The three lies of power
For all the aspiring authoritarians wanting to “do the right thing” and force their good ideas on everyone, Adam Mastroianni outlines the wildly delusional three lies of power:
- The good guys will always have more power than the bad guys (ed note: I’d argue, the fact we even believe good guys vs. bad guys anyway)
- When the good guys acquire unlimited power, they’ll know what to do with it
- Good ideas are powerless and need to be spread by force
You could basically quote the whole of the Tao Te Ching here in support of this idea. To force a thing typically means the opposite happens; the folly of labeling good from evil anyway, especially when it comes to power.
It’s entirely the wrong way to go about things.
Ideas can succeed in the short run by being politically convenient, but they succeed in the long run by being true. —Adam Mastroianni, Good Ideas Don’t Need Bayonets
- previously: the most hideous ideologies are the ones we believe without realizing it, and yearning to force people to do the right thing on our terms is one of the worst of them
- see also: thinking people are stupid is the gateway drug to worse ideas — how can our ideas always be the right ones?
- see also: purity and supremacy go hand in hand, since having all the right, pure, true thoughts leads to some nasty supremacist outcomes