We usually think of giving away our power in terms of active choice, but it actually occurs in the moments we don’t exercise our power
…in the moments we don’t speak up or say something or assert ourselves or are clear and outraged that a boundary has been violated.
One reason Abuse, Interrupted focuses on the interpersonal (micro) and the nation-state (macro) is that the dynamics of power are mirrors of each other.
Victims believe that truth is its own power
…but what that doesn’t recognize is the premise that the truth only has power over people who give truth that power: people who respect truth and how it defines and renders reality.
The truth is powerful to those who don’t seek to control/change reality but accept what is for what it is, to those who value truth in and of itself, who have integrity and honesty with themselves and reality.
Truth, however, is not power.
Truth does not have the capacity for action. Truth has the capacity to inspire action, but that wholly depends on the audience for that truth. Telling the truth to people who don’t want to hear it doesn’t change anything. Telling the truth to people who don’t want to hear it in front of others may change something.
Victims – of abuse, of oppression, of tyranny – believe that if only people knew, if only people understand their experience, that things would change.
Usually this belief is oriented toward the abuser, the dictator, the tyrant; trying to explain to them just exactly why what they are doing is wrong, and please stop, because good or smart or logical people don’t do this, and the victim is extending them the benefit of the doubt.
Victims depend on the laws themselves to have power.
Victims depend on reason and logic itself to have power.
Victims depend on decency and goodness to itself have power.
The attribute their own perspective to the abuser, the dictator, the tyrant, their own set of beliefs. They believe that the abuser, dictator, tyrant has agreed to the social contract instead of recognizing their behavior as inherently violating that construct.
Truth only has power over someone who gives truth that power.
Believing that the truth is self-evident, that someone will change as a result of being told the truth, assumes:
- they value truth and fact independently of their internal paradigm
- that they will adjust their internal model of the world to incorporate truth/fact
- that they will not exercise cognitive distortion to deny, minimize, or distort truth or facts in their own interest
It is to believe that someone will value facts over their own self-interest.
The truth is that people engage in abusive behaviors because it benefits them.
- The intrinsic satisfaction of power and control.
- Getting their way, especially when it matters to them most.
- Someone to take their problems out on.
- Free labor from the victim; leisure and freedom for the abuser.
- Being the center of attention, with priority given to the abuser’s needs.
- Financial control.
- Ensuring that the abuser’s career, education or other goals are prioritized.
- Public status of partner and/or father/mother without the sacrifices.
- The approval of friends and relatives.
- Double standards.
The truth is that victims of abuse often refrain from exercising their power because they are afraid of it.
They are afraid of responsibility, afraid of being like an abuser/dictator/tyrant, and because believe that others will do the right thing if only they know what the right thing is.
They are also afraid of what other people will think. That other people will see them as an abuser/dictator/tyrant, and this fear becomes controlling.
Instead we must recognize that power is simply a tool. Power in and of itself is not inherently abusive.
To believe otherwise, to never exercise your power, is to give your power away.
To refrain from powerful action due to fear of what other people will think is to give your power away.
To do this is to (unjustly!) carry the burden of shame.