Spencer challenges "power corrupts" by questioning whether superpowers would inspire altruism or exploitation, noting no real-world proof. He examines CEOs facing dilemmas—like sacrificing profits for public health—while critics call their influence corruption, often ignoring systemic pressures. Political polarization worsens when opponents are framed as enemies, but dialogue could bridge divides. The episode argues that meaningful change requires collective action, not elite self-preservation or mythical heroes. [Automatically generated summary]
And we're back with Truth Unrestricted, the podcast that would have a better name if they weren't all taken.
I'm Spencer, your host.
I just want to remind everyone at the top that if you want to comment or disagree with anything I say on this podcast, the proper place to do that is by sending an email to truthunrestricted at gmail.com.
Topic of the podcast this week is the nature of corruption.
This is the topic that fascinates me, and I think it's something most people don't think about a lot, so it makes it a perfect topic for this podcast.
It's often been said that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This is a nice adage, and it certainly sounds very true when you hear it, but I'm not convinced that it rises to the level that is required of what we might call a logical argument.
One might well ask, what is the mechanism that causes power to corrupt a person?
Or what is the property of a human being that causes absolute power to corrupt absolutely?
In this, the adage falls short.
So that's why we're here.
If you had superpowers, would you use them for good or for evil?
That sort of question gets immediately bogged down under the philosophical weight of what is good and what is evil.
So let's try to define it more usefully.
If you had superpowers, would you use them to help other people avoid hazards?
Would you use them to fight crime like Batman?
Would you use them to make the world itself a better place?
Or would you use your superpowers for selfish goals?
Would you use your powers to enrich yourself?
Would you use them to settle old scores?
Would you use your powers to get revenge on people who had insulted you or worked to hold you back in life?
Most of us, when it comes right down to it, would like to say that we would use superpowers for the betterment of others rather than selfishly just for ourselves.
But how could we possibly know?
To the best of our knowledge, actual superpowers do not exist.
At least, not in the comic book sense.
Some of us are better at some things than others of us, and some of those things that some of us are better at are more useful in the world as it exists today.
Superpowers do not exist, but we do live in a world where some of us have more influence over the course of events than others of us.
We have a stratified society that elevates some of us to political offices and executive boardrooms, while others of us toil in relative obscurity in cubicles and mechanical workshops and service jobs.
There is a divide in our society, and it's easy for those of us who are not near the top to become cynical about the direction of society.
We're just not in a position to make concrete decisions about the shape of things.
Some might interject at this point and remind me that we all have one vote.
Yes, it's true we do each have just the one vote, but we're not voting for each individual decision that's being made in the decision-making offices of the world.
We're voting for representatives who are then making their own decisions that we hope have our best interests at heart.
We have to hope that they have our best interests at heart because there is no guarantee that they actually do.
Also worth noting while we're on the topic that we as citizens are not voting for who sits in the executive boardrooms.
The occupants of those seats are decided by some other process that is not democratic.
If the occupants of those executive boardroom chairs had only their own vote with which to influence our political process, we might well ignore them for discussions like this.
Alas, that simply isn't true.
CEOs of large corporations tend to get an uneven amount of access to influence the decisions of elected officials than ordinary citizens.
And that is just something we have to contend with.
The tendency is to look at the additional influence of corporate executive types as some level of corruption in society.
At least that is felt among people who don't have that same level of access.
So if you were a CEO of a large corporation, would you use your position, your money, and your influence to improve the world?
Or would you use your power for selfish gain and petty revenge?
Or is there a third option?
Would you do some of each?
I pick on CEOs a lot on this podcast, but the ability to wield influence in our society isn't only found in elected officials and executive boardrooms.
Artists tend to wield a lot of influence by the mere fact that they are very popular and people might listen to what they say.
There is one thing that the artists have in common with politicians and CEOs, and that is that it tends to take a lot of effort, combined with a lot of skill, to reach the kinds of positions that can actually influence society.
People win the lottery every week, but we never hear about any lottery winners affecting change in society.
If you were a person who had an in-demand skill and you subsequently put in the large amount of effort toward that skill that pushed you toward the upper strata of influencers in our world, what would you be like?
Do you think you would be different than you are now?
Would you feel that you had earned your way to that position?
Or would you say that it was just luck?
If you felt like you had earned your way to the top, would you feel like you deserved at least some of the trappings and creature comforts that would come with it?
Would you drink more alcohol?
Would you do illicit drugs?
Would you feel that you were owed some level of additional social status?
Would you feel some level of effrontery if someone didn't recognize you for your imagined level of additional social status?
If people didn't recognize you as having a higher status, would you try to find other ways to remind them that you had achieved it?
Would you wear clothing that conferred a higher level of status?
Designer suits, more fashionable clothing, maybe a flashy vehicle.
You might feel like moving to a more affluent neighborhood was only prudent, seeing as you now have more things worth stealing.
Would you look for ways to advertise your imagined higher status?
If you were one of society's elite, would you feel bad about your inability to fix the problems you saw in the world?
In that sadness, would you reach for more ability to influence the world and thereby have a greater ability to fix some of the problems?
In reaching for greater influence, would you gain detractors who cynically said that you were only reaching for that power to further enrich yourself?
If you were a CEO in a boardroom, would you use your power and influence to talk to elected representatives?
Would you try to influence their decisions for both the betterment of yourself and the betterment of society as a whole?
If people outside your boardroom saw this as some level of graft or corruption, would you allow that criticism to prevent you from working to change the world for the better?
If you were a CEO and you were faced with a decision which pitted your corporation's advancement against the health and advancement of society, would you willingly give up your corporation's advancement so that society could gain instead?
What if the rest of the board didn't agree with you and wanted to remove you as CEO for not putting your corporation and their investment first?
Would you pick that as a hill to die on and go down knowing that you did the best thing for society?
What if the other board members in this hypothetical scenario would simply replace you with another CEO who would make the decision the way they wanted?
Would you still hold the line on that choice knowing it would be for naught?
Or would you seek a compromise so that you could retain your position and maybe still get some measure of benefit for society?
Would you make that decision solely for the benefit of the corporation and against the health and betterment of society simply because you knew that whichever CEO replaced you, they would have even fewer moral scruples?
Would you allow a boardroom full of greedy people to bully you into a bad choice so that you could, quote unquote, live to fight another day and maybe slowly work to replace those greedy board members with better people?
Such is the path of the people we look at cynically as selling out our world.
They are greedy, but they couldn't have reached that pinnacle without being greedy.
And even being good people with good consciences doesn't really help them to make better choices because they would also have to be surrounded by good people with good consciences.
Is it possible that the people we view as corrupt in the boardrooms are simply human beings like the rest of us, and that what we see as corruption is just the result of having more temptations?
Is it possible that we look down on them for their mistakes, but that they are simply flawed people like all of us, whose mistakes simply affect a larger number of people?
The temptation to indulge oneself with the riches of that world might seem easy to overcome, but those temptations would be ever-present, and they would be additionally amplified by the people around you who had already given in to those temptations.
The level of social expectation would be extremely high.
I don't have nearly that level of social expectation, and I get nervous whenever the grass in my lawn is getting obviously shaggy.
The willpower it would take to avoid making bad decisions that would make a person appear or outright become corrupt would be immense.
It's no surprise that we see so few people who reach that level and make the effort to make real change to improve society.
Also, there are a number of people who are working to make change in the world, but those decisions are not something that you might recognize as useful.
Is it possible for listeners of this podcast to look at someone who is making a political decision on the opposite side of the political spectrum as merely a person who feels that they are genuinely doing something good for the world?
To them, they are the superheroes who are trying to save the world from its evils.
That they have the opposite view of what is evil doesn't really change their intention, does it?
If we are able to convince them that they are just mistaken, if we are able to give them more of the correct information with which to come to the proper conclusion, is it still possible that they could become allies?
The first step would be in each of us to no longer see them as enemies, to talk to them as though they are redeemable, as though they could someday again earn our respect.
Many of us look at the problems in our world and just tune them out.
Those problems are big and each of us is but one person.
We ask ourselves, how could we possibly make a real difference in the world?
Or maybe we think it is just some level of hubris or delusion to think that we could have enough of a positive impact to really change the world.
Many of us continue our lives doing almost nothing to affect real change, knowing that it is virtually impossible to make that change or to measure the magnitude of whatever impact we might have.
We choose humility over hubris.
When we turn our attentions to our day-to-day lives, rather than to changing the big things in the world, we elect to leave those things to others to decide.
They are problems for people with more power and more influence than ourselves.
Before any success can be had, one must first make some attempt.
But before one will ever make an attempt, one must first form a belief that making the attempt could have some positive outcome.
Manufacturing in yourself this belief should be your chief concern if you want to have a better world.
We look at the large sweeping gestures of the world's elite as the thing that is creating the shape of our world, but in reality, it is the many voices of the masses that most affects the outcome.
And if those voices are forever covered by the wet blanket of apathy, then that is what most shapes our society.
There are no superheroes to come to our rescue.
The people in elected offices are supposed to speak for us, but often make decisions we don't recognize.
The people in the executive boardrooms do not make decisions with society's interest foremost in mind.
The great artists of the world might speak to our needs and raise our concerns, but they are just as often canceled for making mistakes as they are held aloft for championing our causes.
They have more to lose than they have to gain from ever making the effort.
Therefore, we must make our own efforts to change the world.
Complaining is not enough.
Pointing out corruption when it is seen can help, but too often it is forgotten before the next election cycle.
Sometimes it's forgotten before the next news cycle.
Treating political opponents like sworn enemies only assures that they will remain so forever.
It does not compromise your position to speak to your opponents as equals who might yet be convinced to see things from your side.
If it is yet possible to unite with them in cause, you might find some of the most effective allies among their ranks.
I think we should remember that as we engage with them.
And I plan to start engaging with them on this very podcast very soon.