Power is not always knowledge

In a personal way knowledge is power or the same effective power.  Knowledge of building a cabin or a house is power.  Knowledge of what the Buddha actually realized and taught is power for effecting personal change and helping and teaching others to a certain extent.  Flipping this around, power is not knowledge.  Institutional power is not, necessarily, knowledge.  Nor is the ability to compel obedience as might a parent over their children or the boss over his employees real knowledge.  Far from it.  Maybe this is where the old adage, that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, comes from.  It is almost like saying power with little or no knowledge can be a very dangerous thing.

In a quest for power, those who desire it the most are more than often content with having a little knowledge or even pseudo-knowledge.  This is the way with most of the world’s priest class from rabbis to Buddhist monks in which power is the goal, in the sense of compelling other’s to be obedient (we see this in the historical development of the “rabbi” and the “monk sangha”).  In the quest for power knowledge becomes subordinate to the quest.  Knowledge, in this regard, morphs into fake knowledge in the example of using clever persuasion arguments, and conflating logic with truth (all of this leads to disputes).  I hasten to add this includes external forms of power such as religious clothing including various kind of artifacts along with different kinds of rituals and practices.

In the truest meaning, knowledge is effective, hence, power.  Religious knowledge, it would follow, is direct, personal knowledge of ultimate reality.  Only this is true power because it is attained, absolute knowledge of ultimate reality.  Falling short of this there still remains a strong desire for power in which one sect literally tries to wipe out its rivals or there is a bitter rivalry between individuals.  Those who have a deep personal need for power, as if this is fungible with knowledge, tend to rise to the top of Buddhist institutions.  I see them all the time.  They are grist for this blog.  I can name two right off the bat: Stephen Batchelor and Brad Warner.

Comments

[Bob G]

I love your blog and have been following it for years now. I particularly like this one, since it reflects what I have come to feel in my decades in the buddhist world. Strength to your elbow and keep it up!