A fascinating article in The Atlantic (h/t Dienne) reports the view of many neurological scientists that power causes brain damage.
One said that those influenced by power acted as though they had a traumatic brain injury, “becoming more impulsive, less risk-averse, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people’s point of view.” A neuroscientist in Canada said that power impairs a specific neural process that is the cornerstone of empathy.
Sound familiar?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, it’s commonly known as Trumpitis.
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Yes, Trump certainly suffers from this affliction, but he’s hardly the only one. The point is that anyone in power is subject to these effects.
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Oh, yes. Sounds all to familiar. Safe travels to you!
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It’s not all power….it’s having access to too much money, also. They go hand in hand.
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This article raised many questions to this historian. How much power does one have to sense before losing some empathy? Do teachers, who wield some power in their classroom, fall victim to a loss of empathy and hence experience the same loss of judgement described in the article?
The fact of beginning the study of World War I with the children today makes me think of all the powerful figures and their mis-steps in the causing of what Barbara Tuchman famously termed “The March of Folly.”
Could it be that power does not do this to people at all? What if our selection process is responsible for powerful figures who lack empathy being selected to lead us?
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Did you read the article? It addresses that. The research showed that people who have no actual power but were put in a temporary position of “power” (simply being told that they were the “group leader”) showed the same signs, at least temporarily.
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The Stanford Prison Experiment in the 1970’s, in which a “jail” was set up in the basement of the Stanford psychology department, and student volunteers assigned as jailers of prisoners, is a case in point.
Almost instantaneously, people assumed the roles they’d been given, in some cases with a literal vengeance, and the study had to be abandoned after a few days because of abuses the “prisoners” were subjected to when college student “jailers” morphed into power-hungry sadists.
This then leads us to the paradoxical dilemma no society has escaped from: the people who seek power more often than not shouldn’t be allowed to have it, while those who spurn it are more likely the ones who should wield it.
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I know a guy who participated in the Milberg experiment as a college student, as one of the “shockers.” He said he didn’t go quite all the way, but that he went so far that he fell into a severe depression for a long time afterward.
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YES, and thanks for pointing this out to us. TRUE.
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Sorry. Did not have much time and I missed that. Thanks.
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Michael: thanks for reminding me of that experiment. I had forgotten studying about in back in 1976 or so.
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Not to be pedantic, Flerp, but it was the Milgram experiment, the implications of which were that, deep down inside, most of us are Good Germans.
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I’ll plead autocorrect on that one!
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RT, I read one biography of Kaiser Wilhelm that said he felt threatened by Britain’s navy and France’s better landholding in Africa, thus acting more aggressively.
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People with BIG $$$$$ and TOO MUCH POWER have no checks and balances, because people are afraid of them, and so the cycle continues. This is called ABUSE … look at the sexual abuses being revealed.
I see this everywhere.
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I thought Lord Acton covered all this.
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He did, indeed. He said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
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Interesting side note about The Atlantic: “Emerson Collective, the organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, has agreed to acquire a majority stake in The Atlantic magazine, with full ownership possible in the coming years.
David G. Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media, will retain a minority stake and intends to continue running the magazine for the next three to five years. After that, Emerson Collective may purchase Mr. Bradley’s remaining interest.
“While I will stay at the helm some years, the most consequential decision of my career now is behind me: Who next will take stewardship of this 160-year-old national treasure?” Mr. Bradley, 64, wrote in a note to employees. “To me, the answer, in the form of Laurene, feels incomparably right.”
From the NYT, 7-28-17
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Those feeling powerful were three times more likely to draw the Ethe right way to themselves—and backwards to everyone else.
Not sure the above is only a function of “power.” Left and right-handedness may play a role, also your dominant eye. I suppose I should read the full study.
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Barbara W. Tuchman wrote about how power corrupts in her book “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”
Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman, author of the World War I masterpiece The Guns of August, grapples with her boldest subject: the pervasive presence, through the ages, of failure, mismanagement, and delusion in government.
Drawing on a comprehensive array of examples, from Montezuma’s senseless surrender of his empire in 1520 to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Barbara W. Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives.
In brilliant detail, Tuchman illuminates four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s George III, and the United States’ own persistent mistakes in Vietnam. Throughout The March of Folly, Tuchman’s incomparable talent for animating the people, places, and events of history is on spectacular display.
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Very powerful people become isolated from real life. They don’t understand or care who they hurt.
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Yes, and when that happens, just let them eat cake . . .
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It is the old saying, Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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We have seen this very often with abusive administrators in schools. The power they have has destroyed many or tried to. We also see a version of this absolute power in many charter school classrooms…no excuses behavior management.
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YES, indeed!
I keep wondering how these people treat their children and pets, if they have them at all.
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