You're not powerless, you're just under attack.

A phenomenon that I’ve noticed frequently: people believing they are powerless. Now, maybe in not so many words, but you notice how low they think of themselves, or their negative self-talk when it comes out, or how they don’t believe they can make a difference, or have an impact, or, by contrast, just how shocked they are once they realize “You can just do things.” or they become agentic. 

Now, this belief, in one’s own powerlessness, is something that you could explain in a personal and psychological way. You could say that each person holding it had a personal life history with trauma such that they ended up believing this. That would be one way to explain it.

That’s an explanation I find extremely unlikely. This belief is just so counter to evidence—all day long you get evidence for how you have power, for how you can do things—and yet it’s so common that it seems really unlikely that everyone is having all these different life experiences but independently concluding all the same thing about themselves. 

No. I propose a different explanation. I propose that this belief has not multiple independent personal origins but, rather, one big shared societal one. 

I propose that not only are people not independently arriving on this belief about themselves but that they’re being made to think this. That they’re being made to believe, in not so many words, that they’re powerless.

Now, the question that follows is “Why?”. Why are people being made to believe this? What’s there to gain from that? Who benefits?

I propose a functionalist explanation: what is the function of this belief? What purpose does it serve?

The de facto purpose is that you now have a bunch of people who are totally mistaken about their power. A bunch of people who think they don’t have power—when they do—and who, because of that belief, either fail to deploy it, or give it away for real cheap. 

And by this “power” I just mean the capacity to affect things around you. Which is zero-sum: you’re either affecting or being affected.

You can see where this is going, right? Power being zero-sum means that if you correctly believe you have power and deploy it now someone else has less of it. But if you incorrectly believe you don’t have it and, because of that, don’t deploy it, now someone else has more of it.

And I think it really is that simple: lacking knowledge of your own power means you have nothing: nothing to give up, nothing to lose, and nothing to defend. 

Now, to make this a bit more concrete:

Maybe you’re reading this, and young, and thinking “But I’m young and broke - I don’t have any power”. But you have youth, energy, maybe even looks. Social capital, sexual capital, desirability. Not true of everyone and things many people want, to have, to own, to be around. And a subset of them will gaslight you into thinking you have nothing so they can get it from you cheaply.

Or, maybe you’re reading this, and old (no offense), and thinking “But I’m old and energyless - I don’t have any power”. And, again, you have experience, wisdom, connections, maybe even money. Intellectual capital, social capital, capital capital. Not true of everyone and things many people want, to have, to own, to be around. And a subset of them will gaslight you into thinking you have nothing so they can get it from you cheaply.

These are both examples of the dynamic above. See what the common factor is: convincing you that you don’t have power, so that you won’t express it, or will give it away cheaply. But it’s not true: you have power, you’re just under attack.