A Weak Understanding of Power
I fear I have a weak understanding of power and suspect I'm not alone. I work in an industry that makes products, some of which get labeled "power fantasies" and "god simulators," this leads me to believe there is room for growth. I know I am deficient in this area because when my friend Chris Skaggs asked, "what would you do if God made you king of the games industry," I got uncomfortable.
When I ask myself why I'm uncomfortable with power, I think somewhere along the way, I started to believe Lord Acton's famous quote, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." His quote brings to mind The Lord of The Rings, in which we see the seductive nature of power and how quickly it's used selfishly to distort and destroy. Similar stories play out almost daily in the news, with people abusing their power in places of government, business, and even the church. For some individuals, you can tell power will be a problem even before they possess it. I've noticed a tendency where the people most eager to gain power and influence are the ones least suited for the appointment. So yeah, when I reflect on my experiences in this world, Lord Acton's observation seems to contain a lot of truth.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
However, I know my experiences have biased my thoughts on the subject, so I acknowledge that my ideas may not be reality. Paul wrote about this when he said, "For now we see in a mirror dimly" (NASB) or "Now we see things imperfectly" (NLT) (1 Corinthians 13:12). In hopes of gaining a more biblical perspective on power, I picked up Andy Crouch's book Playing God.
In the opening chapter, Andy frames the conversation: "Because of our discomfort with power, we employ a wide range of near synonyms that seem more comfortable. We speak of leadership, influence, or authority. All these are important beneficial forms of power. But these words can camouflage what is really at stake. The best word for it, with all its discomfort, is power."
So what is power? Crouch provides a simple definition: "power is the ability to make something of the world." What this means for us as humans is that we can create, shape, teardown, and reshape things in our physical, digital, and mental landscapes. In short, power enables us to make culture. And woven into this power is our uniquely human ability to ascribe meaning.
An important point to consider is that our powers were given as gifts. Why is power a gift? Crouch answers, "Because power is for flourishing. When power is used well, people and the whole cosmos come more alive to what they were meant to be." The desire to flourish is something all humankind holds in common—believers and non-believers alike. As I reflect on the ultimate goal of power being human flourishing, it helps me realize an error I may have likely been making.
I've avoided power for some portion of my life because I saw the suffering its mishandling can bring. However, the abuse of power is only one-half of the equation. As Chris and Andy point out, the other side of the equation is that some people choose not to use their power. Some may avoid power because of fear, like the steward who buried their talent in the ground. Others may decide not to pick it up because of the responsibilities that come with it. No matter the reason, the abdication of power can be an error as consequential as misusing it. Both move people away from flourishing and toward suffering. To put it in bible terms: they are both sins; one is commission, and the other is omission.
“The day is coming when the world is going to stand before a jury made up of followers of Jesus. If someday you are going to rule on the world’s fate, wouldn’t it be a good idea to practice on some of these smaller cases? Why, we’re even going to judge angels! So why not these everyday affairs?”
It seems we can't avoid power—God's creation requires us to use the powers bestowed upon us for the world to flourish. If that is the case, we had better practice. And if we are to practice, then an ideal place to do it would be a place of safety, an environment where the stakes are low, where we have permission to fail, and when we fail, the environment will prevent us from damaging others. Based on those criteria, games seem like an ideal place to train people to use power. Yet, at this moment, I can't confidently recommend games as a solution. Let's look at three reasons why.
First, most games we create have a distorted view of power. I say this based on two passages Andy wrote: "The deepest form of power is creation, and when power takes the form of coercion and violence, that is actually a diminishment and distortion of what it was meant to be." and "Jesus' only use of power was to create, never to protect himself or exalt himself. Perhaps this is the deepest explanation of his nonviolence. Violence, even when used in justifiable self-defense, does nothing to restore, redeem or create. It only damages in return."
Why do we focus so much on violence and destruction? The simple answer is it's easy entertainment that requires little from the player. Destruction is much easier than creation; creation requires the maker to bring their skills, point of view, and genius to the problem. If you've ever brought something into the world, you know that you deposited a little piece of yourself into the creation, and in the end, it cost you something.
The dichotomy between creating and destroying is regularly on display in my living room. My middle children love Magna-Tiles, and they spend hours building and creating. But there is a problem: my toddler-age son Bridger would like to join in on the play. The "middles" try their best to block Bridger from their creations, but inevitably, he eventually sneaks past their defenses and knocks down their creations. The scene concludes with the little man toddling off with a giggle while the older kids are left distraught, writhing on the floor in agony.
The second reason I hesitate to recommend games as a training ground for power is that our portrayals of power are mostly shallow. If you are familiar with Spider-Man, you probably know Uncle Ben's famous line, "with great power comes great responsibility." As cliche as it has become, it's still true. Jesus said something similar, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (Luke 12:48). Responsibilities always accompany power; the problem is we see the power, but we're often blind to the responsibilities. It may be that there is no way to truly comprehend the weight and importance of those responsibilities until we are in those shoes. John Mark McMillan has a beautiful song about this where he asks the question, "Would we covet the power you hold, if we knew we would suffer this?"
Games are intentionally shallow concerning their portrayals of power to prevent players from being weighed down by responsibilities and to preserve the fun. I encountered this experience firsthand in college. In the early 2000s, The Sims and Black & White were released and quickly became massive hits. A few of my friends became highly invested in these games, so I decided to try them. Unlike my friends, though, I only enjoyed them briefly. The reason was that they started to feel like work. The little AI avatars in the games were needy. It was difficult meeting their needs and nearly impossible to keep them happy. The demands of those simulations became stress-inducing rather than stress-releasing activities. In a small sense, I felt the weight of responsibility that went with my god-like powers, and it became uncomfortable. It was quickly apparent that I was not ready to be a god—not even a digitally simulated one. This story probably says more about me than the games because they were hits. Still, the bouncing off I experienced is what designers try to avoid, so responsibilities are kept to a minimum resulting in shallow depictions.
The final idea comes from another of Andy's books, Strong and Weak. To paraphrase his argument: skills learned in games don't translate well to the real world, whereas real-world skills translate easily into games. To make his point, he talks about how football players can bring all of their skills and knowledge into a game of Madden and be applicable. Yet, someone who isn't a football player but is good at Madden would obtain a greatly diminished return when trying to apply their game skills to a real-world game of football.
I've been mulling this last idea over in my head since I read it a few weeks ago. I'm not convinced he used the best example, but I see the point he is trying to make, and there are merits to it. Nevertheless, we know that training in a video-game-like environment works because more and more companies are going this route. We see this, especially with VR training experiences where the job is dangerous or requires expensive equipment. The takeaway from this should be that if our goal is genuine to train, we need to map our virtual experience as close to reality as possible. The closer we are to a one-to-one mapping, the better the exchange rate, and the easier it will be to bring our newly acquired skills into the real world.
I'm an incredible optimist regarding the potential of games, so these challenges don't scare me. Games can revolutionize training in literally every sector, including how we learn to use power. We just have some growing to do (me included).
