this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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I always find it amusing that people think The 48 Laws of Power is an instruction manual. I've read that book several times, and I never once got that impression. The book is amoral, it doesn't take a stand for or against anything. Most of what people find objectionable about the book, they find objectionable in actual people who have used these tactics to do terrible things. Which definitely has happened, for thousands of years, long before that book came into existence.
Not sure if we read the same book. I opened it up again just now to confirm, a lot of it is written as "You must…" and like in seconds you can find quotes to confirm: “To this end you must learn to wear many masks and keep a bag full of deceptive tricks.”
How is that not an instruction? And even so, at the very least it‘s a worldview. One people are using without reading the book, sure.
However, as someone who prefers honesty in a partner, the book also instructs readers look at that in this view of playing honesty games too and frankly, it‘s made me a bit paranoid of everyone and even myself.
I prefer not to date with people who see the world and all relationships this way and revealing you read it multiple times or gave 5 star would be a red flag to me for this reason.
What you've quoted is only an instruction manual if you take it literally. And the world is far too complicated a place for everything to be taken literally. We still have agency over what we do with the information we take in.
I remember reading this book on a plane years ago and the person next to me had the same misgivings as you. You're reading about power? So that must mean you want more power? Why would you want more power? Who do you want power over? Etc.
It never occurred to this person that perhaps other people have had power over me, I got taken advantage of, and I wanted to understand how that happened. It's not paranoia to want to understand how humans are wired a little bit better.
Ok, I know I won‘t get through to you since you‘re such a fan, but for anyone else who might end up reading this exchange I‘ll just go ahead and quote one of these laws. As an example of word choices. They can make up their own mind if the words in question literally sound like an instruction or not:
It's not what they literally sound like, it's whether you as the reader take them literally or not. The day you start thinking for yourself and stop relying on everything to be soon fed to you, you'll start seeing things like this book much differently.
If you can‘t take the words as they are, the author failed to convey their meaning. All you are doing now is asserting that anyone with a different take on it than you is "not thinking for themselves", which is condescending. I‘m not interested in saying anything more to you.
You don't realize it yet, but we agree more than we don't. I said it's not an instruction manual, but it can be, if your intention is to have more power over other people. Decent people don't find a lot of inspiration in these laws. But they can still ring true, because the world is a very imperfect place and people with pathological personalities exist.
There's a reason Lord Acton said "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Power is a nasty business, and if you're not knowledgable about its machinations, you can fall victim to it. But power can mean many things, including the power to do good, or even to stop other people from having power over you.