Abstract
Few concepts are more encrusted with myth than is power. Most of us crave it; some of us are its captive; but all of us are, at some point or other, at its mercy. In its complete absence, life is hollow. At such moments, we may try to control our environments, but, as in a bad dream, our muscles freeze and we find ourselves running in place. Love, beauty, safety, and success fade into nothingness and we cower under the bedsheets expecting little—and getting less. Is it any wonder that many of us adopt substitute visions of glory? We literally find it preferable to pretend that we have been touched by greatness than admit our all too ample weaknesses. In our imaginations, at least, we brush our enemies aside and appropriate their possessions for ourselves. Such daydreams can be comforting, that is., while they are in progress. They become a problem, however, when they reach into our waking lives and deceive us about what is feasible.
All our power lies in both mind and body; we employ the mind to rule, the body rather to serve; the one we have in common with the Gods, the other with the brutes. Sallust, The War with Cataline
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Racial “Empowerment”
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Fein, M.L. (2001). Racial “Empowerment”. In: Race and Morality. Clinical Sociology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1281-3_7
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