pow·er  (pour)

n.

1. The ability or capacity to perform or act effectively.

2. A specific capacity, faculty, or aptitude. Often used in the plural: her powers of concentration.

3. Strength or force exerted or capable of being exerted; might. See Synonyms at strength.

4. The ability or official capacity to exercise control; authority.

5. A person, group, or nation having great influence or control over others: the western powers.

6. The might of a nation, political organization, or similar group.

7. Forcefulness; effectiveness: a novel of unusual power.

8. Chiefly Upper Southern U.S. A large number or amount. See Regional Note at powerful.

9.

a. The energy or motive force by which a physical system or machine is operated: turbines turned by steam power; a sailing ship driven by wind power.

b. The capacity of a system or machine to operate: a vehicle that runs under its own power.

c. Electrical or mechanical energy, especially as used to assist or replace human energy.

d. Electricity supplied to a home, building, or community: a storm that cut off power to the whole region.

10. Physics The rate at which work is done, expressed as the amount of work per unit time and commonly measured in units such as the watt and horsepower.

11. Electricity

a. The product of applied potential difference and current in a direct-current circuit.

b. The product of the effective values of the voltage and current with the cosine of the phase angle between current and voltage in an alternating-current circuit.

12. Mathematics

a. See exponent.

b. The number of elements in a finite set.

13. Statistics The probability of rejecting the null hypothesis where it is false.

14. A measure of the magnification of an optical instrument, such as a microscope or telescope.

15. powers Christianity The sixth of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology.

16. Archaic An armed force.

adj.

1. Of or relating to political, social, or economic control: a power struggle; a power base.

2. Operated with mechanical or electrical energy in place of bodily exertion: a power tool; power car windows.

3. Of or relating to the generation or transmission of electricity: power companies; power lines.

4. Informal Of or relating to influential business or professional practices: a pinstriped suit with a power tie; met with high-level executives at a power breakfast.

tr.v. pow·ered, pow·er·ing, pow·ers

To supply with power, especially mechanical power.

Idiom:

powers that be

Those who hold effective power in a system or situation: a plan vetoed by the powers that be.

 

[Middle English, from Old French pooir, to be able, power, from Vulgar Latin *potre, to be able, from Latin potis, able, powerful; see poti- in Indo-European roots.]

 

Power, the noun, is an all pervasive, simultaneously overt and covert goal of mankind.  We have sought out the sources, (flint:fire, coal:heat, oil:tbd, uranium:kaboom), that create and enhance its energy definition and fought physical and corporate battles to amass and control its supply.  As an adjective, it is the unquenchable thirst of some to influence and control, well…everything, including the noun.

As life on Earth progresses and we continue to locate, extract and convert the sources of power available to us, we will hopefully become more responsible than has been our history to date.  What muddles the logic of catastrophic avoidance being a universally good thing is yet another power that can somehow resolve such terms as Clean Coal or Acceptable Emissions and choose profit over responsibility while still sleeping soundly as if there is selective immunity to the inevitable consequence of such folly.

As outraged as I am by my recurring theme, above, it is not the power over power that perplexes me the most.  The power of the few over the many, the alpha dogs and their packs, (thank you, Mr. Darwin…shit, I lost the evangelicals again), embedded in our DNA, is how we and most other animals roll.  “Follow me, boys.  We’ll take down that deer…I’ll eat ‘til I’m full…then the rest of you can pick over what’s left.”  Family heads, tribal chiefs, royalty, chosen and unchosen political leaders are rarely benevolent and usually become, to varying degrees, despotic.  The golden ages of societies, with their illusive promises of chickens in pots and better days ahead, have all eventually turned bad for the common man, resulting in revolution to stem the inequities.  Today, we, the USA, wield the biggest stick.  We have kick ass technology, piles and piles of modern and rusty weaponry, a willing, albeit exhausted, armed force and strategic bases and partners that can get us up into almost anyone’s business in short order.  We profess to be the touchstone of freedom and equality and yet we have time and again shown such a lack of focus for imposing our belief, (at home and abroad), in these most humane rights as to paralyze our moral center.  A righteous power would not have stood by while 6,000,000 were being slaughtered until an additional 2,500, lost on the “day of infamy”, stirred it to action.  A righteous power would not negotiate with psychopathic monsters to maintain an economic status quo.  A righteous power would not accept a laissez faire attitude toward brutality and genocide, as a second generation Assad slaughters his own people and a new Kim Jong assures the bleakest of futures for North Koreans.  And a righteous power would not react with troops and drones and bombs as its go to solution for everything.

I admit that I lack too much information to offer a valuable plan of action for facing down the perpetrators of heinous acts against humanity.  I do know that the choices we are making are too often skewed by reasons and rhetoric nearly as heinous.  We need to be, unconditionally, that righteous power that puts life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness above all else and uses that power to emphatically encourage those basic human rights for any society with which we interact, (that would be all of them), or we take our food, our technology…our football…and go home.  Simplistic…I know, but we will only have the stick for a little while longer, so how we use it is a good v. evil deal, right?  Good’s better.