Clowns and balloon animals

We might think all we have discovered about power so far is that it’s always coercion, just in a form we find difficult to spot. Yet even this idea, although very sensible in some respects, begins to run into problems the more we think about it.One reason for this is that political scientists, the ones who use normative or classical ideas about power the most, can’t really ignore the overwhelming significance and influence of the very different organisations and social systems that surround us in life. There are many of these, and they’re more than just the arms of government.These embrace all that is ‘structural’, all the ideas, traditions, cultural codes and meanings in the world we find ourselves working to as well as the more obvious and everyday structures we support, like our politics, what is good for our health, the best places to put our savings (if we have any), the schools we send our children to or the wishes of judges and churches.Sure, all these have a coercive effect, on top of all the other things they do for us, but they also tend to resist clarity or common sense about what coercion is doing or where it is taking us. They complicate matters and don’t always operate in the way we think they do, or indeed should.This is because structures like these aren’t really set up to deal with individual will or agency. By definition, they’re concerned with socialisation and social activity, reflecting at least several sources of coercive force if that’s where we still want to put our definition of power.They also deal in the uncertain, ill-formed, emerging, abstract or nebulous. They deal with what might be there as much as what is actually the case.They must respond to resistance and contradiction but can only do so on terms that reflect their own unique circumstances, operating systems, area of interest or reach.They become entities that are actually independent of the people and ideas they comprise, with their own demands and success criteria, strengths and weaknesses, and, at the end of the day, with their own will to exist, prevail through the bad times or pack-up altogether.They are, at best, machines of compromise limited by their purpose, design, effectiveness and management. As a result, these structures become power centres in their own right dealing in the shared and social effects of the power they were set up to regulate or encounter.So, if our definition of power is still attached to the idea of force, this must at least be in a form that engages with a shared intent, harnesses joint enterprise, and deals in consensus, compromise and imperfection. This is something very different to individual will or direct influence.Structures ask us to arrange power in an order, one that works alongside other things, forms sub-systems of independent purpose and operates coherently alongside very different topics, expectations, means of communication or social priority.In other words, these structures require us to see power as something more than the ability to exploit, say, a boss and worker relationship or submit to the strongest owner of the biggest stick.They become something discursive, meandering, popping-off in unexpected directions, operating in the capricious and shadowy worlds of language, knowledge, precedent, tradition and culture.Further, if we give power a structure, a way of working for us or against other structures, this will tend to, perhaps must, reveal to all what we say should give us authority, acceptance or legitimacy in the first place. The rules of the game become shared and subject to the complexity and counterpoint this invites.It also makes power dynamic and capable of change. It must work a deal in one place to achieve something else in another. This sets hares running and bubbles rising to the surface, disrupting what is settled far away or even with no connection to what was started.Power becomes a balloon animal, shaped into place by a clown. It expands in one place so that it can be modelled differently somewhere else. It is pushed and pulled with no apparent intention until a design becomes visible. Even then, this doesn’t really look like what was promised. We may or may not ask for our money back.Power has no more than a synthesised will and intent, something constructed as it goes along by many other people and circumstances and with an effect relative to the will and intent of others to deny it. It must do more than what we want and achieve less than we intended.At this point, we can see that power may have very little to do with coercion. Maybe nothing at all. This is because, for coercion to exist, it must be directed by intention, be a means to a declared end. In all instances, power must remain a conscious and deliberate act regardless of whether or not it is understood only by one or by many.Yet, if we examine the world around us, think about our own lives and the powers they work to, we see that our journey appears as much fashioned by marginal or poor choices, accidents, disaster, automation, mistakes, limitations, circumstances, misunderstandings and coincidences and a whole host of other invisible and equally baffling experiences.These have force but they have no intent. They have capacity but no plan or design. Indeed, they might just be the most powerful things we ever encounter but they embrace no will or desire. They can’t coerce because they are without any real means to guarantee anything. Yet, they still change us profoundly nevertheless.This is the real power of the social world, its serendipities, contingencies and happenstances, and it is the form we seem to neglect most when we think about power.So, we must look to where all this takes us for definitions, beyond a simple acceptance of coercion or normality and the degrees to which these are possible or enforceable even if we can’t ignore such things either.Surely, if we do this, we’ll find a cause, an explanation, for power we can work with? Of course, if we’ve discovered anything so far, it’s that power will ask us to be disappointed at some point or another.Image: AI. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drrobdalton.substack.com