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Power and Its Logic

The document discusses the nature of power as a social phenomenon that exists through relationships among people, suggesting that universal principles of power may exist if common human characteristics are identified. It critiques historical perspectives that deny a singular human nature, highlighting anthropological universals such as the incest taboo and property as evidence of a shared essence among humans. Additionally, it notes that biological factors have remained consistent throughout human history, influencing human behavior and thought.

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54 views1 page

Power and Its Logic

The document discusses the nature of power as a social phenomenon that exists through relationships among people, suggesting that universal principles of power may exist if common human characteristics are identified. It critiques historical perspectives that deny a singular human nature, highlighting anthropological universals such as the incest taboo and property as evidence of a shared essence among humans. Additionally, it notes that biological factors have remained consistent throughout human history, influencing human behavior and thought.

Uploaded by

sunil95984176
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Nature of Power | 31

plausible. Power, as we established in Chapter 1.1, is an irreducible social phe-


nomenon that exists only in and through interacting relationships between people.
Without people there is no power. Thus, the essence of power is inseparably con-
nected with that of humankind. Accordingly, if there are no characteristics that are
common to all people, no matter what time they come from and how they are
socialized, then there are no universal principles of power. But if there are human
characteristics that persist across all times and contexts, it suggests that the same
applies to the logic of power.
That brings us to our second premise. The question of whether there is one
kind of human nature has always been a bone of contention among historians,
social scientists and philosophers. Until the late 1980s, the conception of critical
theory and existentialism dominated the discourse to the extent that statements
about humankind as such were deemed mere ideological constructs.48 What a per-
son is and what a person is not becomes, so the Marxist-inspired thesis, exclu-
sively determined by changing economic conditions. Beyond that, there is no char-
acteristic structure of human forms of action and life. This position has been con-
tested in recent years, rightly so.
An important criticism comes from the realm of ethnology. The diversity of
human life forms is immense, but nevertheless there are “features of culture, soci-
ety, language, behavior, and mind that [...] are found among all peoples.”49 The
list of these ‘anthropological universals’, which are determined by intercultural
comparative research, is long. A well-documented example is the incest taboo,
which applies without exception in all societies. Another universal is that of prop-
erty, which, though in many variations, is a core element of the emergence of
every human community. Such conspicuous universal structures can, so the thesis,
exist only if there is an immutable essence of humankind. Otherwise they would
be completely inexplicable.
Another criticism comes from philosophical anthropology in conjunction with
biology. Here it is pointed out that the action, thinking, feeling, etc. of human
beings is largely determined by their biological bodies and that this body has re-
mained the same since the appearance of humankind about 300,000 years ago. A
theoretician, who is currently experiencing a renaissance in this context, is the

48 Sartre, Jean-Paul ([1945] 2007): Existentialism is a Humanism, John Kulka (ed.), trans-
lated by Carol Macomber, New Haven: Yale University Press.
49 Cf. Brown, Donald E. (2004): Human Universals, Human Nature, Human Culture,
Daedalus, 133 (4), pp. 47-54.

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