For any nation, tribe, family, or any kind of group entity at all, there will always be someone who holds more power than others. However, in the vast majority of examples, the one who is in charge of that power does not use it the way they are meant to use it. They become corrupt, wasteful, and insensitive and the list goes on and on. So what is the right way to use power? Naturally, power should be used in a way that will benefit the society below it. And how can this be achieved? In order for power to benefit society, it must be used to keep society together, and to maintain content among the majority of its members.
If power cannot keep society together, it is not being used correctly. It seems like an easy task, to force everybody to obey you. But that is only part of the task: merely bringing the society together. The real challenge is to keep it that way indefinitely. A naïve outlook on the means of staying in power is that one has to live up to the virtues that one’s subjects expect. However, this is not true, as Machiavelli describes in his guide The Prince, “A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.” The Prince character, on the other hand, navigates around this demise by thinking ahead, to his future. He realises that if he tries to exercise all the virtues that an ideal prince should have, he will eventually run out of resources. So instead, he is careful about choosing the right things to be virtuous about, and the right things to hold back on. For example, he is not generous, but by doing this, he saves money that in the future could be used to prevent tax increases. Thus, by starting out with little virtuosity, the Prince is able to increase his favorability with the rest of the people over time by thinking ahead. To get a better idea of what happens when the one in control is not as enlightened as Machiavelli’s Prince, we compare Big Nurse from the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. She was able to grasp power in the beginning by being the Administrator of the facility, but instead of looking ahead, she chose to pursue selfish goals through despotism. McMurphy, one of the patients, said that “[Big Nurse] is a ball cutter… people [like her] try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to” (57). Because of her lack of concern for the future, the Big Nurse is not able to keep her power through the end of the novel. Her subjects, after being enlightened by McMurphy of the Nurse’s evils, finally rebel, and her society falls apart.
The Prince was an example of suppressing virtues in order to keep society together in the long run. The Big Nurse was an example of a complete lack of virtues that would have helped keep the society together. A third outlook is the forced exhibition of characteristics that are perceived to be virtuous by the general public. George Orwell, in his autobiographical incident “Shooting and Elephant,” demonstrates that sometimes it is impossible to follow Machiavelli’s advice. At one point in the story, “I perceived … that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him.” This directly contradicts Machiavelli’s conclusion that if a ruler refrains from doing what the subjects expect of him, he will be able to keep them together better later on. Instead, Orwell is obligated to follow the natives’ expectations in order to keep peace. If he does not do as they expect, then he will lose his hierarchical standing amongst his subjects, and he will start to be looked down upon by them, which is more or less the equivalent of losing power, and bringing chaos to the society. In conclusion, one thing remains clear: forgetting about virtues that the ideal holder of one’s authority would have leads to the eventual collapse of society, thus failing the objective of a good ruler. If one does remember those virtues, however, then it becomes tricky to know when, or when not to display the virtues. This is why looking ahead and considering all possible consequences is such an important method of solving this issue: if the ruler can analyse what will happen either way, then he or she will most likely choose the correct path. Remembering virtues, and choosing wisely which to strive towards achieving and which to suppress, will guarantee that the society stays together, which is one objective of using power correctly.
Keeping subjects in order for the duration of one’s reign is one of the most important facets of a good ruler. However, is it enough? Say, for example, that the Big Nurse really did remember her potential virtues, and was just suppressing them, trying to follow Machiavelli’s teachings. Why did she still go wrong at the end of the novel? Her society did seem to be staying together, until McMurphy showed up, that is. The answer can be found in George Orwell’s reasoning: no matter how hard you try, you cannot keep a society together unless they are satisfied with your usage of power. Of course, Orwell’s subjects would probably much rather live independently of the colonizers, but for the moment, the situation is kept stable, because the subjects are satisfied with the ruler’s use of power. Orwell’s despotism succeeds while Big Nurse is unable to reach the same objective because her subjects gain the ability to admit how awfully unhappy they truly are under her rule. After McMurphy tries to persuade Harding, another patient at the ward, of how horrible the Big Nurse really is, Harding finally says “You are right … about all of it. … No one’s ever dared come out and say it before, but there’s not a man among us that doesn’t think it, that doesn’t feel just as you do about her and the whole business—feel it somewhere down deep in his scared little soul” (59). Once everyone else understood that they would have support from the other patients if they voiced their dislike about the Big Nurse, the Nurse’s power immediately dropped quite far. One on one, it is impossible to defeat the sheer mass of the Nurse’s authority, but together, it does not seem like such an impossible task any longer, and the patients begin to rebel. That is why a dictatorship based on negative incentive is a risky tactic to indulge in: if one’s subjects are unhappy, they can potentially realize that there is a possibility of changing the power structure, thus rendering one’s efforts at suppressing them useless. George Orwell realizes this point, which is why he acted the way that he did. Had he not done as the natives expected him to, he would have lowered his apparent power, showing weakness, and the natives would have seen that he is not so formidable after all, opening the door for rebellion. Contrary to this totalitarianism, McMurphy proves himself to be a benevolent leader, trying to make his followers feel comfortable around him. A great example is when, on one of many recurring meetings, the patients become bolder to do what they always wanted to do, encouraged by the presence of McMurphy. Chief Bromden says that “Now that McMurphy was around to back them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had ever happened on the ward they didn’t like” (145). McMurphy, though he is a leader, does not employ the same tactics as any of the characters mentioned above to use his power. Instead of manipulating his subjects to stay submissive to his authority, he manipulates the environment of his subjects to create favorability for himself. For example, he shows the patients in the ward that there is still hope in the battle against Big Nurse, thus manipulating the atmosphere into a more comfortable state. This tactic is highly effective at keeping his followers satisfied, proving to be highly superiour to that of Big Nurse when every patient joined McMurphy’s side by the end of the novel, parting from Big Nurse’s control. McMurphy’s method of seeking out the needs and wants of his followers and acting to improve conditions for them based on this knowledge is the best way to use power to keep those under the authority mostly satisfied.
In conclusion, two most effective forms of power are evident. The first keeps the society together well, but is unstable concerning the satisfaction of the subjects, who might rebel against the authority for making their life miserable. The second keeps the subjects happy, but is rather weak in keeping the society together, because this happens passively. If the subjects suddenly decided to disband, there would be nothing to prevent them from doing so, as opposed to the first method discussed. So if the ideal way to use power to benefit society is to do both things very well: to keep society together, and relatively happy, then is it feasible to put the two aforementioned methods together? Unlikely, because while the Prince is manipulating his subjects (though not as overtly as most dictators), McMurphy is manipulating the environment around them. Now, if a ruler was to both manipulate the subjects and the environment at the same time, the two tactics would contradict each other, only making matters worse for the ruler. And, obviously, if the ruler were to do neither, he or she would not be a ruler at all. Therefore, a potential ruler is faced with a decision to either focus on keeping the society together, or keeping the followers happy, and it is crucial to make the right choice with respect to the circumstances. In practicality, there is no possible way to use power ideally, but it is possible to get close by choosing the right of two methods according to the type of society, and most likely, the unstable half of the tactic will not be a problem.
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