It has become a popular word of our time, empowerment. It connotes the bestowing of power upon those who lack it.
Yet the use of the word, from the beginning, has made my tummy do strange, unwelcome things. There’s something about the way it’s used that doesn’t feel right.
I guess it’s like the strange world of affirmations. Used for decades in counseling and self-help, these critters are designed to make one feel better about oneself. I’ve nothing against believing good things about oneself and wish that more people would, but there rarely seems to be a distinction between merely reciting the affirmation and living it. In its mistaken use, it seems to be counted on as a magical chant, that if you say it then it will be true. There is something to ‘fake it ‘til you make it’, but the blind recitation without supporting work to cement its foundation makes it a hopeless effort.
Can you really give power? I suppose it’s possible; imagine handing a child a gun, or a teenager a driver’s license. But this exposes a dire need: you have to be trained to use it, and committed to the proper amount of responsibility that its rightful use carries. Lethal power in the hands of the untrained and irresponsible is a frightening thought.
Yet this thought doesn’t satisfy. It refers to external power. What about inner power? Strength of character? Intellect? Satyagraha? Can inner power be given?
Floating in this existential stream, it seems that internal power can’t be given. Power (which in my definition is the ability to effect change, and only results from the transfer and consolidation of existing energy from one source to another, all the way from the atomic level to the intellectual, spiritual, and political domains) can’t be created ex nihilo unless one is a god. I can tell corn that it has permission to grow, but without cultivation the results will be haphazard at best. Besides, the power to grow is not something I give the kernels at all, but an inherent quality they are endowed with. My permission for the corn to grow is rather insignificant. Silly, even. All I can do is work the conditions in which the corn grows in order to encourage the greatest yield.
Are humans like this? Do they have inherent power that for whatever reason is unrecognized and uncultivated? Or, perhaps very likely, is prohibited and the person comes to accept it as a given? Don’t get too big for your britches. A woman’s place is in the home. Black people should marry their own kind. America, love it or leave it. Who do you think you are? You’re just an employee, I’m the boss. Who died and made you God? Moslems are all terrorists and anti-American.
If this is so, then it must also be true that no matter how much one rationalizes and accepts one’s impotence there is also a part that will not believe it. For throughout history we have had repressed and oppressed people striving against the oppressors, from married couples to entire nations. Something in the underlings just will not accept defeat.
So maybe this is the rightful use of empowerment: to awaken, educate, and cultivate the inherent power that is contained within. It’s a lot harder and takes a lot longer than merely reciting hopeful platitudes, but the results are infinitely better. It makes parenting and teaching a very serious and responsible duty.
And my tummy can abide that.
