully use a person’s faith to inspire him with certain beliefs that do not contradict, but, on the contrary, complement his faith, then he will act on the basis of them, that is, he will obey them. And obeying someone else, for example, your beliefs, a person obeys you. Therefore, you have power over him. At the same time, I repeat, it does not matter what a person believes in, as long as he believes, does not check, does not search, does not think and does not reflect, but simply believes. After all, faith in itself is blind - it is important for our life, moreover, it is inevitable - we will always believe in something, even without wanting it, but nevertheless faith is blind. Therefore, believing in something or in someone, we always take risks. And this is an inevitable risk. It is impossible to know everything, just as it is impossible to check everything, so you have to believe in something and someone. And this is skillfully used by those who use faith in order to subjugate the will of other people, that is, to gain power.
How to come to power
Speaking about how to come to power, you should carefully comprehend everything that is written above. After all, those tools of power that I have described - in themselves indicate what a person should be like and what he needs to be able to do in order to have power over someone. And this is not all the tools that exist, there are many more. I have described only the most important of them. So, now imagine what kind of psychology you need to have in order to skillfully use all these tools. Neither knowledge nor skills are needed for this - anyone can get these things if they wish, it is psychology that is needed and important - which must be developed in oneself. Get that psychology in ready-made, with the help of other people, as is the case with the knowledge that we pass on to each other, you will not be able to. You can only develop it in yourself, with the help of special work above oneself. It is clear that this should be a non-standard psychology, not the same as that of most people. Well, actually, therefore, not everyone has power, especially great. It can be said that in order to come to power, it is necessary to be an insensitive, cynical, cold-blooded, unscrupulous and at times ruthless person who knows how to step over people to achieve his goals. And I'd be lying if I said it wasn't. But one can also say that in order to gain power, one must be prudent, practical, courageous, organized, purposeful, disciplined, responsible, ambitious and most adequate person, who understands what kind of world we all live in and what laws operate in it, how natural as well as social. And it can also be said that such a person should be able to both interest and intimidate people in order to force them to obey him and have power over them. This approach to the psychology of power seems to me more objective. Although, in fact, there can be no assessment of power as such and the ways to achieve it, because it is more expedient to study such things, rather than evaluate them. In the end, if something in this world is arranged this way and not otherwise, if, say, power requires certain qualities from a person, including those that are perceived negatively by most people, then there is a possibility that this is exactly how it should be. to be. Of course, we can and, perhaps, should change some of the rules of life to improve it, but the existing laws of nature should not be ignored either. After all, our relationship with them will not change.
Thus - vanity and ambition, greed and aggressiveness, cunning and deceit, prudence and composure, ambition and purposefulness, courage and perseverance, self-confidence and self-discipline, as well as the ability to sacrifice little for the sake of achieving more and the ability to take risks - all these are the qualities that one should to possess a person in order to come to power, to have power, to hold power. Do not forget about the responsibility that is inherent in strong leaders, real leaders, ready and able to bear it for those over whom they rule. From this it follows that the psychology of power is the psychology of an aggressor, a predator, a hunter, a dominant, a strong leader and a responsible leader. Not always these personality traits are ideally combined in those who seek power and those who have it. Therefore, the quality of power is different. Nevertheless, even partial possession of the character traits and mentality necessary for gaining power allows one to gain it. The psychology of power has both negative and positive aspects. But regardless of our attitude towards it, we must understand it, accept it, and if we need it, if we want to have at least some kind of power, then develop it in ourselves. And remember that before you gain power over people - you need to gain it over yourself!
