Political power, as everyone pretty much knows - and as some know from experience - is generally exercised from the top down. But where does political power come from in the first place?
In a blog posting titled, "Power Up," which I published on January 27, 2025, I cited to Hannah Arendt's discussion of the origin of power:
Power comes into being only if and when men join themselves together for the purpose of action, and it will disappear when, for whatever reason, they disperse and desert one another.
In other words, while power is exercised from the "top down," power is generated "from the bottom up."
That means that we, ordinary people, are the source of the power which can be - and so often is - turned against us.
But let's note, carefully, what Hannah Arendt says, too. Power is generated (from the bottom up) when, and only when, we "join ourselves together." That means, as I am fond of repeating, that we will only have "self-government" if and when we get engaged in government and politics ourselves.
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