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Erick Mead wrote:
Desire for power, in my way of thinking, seeks the struggle, precisely to gain the sense of overcoming -- as opposed to the irrelevance of anything necessary to overcome.
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Very Nietzsche.
And yes, there's a lot of fun to be had in skillfully crushing resistance. But if that is all that motivates you or if it prevents you from displaying sportsmanship, then well ... shame on you.
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Utilitarianism is the ethic that the maximum happiness of all concerned is the highest good. Leave aside whether happiness has any additive, commutative or transitive properties -- Fine, but who judges that maximum ? Each of us. Which involves conflicts of individual goods, or relativism. It ends up being both demeaning and self-aggrandizing. "Don't you realize that what I want is actually the best you could possibly hope for?"
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I'm not in favor of utilitarianism for the exact same reason you stated. I am a relativist, though. But I don't think we need to solve this problem of meta-ethics to discuss desire for power and aiki.
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I looked in the mirror and saw the eyes of the killer I now realize we all are, in one way or another. A hot tub is not the cure for the fever.I now realize that we (all of us, no matter how "weak") cannot BE any other way -- but we can BECOME something more FROM that as a foundation. On that O Sensei is a prophet of sorts.
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Could you explain how this works exactly? How aikido can help us to be more than this killer?
Because the only way I think one can learn to deal with one's violent side is to get to know it (under controlled circumstances). The alternative (taken to the extreme) is what they did to Alex in a Clockwork Orange. Instead of physically constraining him, they constrain him mentally, but nothing is really solved. Hence my question about how according to you aikido works in this respect. Because you sure don't seem to be in denial about the violent side of man.
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True power admits no resistance whatsoever. Desired power wishes the thrill of the opposed conquest. They are different things -- as I see it -- hence the question raised for discussion.
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Don't you desire true power?
And at my most cynical, I'd argue that the only difference between desired power and true power is the eloquence of the person pursuing it.
