Kabe Horsley

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Jan. 12, 2016

Period 3
Power vs. fear

I am going to change your mind about this In her book,Freedom from Fear,
Nobel Peace Prize winner and Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi
said, "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those
who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to
it."(Freedom From Fear) this is a great quote because it expresses that everyone
is afraid of someone else with that Power doesn't corrupt the minds of the
people, fear is the emotion that causes corruption. I believe there is a correlation
between fear and the amount of power people seek. An individual's motivation for
power is to acquire control over his environment. A certain amount of controlling
behavior is a healthy natural survival instinct, but after a point it becomes
harmful. When that happens, normal survival is no longer the motivator.
Underlying the quest for power is fear, and the desire for power is to eliminate
fear. The more fearful a person is the more control over their environment they
believe they need to feel safe. When they seek out public office this becomes a
problem, because those who use power to assuage their own fear, also use fear
against others to bolster and maintain their power. Citizens, who are also fearful,
support the power-monger to the detriment of all.(Wilson Jr. paragraph 7)
Fear is the main reason why so many people don't go and talk to big
crowds, or why if they fail they go cry in their rooms. If we just change that fear
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into power we could have huge power over even the most powerful people in the
world. The only true fear is the fear of the future, because we think of only the
bad options and are very pessimistic, so when they say they are afraid they
might fail they are just saying that they are fearing what is going to happen to
them if they do fail. That corrupts our minds so much that we can't even begin to
describe what is going through your heads in lots of cases people become very
depressed and even in very rare cases you have teens and adults committing
suicide so they won't have to be a failure to there parents.
That is just part of the problem all through history leaders have been
corrupted by fear, take Joesph Stalin he was the leader for Russia or soviet union
from 1878 to 1963. He was so scared that the Germans were going to take over
the soviet union that in an attempt to stop Germans from invading he completely
bombed his own countryside and cities just to try to keep the
Germans out, because of this thousands if not hundreds of thousands of
Russians dies in their homes from their own leader. He used fear to corrupt the
minds of his enemies by slow down the enemy because they were scared to go
into the cities knowing bombs could go off at any moment. Although Russians
know more about Stalins crimes than they did ever before, many politicians and
historians want to pull him out of the shadows and celebrate him for his role in
the industrialization of the young Soviet state and the victory over Nazi Germany.
(Rachlin Paragraph 2). It is still true that the Russian people are still believing
that Stalin was a god. the women from our neighborhood ran around in the
courtyard of our house crying hysterically when the news of Stalins death
reached our remote Siberian village.(Rachlin Paragraph 10).
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Next, you have Saddam Hussein, he was the leader of Iraq from 1994 to
2003. He was then executed in 2008 when he was 69 years old. As a child he
was beaten by his father again and again until he became the ruling dictator of
Iraq. He loved war and explosives always having wars with countries and always
finding new ways to use explosives in the war. He used fear to corrupt the whole
world because no one knows what he was planning on doing or who he was
going to attack next.
Then we have the infamous Adolf Hitler, the most recognized name in all
of history. Everyone knows the stories about all of the Jews hiding from the
Nazis, all of the concentration camps and the gas chambers but how many
people know how bad it really was, they made the Jews slaves with barely
enough food to survive and tortured them. Then they would kill them just for the
thrill of killing them. Also, a big reason why it was only Jews is because of the
stereotype I've been Jew'd, or that the Jews are tricksters and thieves. All three
of these men are known around the world for being the most feared people to
ever walk on the earth. Whether it was from killing thousands of people or even
blowing up your own country. Fear runs through the veins of each and every one
of them, especially Hitler, he killed an entire population just so they wouldn't steal
from him. He ended up trying to save his power by killing himself so France,
Russia, USA, England wouldn't take his power and it would stay with Germany.
Fear is the most powerful emotion you can produce, as soon as you start
to get scared you go into fight or flight mode this mode makes you become really
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fast or be able to fight better than you ever have before. This is do to adrenaline
this is produced when fear impulses are sent to the rest of the body.

In contrast, "Legitimate Power" or "Positional Power" is formal authority

that is conferred on the holder of the office or position. This is the type of
power managers have within a business enterprise; and it is the type of
power granted to an agent of the government. Subordinates and citizens
must obey the office holders regardless of whether the power is earned
or not.(Wilson Paragraph 10)
When fear affected my life I knew that I could get power over my siblings
so that is exactly what I did, I began to use so much fear my parents were
favoriting me. I know this because I would observe them as they got mad at my
two brothers and twin sister, but they never got mad at me. So I tried this in
school. Teachers started to like me more than others, get better grades on
homework even though me and my friend had the same answers, to getting
treated better in class.
Fear is such a big part of the society and how it affects the world. what
youre most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.(Kyi Freedom
From Fear) So if you are scared of public speaking, as soon as you get up there
to speak, you will be set free, and you will not be worried so much about when I
need to go preach to the public about what you are thinking. Try to be as free as
possible and that means that you need to embrace you fear and let your wings
open and take flight to great success in your life.
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Power is also a huge part of society. People need power to get anywhere
in life. You need power to teach people to have the skills they need to become
anything that they want to be. Now that fear is what corrupts is there any
downsides to power? The answer is yes, what happens if you get a corrupt

leader that is based completely on fear like Hitler, or what happens when the
power is so shared that no one is knowledgeable to be running the country.
Although those are very unlikely there is still a chance that you get a corrupt man
in an imperfect world.
Next, power is great until the minority rise up against you, you must have
the courage to lose a lot of your countrymen in the civil war that will follow. Many
rulers didnt have the courage to stand up for what they believe in so they left the
country for someone else to walk in and take over. They got corrupted by fear
you cant let that happen to you.
However, there are some people that are sceptical about that power
doesnt corrupt. They might think that power corrupts because once you get
power you just want more and more of it and if you cant get more then you go to
war to get more. That Hitler needed more power so he sent troops to poland and
then russia to gain as much power as he can.
In the long run, we that that is wrong because he would have got more that
enough power by just taking poland. That is why power doesnt corrupt the minds
of every person, It is fear because without fear you cant become very successful
but if you fear you will be in a bad state of mind
Book
Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom From Fear, July 14, 2010
News article
Samuel Rachlin, Stalins long shadow, March 04, 2013
Magazine article

Robert Wilson, Power vs. Fear, osp magazine.