Power is Better than Empowerment

Of course I have to explain what I mean by that stark statement.  I use the words “power” and “empowerment” to refer to different ideas.  You may have other words to describe the difference.  The difference is much more important than the particular words used.  Power has gotten a bad reputation but I want to bring it back as one of the essentials in life. Most people I meet say they want to be empowered in the sense that they want other people to listen to them, respect what they ask for and act toward them in decent, respectful ways.  What I hear is a sense of being given something – respect, civility, being taken seriously.  Notice that there’s no common form of the word that allows us to take empowerment whether or not the other person wants to give it to you.

Maybe a good example of what I object to in this use of the word empowerment was captured in a commercial for Hummers that lasted for only a short time.  It showed an upscale young woman with her 4-5 year-old son having fun at what looked like a public playground.  Suddenly a large, coarse, crude looking woman was there with her large, crude, coarse 4-5 year-old child.  The bully shoved the upscale child aside and took over the slide they both wanted to use.  The upscale mom glared at the other mother, who glared right back.  The upscale child looked crushed and did nothing.

The upscale mom was fuming but said and did nothing.  Instead, as the next scene showed, she bought a new Hummer and was happily driving with her child as the voice over intoned that she now felt “empowered.”

Nothing like a new Hummer to make you feel empowered.  Even though she never said or did anything to protect her child and help him get his turn on the slide.

Power’s bad reputation is because of the many misuses of power that we’re all aware of.  A seemingly logical mistake was to think that since power can be misused and “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” any power is dangerous and bad.

Power is neutral.  Power is the engine that moves us through life.  Power is as necessary as an engine is.  We all know what it’s like trying to motivate or depend on a person who has little or no engine.

Without an engine, nothing is possible.  With a great engine we can get somewhere.  And with a great engine, we must also have a great steering wheel and brakes.  As Spiderman’s uncle said to him, “With great power comes great responsibility.

Unlike empowerment, power is ours for the taking.  We must take power over ourselves and over our personal space.  Freedom isn’t free.  No one can give you freedom and liberty.  They must be fought for and won by each individual.

What does this have to do with taunting, teasing, harassing, bullying and abuse?

When we take power over our inner world, we can also take charge of our outer world.  If we ask bullies to stop but they don’t, we don’t have to beg them, we don’t become victims while we’re waiting for laws, policies and programs to be enacted in order to empower us; we act from our own personal power.

Of course, I don’t mean for us to become murdering vigilantes.  But I do mean for us to act skillfully to protect ourselves and to stop bullies.  We don’t go buy a Hummer to feel good.  We do something to rectify the situation in which there’s bullying or abuse.

Empowerment that’s given, gives shallow and hollow confidence and self-esteem.  Confidence and self-esteem are real and deep when they’re forged by standing up courageously, powerfully and skillfully to challenging situations.

Relentless bullies are predators.  They see weak people as easy targets; they become bolder in their attacks.  They see strong people as difficult or dangerous to them and they go looking for easier targets.

Take power over yourself – discipline and train yourself.  Take power over your personal space – decide who you’ll allow on your island.  Take power over your present and future.

Stop Bullies: Recognize Governor Sanford's Abusive Behavior

In her New York Times book review, “Facing Scandal, Keeping Faith,” Janet Maslin describes Jenny Sanford’s new book, “Staying True.” Jenny, wife of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, notes many typical warning signs of stealthy, manipulative, controlling bullies when she describes her husband’s behavior in their early marriage arrangements, and during the public unraveling of his attempted cover up of lies to her and the people of the State he’s supposed to represent. Some of Governor Sanford’s typical behavioral warning signs of bullies:

• They’re more important than you are.  Their whims, wishes, desires count; your needs don’t.

“Even in his young and footloose days, when Mr. Sanford worked in commercial real estate and Jenny Sullivan was the rare female analyst working at Lazard Frères in New York, he showed signs of being unusually demanding…He drew up a facetious prenuptial agreement that laughingly stated the husband’s right to control the family finances and be the final arbiter in all matters.”

And, “After their wedding there were warning bells…When Ms. Sanford’s beloved grandfather died, Mark saw no reason to attend the funeral.  When she was pregnant with their first son, he got bored after a single Lamaze class and insisted that he needed no instruction.  As the book colorfully recalls, he said, ‘I’ve spent many long nights helping cows give birth and I know what to do when the baby gets stuck.’

• Everyone is a pawn in their plans.  They use you and justify it logically.

“Mark Sanford had relied on his wife of 20 years for professional and moral support, even if his reasons for recruiting her services were not always the most noble.  ‘But you’re free,’ he once pointed out, explaining why she should run his first Congressional campaign.  He wasn’t referring to her uncluttered schedule.”

By the way, their reasons and justifications tell you what their most important priories are.  And that your expected role in life is to help them satisfy those priorities.

• It’s all about them.  They think they know best about everything.  Their rules should rule. They should control everything.

Governor Sanford’s first move after the teary news conference last June, in which he expressed his sincere love for his Argentine girlfriend, was to get on the phone to his wife as soon as the cameras were off, and ask her: “How’d I do?”

“He even sought her permission to continue his affair, and expected her to empathize with his loneliness, she says. ‘What he does not see is how morally offensive it is to me even to listen to this.’”

• Their excuses should excuse.  They lie and when they’re caught they’ll justify and argue relentlessly, including splitting hairs like a lawyer and changing the subject.

“Amazed by the ego stroking that came with a political career, Ms. Sanford writes, she watched her husband morph into a restless, distant character.  He stopped bothering to be strict with their four children. He worried about his bald spot. And he spent more and more time away from home, telling what turned out to be flagrant lies about his reasons for travel.  A trip to New York to talk with publishers about his book on conservative values turned out to be a surreptitious tryst with the Argentine woman.”

“Once Ms. Sanford figured out what was going on and fought vehemently with her husband, he sided adamantly with his lover. (‘She is not a whore!’)”

See “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and the “Top 12 Warning Signs of controlling Husbands” for more details.

Jenny Sanford is bright and perceptive; she saw the signs of harassment, bullying and abuse.  She tolerated his behavior.  She ignored or hoped that he wouldn’t take the path he did.  That’s a choice common to people who end up in Jenny’s situation, whether experienced under the microscope of national television or in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

Of course, bullying women also show these same warning signs and men go along for the ride.

Great people, people on great and consuming missions show these behaviors.  What you do in response to these signs is your business.  You may be willing to tolerate bullying in service to the person you love and to the mission.

It’s really about where you draw the line in the gray area.  For example, suppose the fame and adulation didn’t go to Governor Sanford’s head?  Suppose he stayed in love with Jenny, didn’t get a huge crush for this mistress (or others we don’t know about) and cared more for his children?

Many great people have.  In that case, Jenny wouldn’t have written that book and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

But hubris and infatuation have long been recognized as leading to great falls in life.

Teenage student harassed, bullied and beaten, but none of the adults at school protected him.

According to numerous reports, a teenager was bullied at West Middle School in metro Denver.  The boy had pencils, markers and a calculator taken; he was called fat; he was called “gay” because he was involved in musical theater; because he was from musical theater, he was called a “Nazi.”  Eventually, he tried fighting back against his tormentors.  But he wasn’t big or strong enough and was beaten severely.  He suffered a broken collar bone and head injury.  The published picture of him is self-evident.  Now that the case has become public, the community is in an uproar and the Cherry Creek School District has responded by expelling the bully.  The bullied boy has reported that the bully threatened to beat him more when he returns.  Three other students, who also threatened to beat up the victim, have been required to sign contracts that they won’t harass the boy.  That’s nice of the school district to go that far. Of course the legal wrangling will go on for a long time.

There’s so much to say about this example of hostility, abuse and brutality.  I want to comment on only a few areas.

The adults failed.  Whether they blame the legal system or say they didn’t know; they failed. Since the severe beating happened at the end of November, don’t you think that every student in school knew what was happening? 

The parents of the bully and his collaborators failed.  They are supposed to know their children’s character and to stop their children’s bullying.

The teachers failed.  They are supposed to know who torments, abuses and bully’s another student and they are supposed to stop it.  They allowed a hostile, abusive environment to continue.  If the typical educational approaches don’t work rapidly, they are supposed to intervene in other ways.

The principal failed.  The principal is supposed to set a tone of zero tolerance.  The principal is supposed to be courageous enough to cut through the legal red tape and somehow stop bullies.  If the teachers don’t stop it, the principal is supposed to stop it and then get rid of those cowardly and/or ignorant teachers.  The worst beating happened at the end of November and the principal did nothing effective for three months until the story became public.

The administrators in the school district failed.  The administrators are supposed to be courageous enough to cut through the legal red tape and somehow stop bullying.  If the principal doesn’t stop it, the school district administrators are supposed to step in and then get rid of that cowardly and/or ignorant principal.  The worst beating happened at the end of November and the district administrators did nothing effective for three months until the story became public.

How can we hold up these teachers, principal and school district administrators as models for children?  They have failed as models.  Despite, or maybe because of, their colleges and universities, their degrees and certifications, their possible expertise in some course matter, they have shown themselves to be ignorant or cowardly or inept or all three.  They have failed the public trust and are unfit to be teachers, principal or administrators.

They should not be allowed to hide behind a poor legal system.  We all know that there are schools in the most violent locations in which courageous administrators, principals and teachers bullying.  And they do it in the face of the same.

The 14 year-old boy who was bullied has shown himself to be courageous.  He has succeeded.  At first he did what we all try to do.  We try accommodating in hopes that the bully will move on.  We ask bullies to stop; we take the bullying; we try to understand what lousy home lives we think bullies must have; we try to rise above it.  These tactics may stop many kids who are temporarily trying on bullying to see what it feels like, but those tactics don’t stop dedicated, relentless bullies.  They are not effective for teaching children to stop bullies at school.

Eventually that boy fought.  I say he succeeded because, even though he was severely beaten he did what was necessary to try to stop his tormentors.  He lost the fight but he emerges as the one person who is not a coward in this affair.  He can hold his head up high all his life.  He can keep his self-esteem.  He can judge the adults as cowards and failures.  I hope he is resilient enough to bounce back  and continues to resist to bullies the rest of his life.  I hope that when he becomes an adult with more choices, he creates a personal life that is bully-free.  Sometimes, a tormented teen can fight back and win – as in the case of the “Teen acquitted in punch.”

Of course, bullies will always exist .  America is not unique, nor are we the worst people in the world.  We are outraged and we will try to make better systems.  And more important, we still must train , seek and hire people who can act effectively, no matter how poor the system is at any moment.  And we must educate and prepare individuals to be as courageous as that 14 year-old boy.

Among other places, this story was carried by the Denver Post (Bullies called teen “Nazi” and “gay”), 9news (Student says he was bullied, beaten because he’s German), the Denver Channel News (Boy: School Bullies Harassed Him Because Of German Ancestry) and the Denver Post Neighbors Forum (Article Discussion: Cherry Creek teen may face bully in court).