Tuesday, April 25, 2006

power and love are not polar opposites

Talking about ANZAC Day and war and the power of women in the emotional and physical trenches that are our markers of these power struggles ... and the love women bring to fill in the holes and sustain life ... makes me think of this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (15 January 19294 April 1968) recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize:

Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. ... There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been constrasted as opposites — polar opposites — so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love. It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject the Nietzschean philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love. Now, we've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on.

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