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is about to take control of us, to dominate—and, if necessary in the process, to terminate our existence. We never stop to think—or, at best, a secondary consideration is whether such a force might be for the good, that humanity might indeed be improved by such a takeover. Volition, to which we desperately cling, is the very definition of our mature completion as social beings. The basis of rejection that registers itself in an audience seated at a theatrical or cinematic representation of the megalomaniac has always been the antithesis of human volition—power!
    We have known it also described as a sexual substitute or an aphrodisiac, but this only begs the question. Victims of rape often take a different position. Next to the horror of bodily violation, a frequent admission by victims is of the humiliation of being totally subjected to another’s control. And the more sadistic the rapist, the greater his urge to exact an acknowledgment from the victim of submission to his dominance. Sexual gratification is of course at the heart of such violations, but pre-eminent is the satisfaction of dominating another, making him or her totally subject to his whims, some of which may not even be sexual in nature. In whatever proportion we choose to present these cravings, there is no question that a sense of power generates its own satisfaction, and is an important element in the drive toward rape. So, once again, back to the question—just what
is
power?
    Is it perhaps no more than a deadly mutation of ambition, one that may or may not translate into social activity? Any fool, any moron, any psychopath can aspire to the seizure and exercise of power, and of course the more psychopathic, the more efficient: Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Sergeant Doe, and the latest in the line of the unconscionably driven, our own lately departed General Sanni Abacha—all have proved that power, as long as you are sufficiently ruthless, amoral, and manipulative, is within the grasp of even the mentally deficient. So, power is really neither efficacy nor a mandatory facilitator of vision or political purpose. Of course the pursuit of power may be impelled by vision, but power in itself is not to be mistaken for vision. On the contrary, true vision may eschew power, may totally repudiate power, seeking to fulfill itself by that hardy, self-sacrificial route that does not lean on the crutch of power. There are individuals in every field of human endeavor who have pursued their vision, and in a multiplicity of fields—to the benefit of millions and tens of millions around the world—without that promiscuous facilitator named power. And power, let us stress just once more, need not be an individual aspiration; it can be no more than mere participation in a collective exercise, a variant that is the intriguing and proliferating arm of hegemonic obsession of a unit within a totality.
    Since I do not believe that we shall ever arrive at a satisfactory explication of power, I have settled for that functional one—that is, a definition that enables us to proceed to the social neutralization of this affliction whenever it rears its head. After all, the manifestation of raw power is an encounter that is inevitable right from infancy, and through the normal course of existence—be it in a rainstorm, the force of lightning, or an earthquake. Even the casual wind that takes down a rotten branch or a roof or two is a manifestation of the hidden force of Nature that suddenly exercises its authority from time to time, and without any intervention from man. Nature, therefore, sometimes reveals herself as a pure expression of power—and it is perhaps somewhat more than an anthropomorphic conceit to suggest that man, in those activities that incline him toward the exercise of dominance, is merely attempting a crude appropriation in response to that elemental attribute that is an expression of the very forces that surround and