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.