Power

[poliphilo]

I had power once; footling amounts of it, but still enough to make me feel special.

It was fun.

I was the vicar of a small parish in the north of England. I didn't like my churchwardens and I suspected they didn't like me.

Now the churchwardens are supposed to be the representatives of the people; the people elect them and they're there to keep t' bloody vicar in check. This didn't stop me sniffing out and promoting candidates to run against the chaps I didn't like. Ooh, the ducking and diving and back-stabbing- and all of it conducted under a razzle-dazzle camoflauge of sunny smiles and Christian fellowship. It was a thrilling time and I won.

In the process I learned that the powerful:

(1)find democracy inconvenient and will do all they can to subvert it;

(2)are hungry for love and approval;

(3)lose touch with reality;

(4)lose all sense of proportion;

(5)persist in regarding themselves as the good guys in spite of all evidence to the contrary;

(6)believe, again in the teeth of all the evidence, that they alone know best;

(7)are permanently high on the excitement of it all;

(8)are intolerant of criticism and squash it where they can;

(9)will lie and lie and lie, rather than admit the slightest failing or weakness (even to themselves).

Once I'd worked all this out (which took many years) I resolved never to place myself in a position of power again.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've had them recommended to me. Now that they've been recommended twice I need to take notice. :)

[treehavn.livejournal.com]

I am Phil Rickman's squeeing fangirl.

Churchwardens and Phil Rickman

[methodius.livejournal.com]

And I too recommend Phil Rickman.

I was once Rector of an Anglican parish in a village in Zululand, and the churchwardens thought that their main job was to collect complaints and grievances and bring them to me.

I believed (and still believe) that power is most dangerous when concentrated in a few hands, and is safer when diffused. Nicodemuses coming by night seemed a bit manipulative and underhand to me. So if there was a contentious issue, I would say "Let's have a parish meeting, and let everybody discuss it"

So instead of "People say...." being retailed by hearsay, the people could some and speak for themselves.

Another thing I learned was that if you give people responsibility, they behave responsibly.

Because the village was small, there was no high school, and at the age of 12 or so kids went to boarding schools in other towns. Once during the Christmas (summer) holidays someone organised some activities for the youth, and kids of all ages, 4-18, came along.

When the school term began, the activities ended, and then an 11-year-old phoned me, and asked if there was going to be a youth meeting that Friday night. I said, if you want one, organise it yourself. I'll be there to help if you need me. She did, to the astonishment of her family -- she was regarded as a slow learner and a bit of a problem. She phoned all sorts of people to persuade them to come along, organised refreshments, etc. I enjoyed being a consultant. What I hated was teaching Sunday school, or any other kind of school, because that required being in a position of authority.

I could really agree with St Paul when he described heaven as a condition in which all rule, authority and power have been abolished.

Re: Churchwardens and Phil Rickman

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like this way of doing things.

I wonder whether the pattern of diffused authority is applicable to larger societies like, say, the nation state?

Re: Churchwardens and Phil Rickman

[methodius.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately it works best at face to face level, and the more people there are involved, the more difficult it is.

A parish was OK. The one thing I got authoritarian about was that at the parish level the parish meeting was important -- a kind of monthly vestry meeting with the decisions made by consensus rather than majority vote, and anyone could have their say -- kids, old people, everyone. And the job of the rector/vicar is to help things happen rather than make them happen.

It's easy to manipulate people when the churchwardens fiddle things in private meetings on the golf course and come back and say "People say..." but when you get the people together, you see what the people actually say. It's hard to do that at the level of a nation state.

Another example. There was a series of ecumenical meetings, to decide on some common action. Eventually we gathered a bunch of people from different denominations, divided them into groups, and each group was to arrange some aspect of whatever it was. We put all the clergy in one group, and most of them kept saying "My people won't like this..." And we said "Your people are here, they can speak for themselves, now what do YOU think."

At a bigger level -- city council, provincial or local or national government, other methods may be necessary. I've found Saul Alinski's Rules for radicals quite useful. And it's a rather fun read, even if some of the methods he describes aren't going to be of immediate use.

One that amused me was a big company, Kodak, I think, not listening to the workers. So they packed a meeting that some big cheese was addressing, and fed everyone generous helpings of baked beans beforehand.