Thursday, April 26, 2012

Hegemony to Great power to you

As per Wikipedia, Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon (leader state) rules sub-ordinate states by implied means of power rather than direct military force.  In Ancient Greece (8th c. BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of a city-state over other city-states.  In the 19th century, hegemony denoted the predominance of one country upon others; from which derives hegemonism, the Great Power politics meant to establish hegemony.

And what is Great power?  Still as per Wikipedia a Great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale.  Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions of their own.

Now imagine that every individual is a state that has the ability to rule oneself, take one own decision and auto-determine oneself.  I know its hard to do but try for a moment.

Now the individual is in one’s cubicle minding one’s own business.  And here comes the Great power: the boss.  Now why is the boss the Great power?  Because as per wiki’s definition of a Great power, it has military powers (the boss can make you escorted out of the premises); it has economic power (the boss has a definite impact or one’s salary, pay increase/decrease, bonus, or termination of one’s mean of income); it has diplomatic power (the boss can ask the individual in his office and diplomatically ask one to change one’s behaviour or else); and it has cultural powers (the boss can make understand that it is in one’s best interest to wear a tie because that’s the way it goes here.  He doesn’t really know why it is so but it is so and one must comply with the culture).

So the boss has hegemonistic powers over his employees.  Because he “influence” the employees’ behaviour, conduct and productivity.  And the employees (the small powers) will consider the opinion of the great power (aka the boss) before taking action.

Living in such world is not a problem.  But not knowing that you are living in such a world or worst, denying its existence makes you a slave.  Because you will always behave according to the whim of the current Great  power (aka the current boss).  When you are aware of the game that is played you have two choices.  Either you play the game to acquire power.  To that I will refer you to Nietzsche’s Will to power.  Or you can immune your self-state from the Great powers.  On this later one, I shall expose it in a up coming post.   

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Don't shoot the messenger - Link of the week

This week only one link.  But a great one.

This is a blog I am following for some times now.  She is a very witty woman with strong opinions and I like her point of view.

I recommend it to anyone.

In her post called "Don`t shoot the messenger"  she goes about talking about people that get mad at people that tells them what is.

Yes you`ve heard it.  There are people out there that asks question and kinda want to ear a specific answer.  Or wants to get a specific outcome.  And if they don`t, they get mad at the mesenger.

Never get yourself into that mind backouts.  How?  This is not an easy task. You have to be in constant vigilence with yourself.  I always say that if someone asks a question or act in a particular way, that persone has to live with the consenquences.

Which I`ve found that most people don`t.  So they blame anyone else but themselves.

Don`t do that.  Always ask yourself first "Where did I go wrong?" Then and only then, if you get that it was not your fault at any level, work to correct the outside probelm.  But not before.