There are limits to the validity of the term ‘power’ — it sort of implies top-down control and influence, doesn’t it? I think perhaps the French word ‘puissance’ (amplitude) has nuances of meaning which much more accurately describe our growing shared potency. We are synergetically amplifying — ’surging into’ — this new realization of who we are and what we can do. We are creating a new extension of ourselves with which we are reaching out to one another and the world, telling one another who we are and what we care about most. And most especially we are learning the incredible validity and ultimate ’satyagraha’ (truth-force) of human intentionality
The above from John Wilmerding, Convener and List Manager of the
Coalition for Equity-Restorative Justice (CERJ), who has an email list.
and sent in a long, brilliant, Biblical response to the Second Superpower concept, called “Old Covenant, New Quickening.” Wild!
2 responses so far ↓
kenny // Apr 8th 2003 at 6:13 pm
“In Renaissance humanism the triad esse–nosse–posse (being–knowing–having power)… became a force and symbol of resistance, in Bacon’s notion of inventio or experimentation, Campanella’s conception of love, and Spinoza’s usage of potentia… Posse refers to the power of the multitude and its telos, an embodied power of knowledge and being, always open to the possible [...] The mode of production of the multitude is posed against exploitation in the name of labor, against property in the name of cooperation, and against corruption in the name of freedom.” — pp. 407-408, Empire http://slash.autonomedia.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/07/1527205
Seb // Apr 9th 2003 at 12:38 pm
In French we also have the word “pouvoir”, which is closer to the “top-down control and influence” meaning.