On Power —力について－

There is a famous proverb about how access to power can change someone’s character for the worse: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

If this proverb is true, then even a well intentioned, moral person must be given only limited power, and their use of the power watched carefully. 

Plato discussed the problem thousands of years ago.  He imagined two magical rings, which could make the wearer invisible at will.  If one ring were given to an unjust and immoral person, it is clear that they would commit crimes without fear of getting caught.  But what if a just and moral man was given the other ring of invisibility?  Plato wondered for how long a just and moral person could resist stealing what they wanted from the marketplace, and lying with whatever women they pleased.  If even an initially good person had such power, wouldn’t they quickly become indistinguishable from the bad person? 

I was thinking about abuses of power because of a news story I read this week.  In India, a powerful politician took a boat out onto a reservoir.  He took his mobile phone out to take a selfie.  Unfortunately, he dropped his phone into the water, where it sank to the bottom of the deep reservoir.  The politician ordered scuba divers to be sent into the water to retrieve his phone.  When they were unsuccessful, he ordered water pumps to be brought in to drain the water from the reservoir so that he could find the phone.  He was eventually stopped when local people complained, and the media made the story public, and ridiculed the politician. 

[Poof!]  All of a sudden, the magic ring of invisibility ceases to work, and your actions are exposed for all the world to see.

 

Vocabulary:

to corrupt someone – to cause someone to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain

[eg. Drug companies sometimes try to corrupt doctors into over-prescribing their medicines, in return for valuable gifts]

indistinguishable – Of two or more things, impossible to tell apart

[eg., the two identical twins are indistinguishable, and they sometimes have fun swapping clothes and changing places]

a reservoir – a deep body of water kept in reserve for a public use, such as for drinking or irrigation

[eg., Because of the long, dry weather, the level of the city’s reservoir has fallen.]