Thursday, April 28, 2011

Power: then and now

Wow, reading over my essay from the beginning of the year was fun. My analysis of power was limited to its semantic properties and destinations (ex: individuals, the digestive system, the workplace). While I did briefly explore the example of a Manhattan doctor's relationship with power, the scope of my analysis of power was quite limited. This is a prime example of my lack of consideration, or perhaps even contemplation, before taking "NES R1B 004 Brown."

The conclusions of my analysis were as follows: authority is synonymous with power or, conversely, power exists in all things (living and non-living). Over the course of the semester, I have seen examples of these themes in ancient Mesopotamian history. For instance, kings in Uruk, Babylonia, and Assyria utilized their military might, diplomatic strategies, or economic prowess to exert control over others. Additionally, though, I think the rapid procession of "legitimate kings" in the Sargonid period serve as support for the assertion that power is contained in everything. Perhaps, to go a step further, the ancient Mesopotamian's association of celestial presence with inanimate objects and organisms of nature are also testaments to the existence of "power" in all things.

Now that I have absorbed several narratives and reviews of the goings-on in ancient Uruk, Babylonia, and Assyria, an essay prompt, such as "What is power?", would have a very different meaning to me. In this capacity, I suppose that Early Forms of Social Powerhas impacted my thought process associated with certain words in the English language. This, I think, is a very positive thing. Now, I am in a position of knowledge in regard to issues such as power, kingship, the organizations of power, divination, and Hammurabi. whereas before, my only knowledge of these terms was semantic or shallowly referential.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

final thoughts on power



I defined power in the paper I
wrote earlier in the class as the following: Personal or internal strength,
right one possesses or is given, and authority one has over others. I found it
really interesting how I defined power on fundamentally very personal levels. All
of my definitions are involved with virtually one person and the power he or she might have.



Now when I look at this subject
again, I feel like my original definitions were rather shallow. The meaning of
power can in fact be extended far beyond those if viewed at a broader level. If
I had the chance to re-define “power,” I would say social, economic, and
political power. Actually, these definitions link right back to my original
definitions as well. After all, each individual is a part of the greater
society, thus his or her personal power can be interpreted as an element of the
whole.



Furthermore, I now think that power
does not have to belong to any specific person. In fact most of the time power
is shared within an organization or group. For example, the temple in Uruk, as
an institution, possessed power in all aspects. They were able to collect food,
labor, and service from people by employing the power. By doing so, they
operated the economy of the society, regulated its social order, and had
absolute political control.



I also now feel that power is a
more concrete idea than I thought before. Power does not come out of thin air;
it can be obtained as well as lost. Linking back to the example of Uruk, even
though the temple exercised its power on people by requiring so much from them,
the temple itself was required to provide protection and stabilization for the
citizens as well. In a sense, it can be said that the average citizens
possessed some power to keep the temple in control as well. It’s not to say
that one-sided power does not exist. But thus power is very volatile and
unstable.



But there is one point in my
diagnostic that I’d like to keep: power is spatially and geographically uneven
and differentiable. Power can be defined in many different ways under various
political and social circumstances in different parts of the world. Therefore,
there will never exist a standard measurement of how much power one really
possesses; different conclusions can always be drawn when looking at different
cases.





Sorry I totally forgot
to submit this on time!



Power from Our Biology

Although I have gotten a chance to think more deeply about the dynamics of power in the social world, my views about power have not changed much since the beginning of the class, they have only been strengthened. I believe that almost all human motivation comes from biological origins. For example, we only pursue romantic relationships so that we can eventually reproduce and have offspring. We only go to school and get jobs in order to make money that will allow us to satisfy basic human needs such as eating, drinking, health care, and even sexuality. This may seem slightly radical, but I believe that although we are not constantly thinking about our biological needs, we are biological beings, and most of our motivations come from our biology.

That being said, I believe all applications of social power have something to do with human biology. One human wouldn’t let another human control him unless he thinks it will somehow benefit him to comply with the power. For this reason I would argue that military and economic sources of power are the most prominent in the social world. Military power is the strongest because the primary objective of humans is survival, so when one is faced with the possibility of death, they are likely to comply. Economic power is also extremely important because economic wealth directly translates to the fulfillment of human needs such as nutrition and health. Because economic and military powers are so closely related to biological motivations, I believe they are the ultimate sources of social power. Although we had never directly learned this from our studies of the ancient empires, I have thought about power in this context for the duration of the course.

Addition to Definition of Power

Ronak Patel

Near Eastern Studies R1B

Response Paper; Reflecting on Diagnostic Paper

At the beginning of the semester each person in the class had to write a diagnostic essay on the meaning of power. As I look over what I wrote back then, I realize that the description I gave was very vague and lacked the necessary specificity necessary to apply it to all the different historical events we have learned about in this course.

Throughout the semester we learned about four sources of power: economic power, political power, military power, and ideological power. This is a much more informative definition of power than the one I provided in my diagnostic essay. It sets criteria to judge power instead of keeping it vague in terms of the modern day outlook of power.

When writing the diagnostic essay I was thinking of power in terms of humane power. Meaning, I intuitively took note of military, political, and economic power, which humans usually possess, but I disregarded anything close to ideological power. This may have been due to my lack of understanding how far the definition of power actually extends. The focus of this class was on the Ancient Near East, and many of the readings and research we did had numerous examples of how ideological power affected the region from the initial buildup of communities to the eventual emergence of empires. Consequently, even more entities can be considered to be in a position of power than I initially thought. It adds another element to power and that is perception. No one in the Ancient Near East or even to this day knows if anything they worship is a reality, but it is the perception of that reality that keeps humans loyal to a higher power.

At the same time this course also re-emphasizes how large sums of power reside in a small group of individuals. Most of the course revolved around the power of kingship, the temple, the oracles, and the pantheon of gods. Very little was mentioned about the possibilities of power in the hands of commoners. This may be because there was very little evidence about the lives of commoners in the Ancient Near East, but it may also be due to the fact that very few commoners ever gained enough status or recognition to achieve a position of power.

Though my definition of power was very broad and did not include many of the elements we learned about in this course, I feel like I was on the right track because I understood that those who have power usually have some type of control. Power is something that is circumstantial and must be considered within certain spatial and temporal parameters. At the same time I realize that I still have more to learn about the true extent of power and its relevance to the past, present, and future.

Still the Physics Definition

After a semester of exploring the meaning of the word power in the context of the ancient Near East, I still feel that a good general definition of power is the ability to do work over time. While we have explored the meaning of power in the context of leadership, for example Mann’s four types of power, but the word takes more meanings outside of that context. While more specific definitions are useful in specific contexts, they have limits when trying to apply the word to other situations it is used in. Thus I feel the more all-encompassing a definition is, the more powerful (it can get the most understanding across in the least amount of time).

The main definitions of power we worked with in this course were laid out by Michael Mann, who defined political, military, economic, and ideological power. For example, military power was defined as a form of control by force, to drastically summarize. These definitions proved useful in talking about social systems and the ways that people were made to do work, but they can’t be used beyond the context of leadership and control. For example, it would be difficult to categorize the power of food or alcohol over people using Mann’s definitions.

While I don’t mean to argue that specific and contextualized definitions are groundless, I think that to define the word power with one single definition, a very broad one is necessary. And I think that the ability to do work over time is just that. I think one would be hard pressed to find a correct use of the word power that doesn’t describe an ability for something to do work. Hammurabi was powerful because of his ability to move massive armies effectively and establish a powerful code of law in his reign. Gilgamesh was powerful because of his ability to do amazing physical feats (work) that no one else could do in any amount of time. I think the physics definition is the most powerful definition of power.

The Power to Change

At first I was thinking of power in a mechanical sense, and how a machine generating power is analogous to a political system. While much of what I said I still believe, in that there must be an uneven distribution of power for a system to function, there is now many other variables at play in the production and maintenance of power in the political systems of the ancient Mesopotamian societies. Factors such as religious inputs provide an in balance that causes the power distribution to be fixed within the leaders of the society, which was the king. While the power systems still function similarly to a machine, they are influenced by factors such as religion so that the in balance of power does not fluctuate and does not allow for changes.
In my research I have found that king's would manipulate the truth to depict themselves as the one favored by the gods, and would even alter the documentation of history to ensure their divine support was maintained. Practices such as these are what allow the system to generate power and function as a whole, because if a king lost power every time an omen appeared in ill favor, or the king failed in a military conquest, the ruler would be switched out so frequently that the balance of power would be thrown out of alignment and the system would fail. This would cause the country to be very unstable and vulnerable.

What I've Learned about Power

What I wrote in my dialogistic paper on what power is was essentially this: that in addition to a strong leader, power needs the support of many and the backup of sound finances in order to survive as a strong force. Power is also a delicate entity, because too much of it can consume a person and turn him from a judicious king into a tyrant. I still believe that power is all of this, but my understanding of power has expanded after this semester. Taking Michael Mann’s argument, I have come to learn that the source of power is derived from 4 things: political, economical, military, and theological. Each Mesopotamian king may have really excelled in one area of power, but in order to really truly thrive as a leader, each ruler would have ideally embodied all four sources of power.

For example, King Hammurabi of Babylon, who was mostly notable as a law giver, also used political power to organize his alliances, military power to decide what nation to conquer, and theological power by paying homage to the gods in his law code. (And of course, he used political power through his laws as well as the treaties he signed with neighboring nations). Shamshi-Adad of Upper Mesopotamian, too, utilized all four sources of power to an extent, but was probably most well known for his political move to split and share his land holding with his two sons.

One thing that has changed about my perception of power is the use of artwork to depict a king’s majesty. Whereas before I may have understood a portrait of a European king to be a sign of his power, deciphering the carvings of Mesopotamia took a slightly different turn for me. Some of the details, such as Naram-Sin as a giant, may be more obvious, but others, such as the inclusion of the severed head, may be more subtle in showing the might and power of a king.

A Powerful Reflection

Ritik Malhotra

Near Eastern Studies R1B Lecture 4

Response Paper: Reflection on Diagnostic Essay

A Powerful Reflection

Upon reflecting on my initial diagnostic essay, I have found that my writing style has more or less remained the same. Over the course of this class, although I did learn new research techniques and new ways of integrating sources, I continued to use the same writing style as before, as I thought it to be most effective in getting my point across. However, on this note, I have noticed that the sources I used in my diagnostic essay are not entirely credible in nature and the way I integrated them into my paper is not the most effective way of doing so.

Regarding the actual content of my essay, I talked about two prominent and powerful figures, Bernie Madoff and Bill Gates, and how they were able to exercise their power in bad and good ways respectively. Since then, my view on power has greatly been expanded, as I have learned more about the many different forms of power (social, ideological, etc. as Mann and other authors would describe them as) and is no longer a narrow-minded concept in my head. This made me realize that my analysis of power in my diagnostic essay is highly primitive and is a very general overview of what it really is. While lots of the forms of power that we discussed in this class can be placed in the two categories of good and evil power that I discussed in my essay, I now realize that there is much more depth and detail to such a concept after going through this class.

Overall, while I may not be a Near Eastern Studies major, I am very glad that I was able to expand my horizons through this class. Apart from just the raw knowledge that I gained from the texts and discussions in this class, I also gained insight into thinking in a different way, which is clearly exemplified by the comparison of my way of thinking about power initially to how it is now.

My Static Definition of Power

I spent quite a few hours reflecting on my diagnostic essay in anticipation of writing this response paper, simply because I could not locate areas in which my understanding of power had changed throughout the semester. In many ways, the original definition of power I proposed in my diagnostic essay has held. Unlike the various ancient Near Eastern empires, my characterization of power has not capitulated as we have traveled throughout the ages in NES R1B, its definition continuing to remain logical when applied to the temple in Uruk, The Epic of Gilgamesh, or the various kings of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires. Nevertheless, although NES R1B may not have altered my fundamental definition of power, it has certainly expanded my knowledge of power and caused me to question the inner workings of relationships involving the exchange of power.

The definition of power that I put forth in my diagnostic essay stated that “power results when one party holds influence over the lives of the members of another party due to something that the party with power possesses, whether it is wealth, social status, an image, or an idea.” Though there are certainly other qualities that the party with power may possess (e.g. military and political advantages according to Mann), which I neglected to mention in my diagnostic essay, I remain convinced in the validity of my general definition. All the readings we have looked at in this class only serve to support it. The temple in Uruk had power over the people because the temple had a monopoly over the people’s beliefs in the supernatural. King Hammurabi had power over his subjects because he controlled their loyalty and much of their means of subsistence. Examples from other readings in this class all fit into the “Party A had power over Party B because Party A had some advantage” scheme.

Nonetheless, as I mentioned earlier, NES R1B has caused me to think critically about the true meaning of power. In my diagnostic essay, I proposed that power could only occur in situations where at least one of the parties was sentient. However, I am curious to know if there could be a relationship where an inanimate object exerted power over another inanimate object. I have yet to think of one. In addition, this class has caused me to rethink statements such as “King Hammurabi was a powerful figure”. When I apply my definition of power to statements such as these, there is inevitably some relationship that the person is engaged in which gives him/her power. Even so, these statements have piqued my curiosity – is it possible for a person to have power without being in some relationship, that is, simply by virtue of their existence? It is an interesting point to ponder.

An Oversimplification of Power

Looking back at my diagnostic paper, I am surprised to see that I actually cited three different sources in it. I remember actually having a hard time defining power on my own, so I automatically looked to the opinions of scholars to help me write my paper. However, when I read my paper, I feel like I did not really make an argument of my own. I did not come up with my own definition; rather I used the opinions of the scholars I cited. My paper was pretty much a paraphrasing of the three works that are cited on the last page. The only “argument” I made in my paper was that power is hard to define, and that in order to define it you must take the four parts of power defined by Dahl into consideration. I did not come up with my own genuine opinion on what power is; I restated what others had to say on the matter. Plus, the definition that I gave was a pretty general one. When comparing my definition of power with the examples of power that we have seen in this class this semester, I feel like I oversimplified and generalized what power is in my paper. For example, I did not even mention power from religious ideology, which is something that we talked about a lot during class. The temple was able to take the surplus from the people of Uruk because of the ideological justification: the people were providing for the gods. Kings of ancient Mesopotamia were able to justify many of their actions, such as waging wars, by saying that they had the support of the gods. The kings, priests/priestesses, and the “temple” derived a lot of power from their religious ideologies.

Self respect and Power

My first idea of power was dependent upon respect from others, whether forced respect or earned respect. I find that this is true of power in all of Mann’s sectors: economic, ideological, political, and military. However I question now what the notion of power means to an individual. It is surely possible to define power within a person who is in solitude, and lacks respect from others. I still would like to keep my claim about respect as a fuel for power,so an individual in solitude must rely on their own self-respect. For example, material resources can provide an outlet to power, especially for an individual in a survival situation. A lone person may feel a greater sense of power if resources are available to them, as their self-respect fuels their need for survival. Trying to survive takes the future into account, much like some of Hammurabi’s powerful actions. His law code and proclamations of himself as a King of Justice were not meant to be known in the present and future. Hammurabi's own self respect may have produced such laws and claims regardless of the current respect of others, but the future is still a motivating factor for producing them. Thus the motivation of possible respect in the future can also fuel power, whether it comes from self-respect to live another day or hope of remembrance by others for what one had accomplished.

Defining Power

I couldn’t even define power in my first essay. In my first essay, I talked about how even the common people has the power to change the world, not only the heads-of-state. I can already see the problems of my claim after spending the entire semester studying different forms of social power. First of all, I did not even define power. Secondly, I did not define what “common people” was. After spending the entire semester writing about the different forms of power and defining the different forms of states (city-states, territorial-state, empires), I can finally appreciate the need to define these larger- than-life terms that cannot be simply defined through a Webster’s. Terms like political, social, economic, and military power were the basis of the arguments of my previous two essays. By defining power, I avoided ambiguity and circular logic.

I can finally appreciate Mann’s “Sources of Social Power”. Mann saved me in writing every single one of my essay. Despite his long and very obvious claims, his definition of power is very uncontroversial. It is so neutral that it can be used to define power in my essays.

When I first thought of power, I did not think of how a head-of-state can achieve power. Military and economic power was a very obvious source for me. But I have never though of ideological and political power as a source.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, I will boldly and maybe naively make the next claim. Being more of a math and science person, I can finally appreciate the need for logic and vigorous analysis in writing research papers for a humanities class. I couldn’t “b.s.” my way out of the essays I wrote for this class. (That’s what I did for my first essay.) I actually had to do research and know my stuff. I had to form my analysis from the facts.

Farewell, Near Eastern Studies R1B. Thank you for the 3am nights before the due date of an essay.

Power and More Power

Power is often thought of having the ability do more than the next guy. The idea that there is a disparity of power between two parties show how much worth a party has. That is the basic idea that lies in every aspect of power. In this class, we saw that power comes in many different forms as we saw it in economic power from Liverani, military power in Joanne's Age of Empires, and in political power in Mieroop's Hammurabi. In each case, each described the way in which power was created and the effects of power. For Liverani, it was the barely and wool industry that make Uruk into the first known city of the ancient world. By providing surplus, Uruk was able to use it for other gains such as trading goods. This is how they obtained economic power. In Mieroop's work, Hammurabi used his diplomatic skills to create a set of law codes that won the approval of the people and make Hammurabi popular. His ability to deal with other city-states also allowed Hammurabi to make Babylonia into a powerful state, with him at the head. In the case with Joanne's work, conquest of territory showed off military power, as the Babylonians and Assyrians would dominate Mesopotamia with their military success.
From my diagnostic, I talked mostly about democracy and the system of equal responsibility between two parties, say the government and its people, but that is a very specific case and could apply to many different aspects of social power. Power isn't just limited to governments, but also reaches all topics such as political, economical, and military. Therefore, power is seen as the ability to do more because of a certain attribute. Because of this difference in ability, power is defined and gives that party more.
My perspective on power has changed from a simple concept to a more sophisticated concept that touches upon many different aspects. Power cannot be simply defined, but it needs to be defined in the context of which it used as.

So what is power?

Getting the first paper that we wrote for our course brings back some interesting memories. One of my initial reactions to the question “what is power?” left me thinking how this was the most ridiculous assignment ever. Not only did we not know how we were supposed to really approach the question, besides “answering the question” but I also had no clue to what I was supposed to do! Another reaction that I had was “what does this have to do with Mesopotamia?” Apparently this class was about the social powers in Mesopotamia, which was new news to me, but still had my interest. It took me awhile to get started, and after asking the opinions of my friends (is that cheating?) I was able to write it out. Now about my paper…I have no clue what was going through my head. Fall semester I had taken an anthropology class, where we had to write a TON of essays. I guess my mind was still in that anthro mindset. I did not cite any sources in my paper, nor did I link any of my arguments with anything Mesopotamian related. If I were told to write a paper on what power is now, I would probably use Mann’s article, even if at times he kind of sounded like a know-it-all. As for my arguments, I think I make a valid point, and I’m sure that if I was told to make it an entire research paper, that there is someone who can support my argument. It seems very long ago, and I believe that my writing has improved, which means that this class was a success.

Almost Right, But Not Really

My previous definition of power was right, but in many ways a little too narrow. I defined power as the ability to cause changes, and I focused on two sources of power: wealth and fame. It is true that both money and fame would allow us to become powerful, highly powerful, in the world today. However, having read the article by Michael Mann and applying his theory to ancient Mesopotamian societies, I realize that power, as the “ability to cause change”, is not limited to only money and fame. In my old definition, both money and fame would belong to the ideological power as defined by Mann because wealth and fame are both modern ideologies that people value so much in life. Even in ideological power, I only saw wealth and fame as two main sources, missing out the very big player in ideological power: religion.

Moreover, the money aspect of my old definition refers to economic power as well, but in this I did not quite fully define economic power. I said that power belongs to those who are rich. This is true in that economic power in the modern world is found in private companies and corporations, but governments and international organizations (which seem more political) actually have economic power too. Therefore, though I did correctly identify the source of power, my definition focuses more on how money could ideologically influence people, rather than as economic power.

There’s also political and military power that I failed to recognize in my first definition. On the simplest form, political power resides in the government, and it is quite obvious, today or in ancient time, that the government has a lot of power. For instance, kings in Mesopotamia (as the heads of state) could almost command anything they wanted: they could declare war, they had judicial power (Hammurabi’s rule in Babylon, for example), and they controlled the military. Military power, another source that I did not mention, is quite obviously important especially in the ancient Near East. Force was primarily the means to become powerful, through wars among the city-states, but this does not occur as regularly today although world wars could show this fact quite clearly as well.

Therefore, while my definition of power as the ability to cause changes was quite correct, I only identified ideology of wealth and fame to be the main source of power. Michael Mann has in some way liberated my view of how power exists in a society because I only identified power only from the rich and influential people found on magazines. In reality, however, various social institutions also had quite a lot of power because they could effectively cause changes in the world.

Understanding Power

At the beginning of the semester, we had to write a small paper answering the question "What is power?" My understanding of power has definitely grown over the course of this class in regards to how people use it. Originally I dealt with the question by arguing that power is basically the ability to influence another person's actions or experience. This, therefore, could be on purpose or unintentionally, but regardless it is considered power. For example, a person who intentionally took power was Hitler, whose eloquence and persuasive speech enabled him to demand power. On the other hand, babies unintentionally have power over their parents by getting what they want when they want it. These examples give a very broad perspective of power, and claim that power is the influence that we have on others.

Over the course of the semester we've looked at the definition of power as from the history of Ancient Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near Eastern societies. In their perspective, power came from the gods. They were first and foremost in control, and they gave power to those who they deemed worthy. For example, it was believed that the king was divinely chosen and therefore given direct power from the gods. Also, the priests and diviners were thought to have power and wisdom from the gods that enabled them to interpret the signs and understand their will. Power was from the gods, and was not equated with influence as I claim. There were different aspects of this power that we are able to interpret such as military power, diplomatic power, etc. The king had monopoly over this, and if he was able to effectively manage it then he would be very powerful. Hammurabi was a good example of someone who was able to handle this and took control over the whole Ancient Near East (basically). Compared to the beginning of the semester, my view of the Ancient Mesopotamians has matured, and I now understand that they were considerably advanced in their ways of thinking and interpreting the world, including their monopoly of power and control.

Diagnostic Essay Reflection

The diagnostic essay I wrote at the beginning of the semester carried a solid argument but lacked appropriate evidence to fully substantiate my claims. The thesis I proposed, that everyone has some degree of power which is determined by their position and the resources available to them, was supported by very extreme examples which, while effective in proving my point, carried a degree of absurdity that detracted from their efficacy.

The two examples I chose to prove that everyone had some degree of power were Mao Tse-Tung and a toddler. Mao, as the dictator of China, exemplified essentially unlimited power in his nation while the toddler demonstrated that even a child, who can choose what to eat or where to play, has some degree of power. While the example with Mao was fully fleshed out and addressed all the parts of my claim, the example with the toddler was spotty and lacked focus. I chose such extreme examples to demonstrate that all people from both ends of the spectrum had power, but the examples were so extreme that they seemed almost random and disjointed.

Compared to the other essays I have written throughout the semester, this first essay was weaker in that it did not have enough focus and did not fully explain the examples used to a degree that would have fully shown the comprehensiveness of my thesis. A possible addition that would solidify my argument would be a paragraph explaining why it would be impossible to find a person with no power or a concession and a rebuttal to an exception. However, the essay overall did a decent job of conveying my point and was able to sufficiently support my argument.