“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
I’ve had this entry rolling around in my head for weeks- if not months. It’s been stuck, and I kept wavering back and forth on thinking that it’s such a simple concept that the most I would be able to come up with was the title quote and a big ol “D’uh” in the body of the post, sign my name and be done with it.
Or, it’s too complicated to put into words. Because all I’ve done is mentally stutter over it.
So how’s about I stutter over it here and at the end you can tell me if I should have just went with the “D’uh”, ok?
If the title quote (Courtesy of Lord Acton) doesn’t give it away, what I’ve been contemplating is the tendency of some dominants to become heady with power. I’m not at all going to say that it afflicts all doms because I certainly don’t know all doms.
What I can say is that within the circle of submissives and slaves that I know, that I have talked with either in person or through email, those who have left behind some of the more commonly used safeguards such as safewords, contracts, limits, SSC, etc., there has been a common thread. Common enough that I’ve noticed it, talked about, other people have noticed it and talked about it- the fact seems to be that, at some point, these doms become drunk on power.
One rather strange but very enjoyable girl ( 
) used the analogy of playing a game without a referee.
Let’s say there is a lengthy, wicked game of football going on. This isn’t a play-to-win game of football, it’s just a play-for-sport game of football.
Two teams. We’ll call them Team M and Team S.
There is no referee. Nobody to throw flags (red ones, tee hee) or blow whistles. The rules of the game still exist. There is just no unbiased enforcer of the game rules.
Both teams can commit penalties and fouls. But only Team M can penalize Team S. Team S cannot assign penalties back.
So you take one competetitive, commanding, dominant team who holds all the power to play the game in whatever manner they see fit and face them off against a weaker, compliant, amenable team that has zero power to penalize the other team on their fouls.
And then you start the clock and sit back to watch.
What do you THINK is going to happen?
Probably the game starts out decently enough. It’s likely that Team M maintains their sense of fair play, their inherent rightness, their honor and integrity and plays a decent game.
For awhile.
Maybe the first foul Team M commits is truly accidental. Maybe he didn’t mean to stampede over Team S’s player on his way to the goal, so caught up in the energy of the game. Maybe he knew he should have been called for unnecessary roughness, maybe he expected it, waited for it and when it didn’t come, when Team S simply got up, brushed off the uniform, smiled and got back in the game- maybe Team M had a moment of guilt.
Or maybe Team M went- huh. well that was neat. I wonder…
Maybe the next foul was less accidental and a lot more experimental. Testing the compliance of Team S, fouls being committed perhaps with one eye out for the absent referee, not quite convinced this game is playing out, seemingly, this easily.
“Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” ~Lord Acton
I would imagine that power becomes consuming. The fouls become more frequent, less hesitant, more purposeful. With each incident of Team S quietly taking it, I can see it all playing out in a variety of ways.
Maybe Team M stops noticing that they are fouling in the first place. Maybe they never get reminded of it either. Maybe they keep playing, and keep committing penalties, until Team S is so far down that Team S simply… stops playing. Going through the motions, but the spirit is gone.
Or maybe Team M’s arrogance just grows and grows. As arrogance grows, the game starts to leave the field.
With no referee to keep the game played between the white lines, the game becomes larger. With such constant meek compliance from Team S, the players on Team M forget what their power was limited to.
Maybe they forget how to play fair outside of the game. Maybe they start recruiting players and assigning them a spot on Team S. Players who never wanted to play the game in the first place but had the misfortune of somehow being affiliated with Team S.
Team M’s britches get too fucking big. Team M can’t separate consensual players from non-consensual players. Maybe Team M has a big ol’ reality check coming when the non-consensual players on Team S rise up and shove a penalty flag up Team M’s ass.
Or.. maybe Team M does keep it on the field. Maybe Team M is content with hammering on Team S.
And maybe , if Team M hasn’t completely lost their heads, they start to notice how beaten down Team S is getting. Maybe they see the downtrodden faces, the heavy shoulders, the absent smiles. Maybe it starts to niggle at them, their inherent sense of fair play triggered back into rememberance. Maybe they look at the scoreboard with its 1,734 to 0 and ask themselves if this is really winning.
So maybe guilt floods in. Maybe they take their ball and go home. Maybe they quit.
But maybe that reaction is just as cowardly.
“Great men are almost always bad men.” ~Lord Acton
I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that they are bad men. I don’t believe they started out as bad men, and I don’t believe they have to finish as bad men.
Perhaps they got a little rotten in the middle of the game. A little drunk with power, a little blind to the rules.
Having to be your own referee in a game where you make the rules is not easy. A little swing one way or the other seems like a normal and natural expectation as they find their place. What would be, for me, the deciding factor in the good-man/bad-man scale, would be where they ended up after experimenting with the swing.
Can they hold the power with all its glory and privilege and still maintain a level of fair play? Or.. can they not. If they cannot, it’s doubtful they were deserving of the power in the first place.
“The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.” ~Lord Acton
One would think that they’d figure out how to play the game so that Team M uses Team S’s strong points to their advantage– rather than taking advantage of them.
Power is a heady thing, though. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But does it have to?
Uncategorized | kaya | 
Wednesday February 3rd, 2010 9:01am
Thought provoking.
This–the idea that absolute power corrupts the possessor of that power–was one of the chief sets of arguments against actual historical slavery in the United States.
I guess the only thing here is to ask whether Masters have “absolute” power. I’ve read sooo many blogs where the slave in the equation is saying, “He’s got total power! If he wanted me to love him, all he’d have to do is say, so he must not want me to love him!” The (probably a d’oh) point is that she’s in the relationship too, and even though he gets to ref, there are rules, as you say, and she can walk off the field, and she can play better or worse or whatever. Not saying she has equal power (because, DUH, it’s a power exchange), but that there’s potential for pushback, which I’ve seen in people’s lives. Maybe not useful as a reply. Blather.
[rq=2040643,0,blog][/rq]Assorted
Fabulous analogy kaya! I may not be in an M/s relationship but a lot of what you describe happens here too (when I’m being good), but I have to agree with Sera on the bit that both are in the relationship, both agreed to play the game by rules but also that the M team has veto power of those rules. While it may appear that the M-team has absolute power, as you pointed out in your story, they are eventually going to see the score and the effect of their power on the s-team. Then comes a choice. They can go back to following the rules, feel guilty and then follow the rules or keep on playing the way they have been.
So no, it doesn’t have to be that way, a D-type makes the ultimate decision to remain corrupted or move back into the rules the relationship had established.
Just my thoughts.
[rq=2045367,0,blog][/rq]Brush it Off
but if He (or She) has absolute control and it has been voluntarily given (not taken forcefully)….then He is the Boss. His rules. My Sir gives me a hell of a lot of leeway…but just yesterday reminded me (as i was “tweeking” him…”you know, nilla, that line in the sand we talked about”
n: yes, Sir?
S: it moves.
n: oh. aaahhh.
and i’m okay with that.
[rq=2046621,0,blog][/rq]Subbie
d’uh.
Power is nothing without control.
I can have the most powerful muscle car in town, but without a delicate right foot and the right tyres on the road, it is all wasted.
Kaya,
My first thought was, “Just what’s happening with Kaya to generate this post?” Then I remembered that you’re much like me, in that thoughts just come to you and you have to write about them. You blog them, while I make stories out of them (like how my thought of, “what if someone couldn’t say no to anyone became All Things For All People).
So, thinking about this whole power thing, I’m reminded of the line from Proverbs that is so frequently misquoted as, “Money is the root of all evil,” when it actually says, “Money is the root of all kinds of evil.” I don’t believe that everyone will be corrupted by power, at least not absolutely. hat said, my world view (Christian) is that people are inherently sinful and will gravitate towards evil acts unless they take positive action to not do so. Honestly, that’s hard work.
But, we’re all different and will react to the same thing differently. Look at a graphic example, one that is frequently misused by conservative Christians. It’s pretty well established that the vast majority of serial killers are “addicted” to violent porn (you know, the stuff we like on kink.com). All of these killers started with more mundane porn and progressed to the more kimky (violent) stuff. This leads some to assume, incorrectly, that porn causes them to be serial killers. The problem, of course, is that the overwhelming vast majority of people who enjoy kinky porn don’t become serial killers. Why, because they, at some level, choose not to. Some of us just enjoy watching it. Some of us pretend and become WASes. Others go deeper and delve into M/s and O/p. It’s only those sick few that take it to the level of murder.
My point is that every one of us has free will and can make choices. We can choose to not let the power go to our head and to “play fair” as you put it. Our motivations for reigning ourselves in might be different (one might be disquieted by what he sees in himself while the other can’t enjoy himself unless the other team is enjoying herself).
The other thing to considder is that power dosn’t exist, nor is it exercised, in a vacuum. There are others, non-players, watching. While they can’t call the fouls or change how the game is being played directly, they can express their displeasure in many ways; be it being disruptive of the power holders or simply refusing to watch anymore. If there’s anything in the Ms that desires the respect or approval of the spectators, they will play, to a certain extent, to them. if any of the team does so, they will, in turn, exert influence over their fellow Ms to play nicer as well.
Wow, I think I did it again; took over kind of. Oh well.
Dave
PS what does it mean when the line just below this box says I’ve been banned for having three feed errors?
actually Dweaver, it’s the *love* of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Money is not evil.
[rq=2039678,0,blog][/rq]The Security Blanket of Enslavement
Doubleknot,
I knew that; I was even thinking that when I was typing, but my fingers didn’t pay attention. Thanks for the correction.
Dave
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Hmmm…it really depends on the person, although there are few examples of those who have been given absolute power who have not abused it. Our government is a Goliath of an example that supports that very quote. Washington however, was a great example of the rare ruler who didn’t let it go to his head. When he could have been the king of the United States, he stepped down and voluntarily gave up his seat as President.
While I was reading your example though, (and it was a fabulous analogy btw!) I couldn’t help but think, “Well, this happens in vanilla relationships too!” The penalties and whatnot are boundaries. When someones boundaries get crossed and they don’t say anything about it, it teaches the other person that it’s ok to cross them again and again. That old cliche, “We teach others how to treat us.” is VERY VERY true. One might question the virtue of a person who would knowingly cross another person’s boundaries again and again (still talking in a vanilla sense) the truth is that it’s rarely apparent that a boundary is being crossed. People are generally pretty self absorbed and they operate from many different defense mechanisms that they don’t understand themselves.
Now, translating this into M/s…I think that a lot of submissives have a tendency to confuse leaving behind things like SSC and limits with the leaving behind of their boundaries, (and to be honest…MANY submissives don’t have great boundary setting skills to begin with.) While there are some obvious boundaries that a Master can help a slave with (I know that that’s why many boundary challenged subs seek out the protection of a master) the majority of them they can’t. Only the submissive themselves can know what makes them uncomfortable or, to use your analogy, when a foul is being committed. The other team may know, on some level, that they’ve committed a foul…but they can’t ever really know just how that’s affected the other team if the other team gets up and puts a smile on their face and brushes off their uniform.
Just because “he’s the boss” doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t have all the information (communication about the boundary being crossed) in order to do a actions/consequences consensus. Would Team M have continued committing those fouls if they’d realized earlier in the game the toll that it was going to eventually have on Team S and that in the end, the game wouldn’t be any fun for either of them?
An example – My man has a tendency to hock lugees into the tub while he’s on the toilet. He’s a smoker. They’re gross. As the man of the house, and my Master, it’s his right to do that…yes? Me? It makes me gag. It’s nasty to look at, and clean up. I’m all for a man being able to indulge in nasty manly habits and I put up with the farting, the belching and him peeing on the back of the toilet occasionally. That one particular habit grosses me out to the point where it makes me not want to kiss him and my libido has been so touch and go lately that anything that I’m really sensitive to anything that makes me not want to be intimate with him.
Now, as a slave, I could clean it up, not say anything (get up, brush myself off and get back in the game) all the while having my libido affected every time it happens…or I could state that a boundary is being crossed. (mention that he comitted a foul).
That does NOT mean, that I am the enforcer. He still has every right as man of the house and Master to say STFU bitch, I’ll spit in my tub if I want to and you’ll clean it up happily! And then it’s my deal to get around it, change my perspective on it…whatever. OR, he can do a consequences/action assessment and realize that I’m having a hard enough time with my libido right now, having to add getting over/around him spitting in the tub is probably asking a little much…and just remember to wash it down the drain before he leaves the bathroom.
MANY slaves would fret over whether or not to mention it, not feel it was “their place” and just deal with it, all the while, feeling more and more beat down. (obviously, this was a small example…hopefully you get my drift though.)
I really wish that less time would be spent in the forums debating limits, who has them, who doesn’t, whether or not it makes you a twue slave, or whether or not you’re opening the door for your master to cutted your head off…and more time was spent on boundaries, how to strengthen them, and how to communicate them. They really aren’t the same at all and I really do think that the majority of M/s relationships fail, or get into hot water because not enough attention is given to them.
Holy crap…sorry! I haven’t been blogging much, I think I’m having withdrawls…lol
I personally thought your comment was amazingly well-said, and read every word!
[rq=2040710,0,blog][/rq]Public Post
Thank you!
Oddly enough, I don’t see us there.
[rq=2047781,0,blog][/rq]Not an Exhibitionist
excellent post, well written, wonderful analogy – all of the reasons i read you daily. Some where we hope that team M understands there is a difference between winning a game, and breaking the spirit beyond repair of the players on team S, and that a sense of good sportsmanship kicks in, otherwise there might just be a revolt from team S. They might just decide we’ve had the shit kicked out of us enough and it is no longer serving a purpose. When two players enter the field something is at stake, it is never just playing the game for the sake of the game, there is always something at stake. As the game evolves, even tho the rules are written by one side and honored by the other, there is that line (we often assume that line is drawn by team M, but is it really?) Whether by manipulation or just part of the human experience it takes two to play. Ok I am rambling, my bottom line, no pun intended is that they are in facts limits, humbly speaking to this idea of “i just follow his rules and obey” is pure unadulterated bullshit. If at some point team S has their core values violated – game over, one way or another. Team S may not leave the field immediately, but that connection, that stake is no longer at play. There are limits folks, while I know it isn’t popular to say that and it violates all rules of Utopia S, it is a cold, hard fact. So we dress up those limits in a variety of uniforms, but it still doesn’t change what it is. And a truly powerful man recognizes and embraces that – he doesn’t hide behind all the “rules”, life is fluid, the game is fluid, always in motion, always in change. A meglomaniac is different in my mind from Dominant or Master. Maybe it all comes down to Team M being able to identify exactly what they are, and Team S recognizing there is a difference.
Conscience directs actions. Sure, someone without a conscience could potentially abuse their power. Hopefully, the man that owns you and the one that owns me are not lacking a conscience.
[rq=2048268,0,blog][/rq]The Security Blanket of Enslavement
As SO many people said before, it was a truly inspired analogy.
I’d like to meet the enjoyable and NOT-strange-in-the-least girl who came up with it.
She sounds kickass.
*preens*
And… Yep. Absolute power can send M-types into a tailspin. Good pilots can pull out of it. Great pilots can pull out of it, and don’t lose their love of flying.
(I still might need a barf bag here in the back, though.)
~Chloe
[rq=2049262,0,blog][/rq]Very Deep Thinking
The analogy of teams is to some degree difficult to applied to my experience…
I definitely believe that absolute power corrupts groups of people. A mob, a conquering army, an invading hoard, all those lose their humanity, their connection to the humanity of the people they oppress… but individually???
I wonder. I do know from my experience that my participation in this one Master/one property (one hesitates to use the word game… for us it is not a competition… it is a journey)… but he does have all the power and to date it has elevated him. In fact it has transformed him. For the first time I see him pausing and really considering the impact of his actions upon me. And now, now that he does have the power and can hurt me, torment me, break me… now I trust him more than I ever did before.
So perhaps individually power can transform one for the better rather than corrupt.
x
kaya, good men are always bad. It is just a matter of how you look at them and your vested interest. Did the good man do stuff you approve of? Or did he do stuff you disagree with. Lots of Russians think nowadays that good old Joe Stalin was a good guy, let’s just forget the twenty million he killed. It all depends on your vested self interest. That said, Lord Acton Acton was a pussy….to parapharse Sam Elliot in a movie.
kaya…… what if…. Team M gets worried that it has gone to far .. even if Team S doesn’t get downtrodden etc?? what if Team M starts to play fair just cause they feel guilty…… what then??
i am off to think about it…. cause it is like an itch i have to scratch…..
morningstar (owned by Warren)
[rq=2050172,0,blog][/rq]The things i saw ………..
Kaya I think this is a wonderful post. Partly because I have thought about D/s using this Lord Acton quote about power and absolute power on my own as well. I had a prof in university that used that quote all the time.
I often get tripped up by wanting things “fair”. And eventually realize that I’m not going to get it. But some things are “D/s fair” which means fair according to whatever rules the D/s couple has established. For example, in our relationship, I won’t have other Doms. He might have other subs and might tell me about them if I ask. Or he might not. He might tell me it’s none of my business. But he won’t lie about them. And that’s D/s fair.
I think that calling them on it occaisionally is good. That’s the thing that keeps Team M honest. They are still gonna play with whatever rules they want to play with. But at least that’s out in the open.
I’m rambling, but it’s such a good subject. Thanks!
[rq=2050501,0,blog][/rq]Addiction
Yes. It does “have to.” If the power is, in fact, absolute, then I believe that there is little or no potential for the one who holds the power to maintain some sense of where “fair play” lies.
[rq=2051074,0,blog][/rq]Sleazy and Stupid
You are so cool and so clever, Kaya. You pointed out my greatest worries about SM. And really, after some time, Team M will probably feel really really bad, and they will want to stop the game. And if there are no other powers for Team M, Team M will leave the field (or the relationship). And in real life, it seems, often, Team S then gets a shock and returns to the rules (partly, at least).
However, from what I see, often Team M, by then, has suffered severe damage. I don´t know whether you have watched that: It seems to me, that one sees M-People with severe health problems much too often. It is such a unique mental struggle to get out of this unfair game (because, unlike in the picture, in real life there is love involved) that often the M person seems to end up seriously ill (as in psychosomatically or in mentally ill). These are my worries, I don´t have proof. But my dom is so much like it. As soon as I don´t constantly use all my energy to stop him, he gets more and more demanding and induces more and more pain. And I am 100% sure that he is a “good man” in the core… I love dominance and pain, but I wiiisshhshed doms could keep a reasonable level without us constantly fighting back (because I, like most of us submissives, probably, detest fighting back).
Thank you, Kaya!
oh no, I think I got S and M mixed up?
Does absolute power corrupt absolutely?
Yes.
Because as much as we don’t like to admit it, Team M is made up of humans, not uncorruptable robots.
Personally I’m yet to meet a dom who has been at this any reasonable length of time who, when you scratch the surface a bit, at the end of the day will do whatever the hell he wants simply because he can. I also find that most doms are self-centred, demanding and completely unable to deal with the concept of delayed gratification.
I think it’s the power that does it. Imagine what would happen to you if you had the power to get what you wanted, when you wanted it all the time. It would take a truly saintly being to remain level-headed.
[rq=2054649,0,blog][/rq]Questions from the deep
i almost fell out of my chair. Yes, they are self-centered and demanding. I would want a dam who wasn’t. So if that is criteria for being a great dom then NDG will make a GREAT one. LOL
Sigh, that should say i wouldn’t want a dom who wasn’t.
Dang fingers…
I was going to reply, but I think I’ll post something on this on my own pages…good topic!
[rq=2056002,0,blog][/rq]Public Displays of Affection
You can find my response here…click the link below.
[rq=2056002,0,blog][/rq]Public Displays of Affection
crap…..try this http://his.quietcontrol.org
All I keep thinking of is “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace”
The only problem I see with this is the very idea of absolute power. Their is no such thing. One of the reasons why many doms (me included) enjoy mind control stories so much is that even we understand that only with direct control of another’s mind (which doesn’t exist) do we truly have absolute power over them.
In any D/s relationship ALL of the doms power over “their” sub exists because the sub CHOOSES gives it to them. And they can choose to stop giving it at any time. Everyone has a limit and if the dom crosses the subs limits, the sub will fight back, that’s all their is to it.
Their are few things more pathetic than a dom who suddenly finds out they have to get their own dam coffee. I’ve seen a few doms who crossed the line and found out their choices in life were suddenly limited to living in a “normal” relationship, living alone and paying a large alimony/child-support check each month, or retaliating and going to jail.
All I need to know I learned in kindergarten: Play nice with your toys or you’ll loose them.
what a lot of nonsense…love changes everything. If a person is in a BDSM relationship without love being present then they are an idiot.
[...] salvation came to me via kaya’s blogpost “Absolute Power” . It gave me a frame of expression. See, the thing i had been grappling with, unable to fully voice [...]
Well, Hawkeye. Although not terribly contributory, your comment is probably somewhat true. I think throughout this post, however, the focus has been on relationships where love is a central component, yet boundaries are tested in relationships such as these and in the case of the sub that poses the problem of how to communicate while still maintaining the role.
[rq=2073995,0,blog][/rq]Power, corruption and the contract
the theory is that the D will run over the s simply because they can get away with it. I am saying that when the D is connected to the s through the soul by love this will never happen, except by way of the D making a mistake..in error.
So I guess we agree. I would like to just add that it’s part of the sub’s job to inform the Dom that a mistake was made. It would be much better if the sub told the Dom that a mistake is about to take place. It saves the sub from discomfort beyond tolerance and saves face for the Dom.
I’d be inclined to say that a sub can say anything to a Dom. How it’s said is all that matters. Show respect and you’ll get it back.
[rq=2073995,0,blog][/rq]Power, corruption and the contract
What if Team M only enjoys the game if Team s is enjoying it too? What if they play “extra” fair and bend the rules to help Team s so they have fun. And now Team s is not having fun because team M is making it easy on them, changing how Team M is playing so that Team s stays in a good mood for the game. This is such a damn fine line. No wonder we see players saying they just want to quit playing.