LOVE AND POWER

Power is the drive of everything living to realize itself, with increasing intensity and extensity.
Love is the drive towards unity of the separated.

Power, then, can also be seen as the urge towards agency and self-transcendence. Love is the urge towards communion and self-dissolution (i.e. losing oneself in the whole). If we focus too much on our individual agency when trying to create change, we can come across as arrogant, leave people behind and fail to connect with people where they are. But if we focus too much on communion with the group and not enough on actual achievements, then our work can be ineffectual.

We need both power and love to achieve effective social change when faced with tough challenges. When we let either of these drives dominate, we stagger and stumble. Only when they are in balance can we walk successfully and find resolution to complex social challenges.

Power and love therefore represent not a choice but a dilemma; choosing one or the other is always a mistake. If we want to effect social change generatively rather than degeneratively, we need to choose both.