016.txt

a collection of mega hacking tools

down today. In fact, many nuclear families lived by
choice in such isolation, having no neighbors within
several miles, that they belonged to no community at all,
yet they do not seem to have developed problems as a
result.

56. Furthermore, change in American frontier society was
very rapid and deep. A man might be born and raised in a
log cabin, outside the reach of law and order and fed
largely on wild meat; and by the time he arrived at old
age he might be working at a regular job and living in an
ordered community with effective law enforcement. This
was a deeper change than that which typically occurs in
the life of a modern individual, yet it does not seem to
have led to psychological problems. In fact, 19th century
American society had an optimistic and self-confident
tone, quite unlike that of today's society. [8]

57. The difference, we argue, is that modern man has the
sense (largely justified) that change is IMPOSED on him,
whereas the 19th century frontiersman had the sense (also
largely justified) that he created change himself, by his
own choice. Thus a pioneer settled on a piece of land of
his own choosing and made it into a farm through his own
effort. In those days an entire county might have only a
couple of hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated
and autonomous entity than a modern county is. Hence the
pioneer farmer participated as a member of a relatively
small group in the creation of a new, ordered community.
One may well question whether the creation of this
community was an improvement, but at any rate it
satisfied the pioneer's need for the power process.

58. It would be possible to give other examples of
societies in which there has been rapid change and/or
lack of close community ties without the kind of massive
behavioral aberration that is seen in today's industrial
society. We contend that the most important cause of
social and psychological problems in modern society is
the fact that people have insufficient opportunity to go
through the power process in a normal way. We don't mean
to say that modern society is the only one in which the
power process has been disrupted. Probably most if not
all civilized societies have interfered with the power
process to a greater or lesser extent. But in modern
industrial society the problem has become particularly
acute. Leftism, at least in its recent (mid- to late-20th
century) form, is in part a symptom of deprivation with
respect to the power process.


DISRUPTION OF THE POWER PROCESS IN MODERN SOCIETY

59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1) those
drives that can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2)
those that can be satisfied but only at the cost of
serious effort; (3) those that cannot be adequately
satisfied no matter how much effort one makes. The power
process is the process of satisfying the drives of the
second group. The more drives there are in the third
group, the more there is frustration, anger, eventually
defeatism, depression, etc.

60. In modern industrial society natural human drives
tend to be pushed into the first and third groups, and
the second group tends to consist increasingly of
artificially created drives.

61. In primitive societies, physical necessities
generally fall into group 2: They can be obtained, but
only at the cost of serious effort. But modern society
tends to guaranty the physical necessities to everyone
[9] in exchange for only minimal effort, hence physical
needs are pushed into group 1. (There may be disagreement
about whether the effort needed to hold a job is
"minimal"; but usually, in lower- to middle-level jobs,
whatever effort is required is merely that of OBEDIENCE.
You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and
do what you are told to do in the way you are told to do
it. Seldom do you have to exert yourself seriously, and
in any case you have hardly any autonomy in work, so that
the need for the power process is not well served.)

62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often
remain in group 2 in modern society, depending on the
situation of the individual. [10] But, except for people
who have a particularly strong drive for status, the
effort required to fulfill the social drives is
insufficient to satisfy adequately the need for the power
process.

63. So certain artificial needs have been created that
fall into group 2, hence serve the need for the power
process. Advertising and marketing techniques have been
developed that make many people feel they need things
that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed of.
It requires serious effort to earn enough money to
satisfy these artificial needs, hence they fall into
group 2. (But see paragraphs 80-82.) Modern man must
satisfy his need for the power process largely through
pursuit of the artificial needs created by the
advertising and marketing industry [11], and through
surrogate activities.

64. It seems that for many people, maybe the majority,
these artificial forms of the power process are
insufficient. A theme that appears repeatediy in the
writings of the social critics of the second half of the
20th century is the sense of purposelessness that
afflicts many people in modern society. (This
purposelessness is often called by other names such as
"anomic" or "middle-class vacuity.") We suggest that the
so-called "identity crisis" is actually a search for a
sense of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable
surrogate activity. It may be that existentialism is in
large part a response to the purposelessness of modern
life. [12] Very widespread in modern society is the
search for "fulfillment." But we think that for the
majority of people an activity whose main goal is
fulfillment (that is, a surrogate activity) does not
bring completely satisfactory fulfillment. In other
words, it does not fully satisfy the need for the power
process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be fully
satisfied only through activities that have some external
goal, such as physical necessities, sex, love, status,
revenge, etc.

65. Moreover, where goals are pursued through earning
money, climbing the status ladder or functioning as part
of the system in some other way, most people are not in
a position to pursue their goals AUTONOMOUSLY. Most
workers are someone else's employee and, as we pointed
out in paragraph 61, must spend their days doing what
they are told to do in the way they are told to do it.
Even people who are in business for themselves have only
limited autonomy. It is a chronic complaint of
small-business persons and entrepreneurs that their hands
are tied by excessive government regulation. Some of
these regulations are doubtless unnecessary, but for the
most part government regulations are essential and
inevitable parts of our extremely complex society. A
large portion of small business today operates on the
franchise system. It was reported in the Wall Street
Journal a few years ago that many of the
franchise-granting companies require applicants for
franchises to take a personality test that is designed to
EXCLUDE those who have creativity and initiative, because
such persons are not sufficiently docile to go along
obediently with the franchise system. This excludes from
small business many of the people who most need autonomy.

66. Today people live more by virtue of what the system
does FOR them or TO them than by virtue of what they do
for themselves. And what they do for themselves is done
more and more along channels laid down by the system.
Opportunities tend to be those that the system provides,
the opportunities must be exploited in accord with rules
and regulations [13], and techniques prescribed by
experts must be followed if there is to be a chance of
success.

67. Thus the power process is disrupted in our society
through a deficiency of real goals and a deficiency of
autonomy in the pursuit of goals. But it is also
disrupted because of those human drives that fall into
group 3: the drives that one cannot adequately satisfy no
matter how much effort one makes. One of these drives is
the need for security. Our lives depend on decisions made
by other people; we have no control over these decisions
and usually we do not even know the people who make them.
("We live in a world in which relatively few people --
maybe 500 or 1,000 make the important decisions" --
Philip B. Heymann of Harvard Law School, quoted by
Anthony Lewis, New York Times, April 21,1995.) Our lives
depend on whether safety standards at a nuclear power
plant are properly maintained; on how much pesticide is
allowed to get into our food or how much pollution into
our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is;
whether we lose or get a job may depend on decisions made
by government economists or corporation executives; and
so forth. Most individuals are not in a position to
secure themselves against these threats to more [than] a
very limited extent. The individual's search for security
is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense of
powerlessness.

68. It may be objected that primitive man is physically
less secure than modern man, as is shown by his shorter
life expectancy; hence modern man suffers from less, not
more than the amount of insecurity that is normal for
human beings. But psychological security does not closely
correspond with physical security. What makes us FEEL
secure is not so much objective security as a sense of
confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves.
Primitive man, threatened by a fierce animal or by
hunger, can fight in self-defense or travel in search of
food. He has no certainty of success in these efforts,
but he is by no means helpless against the things that
threaten him. The modern individual on the other hand is
threatened by many things against which he is helpless:
nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental
pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his privacy
by large organizations, nationwide social or economic
phenomena that may disrupt his way of life.

69. It is true that primitive man is powerless against
some of the things that threaten him; disease for
example. But he can accept the risk of disease stoically.
It is part of the nature of things, it is no one's fault,
unless it is the fault of some imaginary, impersonal
demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be
MAN-MADE. They are not the results of chance but are
IMPOSED on him by other persons whose decisions he, as an
individual, is unable to influence. Consequently he feels
frustrated, humiliated and angry.

70. Thus primitive man for the most part has his security
in his own hands (either as an individual or as a member
of a SMALL group) whereas the security of modern man is
in the hands of persons or organizations that are too
remote or too large for him to be able personally to
influence them. So modern man's drive for security tends
to fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas (food, shelter
etc.) his security is assured at the cost of only trivial
effort, whereas in other areas he CANNOT attain security.
(The foregoing greatly simplifies the real situation, but
it does indicate in a rough, general way how the
condition of modern man differs from that of primitive
man.)

71. People have many transitory drives or impulses that
are necessarily frustrated in modern life, hence fall
into group 3. One may become angry, but modern society
cannot permit fighting. In many situations it does not
even permit verbal aggression. When going somewhere one
may be in a hurry, or one may be in a mood to travel
slowly, but one generally has no choice but to move with
the flow of traffic and obey the traffic signals. One may
want to do one's work in a different way, but usually one
can work only according to the rules laid down by one's
employer. In many other ways as well, modern man is
strapped down by a network of rules and regulations
(explicit or implicit) that frustrate many of his
impulses and thus interfere with the power process. Most
of these regulations cannot be dispensed with, because
they are necessary for the functioning of industrial
society.

72. Modern society is in certain respects extremely
permissive. In matters that are irrelevant to the
functioning of the system we can generally do what we
please. We can believe in any religion (as long as it
does not encourage behavior that is dangerous to the
system). We can go to bed with anyone we like (as long as
we practice "safe sex"). We can do anything we like as
long as it is UNIMPORTANT. But in all IMPORTANT matters
the system tends increasingly to regulate our behavior.

73. Behavior is regulated not only through explicit rules
and not only by the government. Control is often
exercised through indirect coercion or through
psychological pressure or manipulation, and by
organizations other than the government, or by the system
as a whole. Most large organizations use some form of
propaganda [14] to manipulate public attitudes or
behavior. Propaganda is not limited to "commercials" and