Power and responsibility: they need to go hand in hand

 

     "With great power comes great responsibility". I suspect there aren't a lot of people (globally) who have not seen, or heard, that phrase. It did not originate with Spider-Man, of course, but the character has certainly made it much more widely known.

     So many plots in books, especially spy or science fiction genre books, seem to have the antagonist wanting to "take over the world". This makes sense to me only from a fragmented perspective. If you divide the power from the responsibility -- power without responsibility -- then I can see it as a goal of the evil villain. The world, and all its people and contents, as personal playthings to do whatever they want to do. The thought sends shivers up my spine. And there have been such people in history although they have never had the global power that they might have sought.

     But power WITH responsibility? It is not surprising to me that, upon looking at the photographs of most US Presidents before and after their time in office, there is a lot more grey hair, a lot more wrinkles, a lot more mileage.

     Power paired with responsibility varies a lot of course -- in depth and breadth. If I am in charge of taking care of a paraplegic then the great reliance grants power and, in turn, enormous responsibility. If I am in charge of the wellbeing of a thousand children at a school, I have less power per individual as they each continue to have a degree of power in themselves but the aggregate power and responsibility is considerable.

     That responsibility enforces its own requirements. When my business partner and I started our company, we sometimes had cash flow problems. As corporate leaders, when that happened, our paychecks disappeared so that we could continue to pay bills and send out paychecks to our people. I was lucky that, at the time, I was single and without others to depend upon me. Ramen noodles are easier to spread out over a month with one person than when there are others, used to a more nutritionally rounded meal, who depend upon you.

     But, it is a balancing act. We never reached the point where dire divisions of cash flow were required but we did have to look at the future and, at one point, had to layoff some of our very knowledgeable, experienced, staff. Otherwise, the projected future cash flow would have forced much more stringent needs upon us. If our savings had hit such a low that my business partner and I could no longer have survived without income, it would have been necessary to reduce everyone's paycheck such that we could have participated in that reduced income.

     The point is that we were responsible to, and for, all of the people within the company and choices always had to have their needs in mind at all times. Luckily, we never went public or we would also have had the needs of the stockholders in mind also.

     I spoke of breadth and depth. Superman (in one version within the DC mulitverse) had the power to destroy a planet. NOT destroying planets was one aspect of responsibility but there was no way to leverage that power to be able to take care of eight billion individuals. He had one aspect of depth of power but did not have the breadth of power for the needs of all of the living creatures.

     With great power should come great responsibility. When it doesn't, it is a severe problem. Power comes in many forms and many degrees but it should align with appropriate responsibilities.