I have lately found the question of power asserting itself to me with increasingly insistence. This is unfortunate, as I don’t feel any special qualification to answer it.

As a one-time (and still in the eyes of many) libertarian, my understanding of power went from sharply defined (or so I thought) to rather muddled. I read Foucault recently, thinking I might find one of the canonical takes on power of our times, but I was disappointed. As the ignoramus in that particular hermeneutic encounter, it was no doubt more my fault than his. Either way, I didn’t feel like I took too terribly much away that I hadn’t already encountered in conversations beforehand.

As usual, I find I cannot think properly without writing. Since wisdom is to be found in making distinctions, I’ll put together a taxonomy of power as I currently understand it.

The radical incompleteness of human understanding gives all arguments a speculative quality to them, no matter the confidence or competence of the author. In this case, I’ve neither confidence nor competence, so my taxonomy is very speculative indeed. I offer it as part of my own process of thinking this question through, but also in the hope that more knowledgeable people than I will find it, read it, and critique it.

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