Power

[bailey_187]

Huey Newton said that "Power is the ability to define phenomena and act to make it move in a desired manor".

What are the Critcisms of this?

[RED DAVE]

Huey Newton said that "Power is the ability to define matter and act to make it move in a desired manor".

What are the Critcisms of this?Good rhetoric but lousy political philosophy. The point of political power is the ability to control or strongly influence the decisions that dominate your life.

Political economy is not reducible to physics.

RED DAVE

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

The "and" is a problem. You can have the power to turn on a light, but you might not make it do so in the desired manner. You can cure cancer, but radiation is not the desired manner.

And you arguably can't define matter because it exists and we simply discover it.

[Dean]

Huey Newton said that "Power is the ability to define matter and act to make it move in a desired manor".

What are the Critcisms of this?

I think this is fundamentally accurate. While a lot more could be said, it nonetheless sums up what the defining characteristics of power are in a succinct manner.

[Belisarius]

the problem with defining such big words, like power, love or freedom, is that they have meant many different things in many different situations. there is so much meaning in these words that there isn't really anything left, meaning "exploded".so the only definitions left are the ones who do not really tell anything more about the word, like this definition of power (the definition could as easily be for technology or physics)

[Meridian]

the problem with defining such big words, like power, love or freedom, is that they have meant many different things in many different situations. there is so much meaning in these words that there isn't really anything left, meaning "exploded".so the only definitions left are the ones who do not really tell anything more about the word, like this definition of power (the definition could as easily be for technology or physics)
Yes. Power means different things in different situations.

These type of resolute definitions sound fancy, and make fancy signatures, but don't mean much. The "power" he is talking about there don't apply in too many cases.

[Dean]

Yes. Power means different things in different situations.

These type of resolute definitions sound fancy, and make fancy signatures, but don't mean much. The "power" he is talking about there don't apply in too many cases.

I absolutely disagree. Take the example of managerial power. Depending on status, a manager has the ability to define many fundamental driving characteristics of the everyday life of his employees, such as their continued employment, their buying power, their labor routine, and the character of their labor. These are all distinctly material facts, and the same can be said for the power of corporate and political elites.

Unless you do not have a materialist perspective, you cannot reject the notion that power over the material world is indeed the definition of human power. This is why, in my last post, I said that "a lot more could be said," because without such explanations provided herein, I think it is very easy to be confused, and come to the understandable conclusion that the statement was senseless grandstanding.

[scarletghoul]

Actually I believe the definition Huey gave was "Power is the ability to define phenomena and make it act in a desired manner." This is differant defining matter, as it can be applied to non-material things aswell such as ideas.

And yeah I think it's a correct definition.

Here's a great speech by Bobby Seale, and he gives an example of how this definition of power applies in practice.
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[Meridian]

I absolutely disagree. Take the example of managerial power. Depending on status, a manager has the ability to define many fundamental driving characteristics of the everyday life of his employees, such as their continued employment, their buying power, their labor routine, and the character of their labor. These are all distinctly material facts, and the same can be said for the power of corporate and political elites.

Unless you do not have a materialist perspective, you cannot reject the notion that power over the material world is indeed the definition of human power. This is why, in my last post, I said that "a lot more could be said," because without such explanations provided herein, I think it is very easy to be confused, and come to the understandable conclusion that the statement was senseless grandstanding.
I agree that it holds true in the cases you mentioned. And of course those are material facts, I agree completely.

But where is the "defining matter" in "there is a lot of power here, this lightbulb needs it for electricity" or something like that? Or in "watch out for those big waves; there's a lot of power in those!"?

My biggest beef with it is that to define something must be done by a human. But "power" exceeds the description of human activities.

[AerodynamicOwl]

Good rhetoric but lousy political philosophy. The point of political power is the ability to control or strongly influence the decisions that dominate your life.

Political economy is not reducible to physics.

RED DAVE


....Thats what he said, Simply. You can have all your wordy arguments with huge words. that's not hard. it can even be compared to a bureaucracy, where a simple well reasoned argument is, say democracy? streamlined and refined so that even a simpleton could understand.

[AerodynamicOwl]

The "and" is a problem. You can have the power to turn on a light, but you might not make it do so in the desired manner. You can cure cancer, but radiation is not the desired manner.

And you arguably can't define matter because it exists and we simply discover it.




We discover it, but how do we tell matter apart? we give it characters. Definition against other matter.

Definition is defined as




–Noun the act of defining or making definite, distinct, or clear.

[OldMoney]

Maybe Huey P. Newton was way ahead of his time and he forsaw the integration of particle accelerators with nano bots. Little machines that can pull subatomic particles out from atoms and rearange them to create the desired matter, like combining 8 hydrogen atoms to make an oxygen atom. The only problem with that is the only particle acecelerator that we have is ginormous. But the ability to change matter at a subatomic level would be a prety sweet power eh!

[scarletghoul]

ATTENTION EVERYONE: the quote actually said 'phenomena', not 'matter'. Seems some of you missed that as youre still debating the thing about matter..

[Dean]

ATTENTION EVERYONE: the quote actually said 'phenomena', not 'matter'. Seems some of you missed that as youre still debating the thing about matter..

This only marginally changes the argument, though, since phenomena exist as material occurences. There is no "immaterial"phenomena, so we are simply talking about the state of matter, rather than simply matter, which I don't think changes too much for the discussion.

Though, it is worth noting that the correct quote included "phenomena."