Oh hey! Didn’t see you there. Its been awhile hasn’t it? Well I’m back at it with another blog post from the fantastic class of PLP! My assignment over the past month or so has been all about concepts. First of all what is a concept? Well by definition a concept is

Throughout the past month Ms Willemse gave the class seven concepts to work with and these are;
Power and Authority

Humanity and Inhumanity

Violence and Destruction

Human nature

Civilization and Savagery

Innocence and Evil

Individualism and Community

Are first task of a class was to write a paragraph relating to one of these concepts with the use of examples that we had studied in class. Now we had to do three of these over about a time span of three weeks. Little did my class know that these paragraphs were just a warm up to this blog post, Yikes. The main point of this post is to take one of the concepts given above, and compose a formal writing piece that has examples referring to what we learnt in class. For example “The final concept blog post should include a developed version of one of your concept paragraphs. You should refer to Lord of the Flies, Macbeth, another text studied, and a historical event. Have references for each.” -Ms Willemse. So here is my best attempt of exceeding Ms Willemse expectations.
Power and authority

During a crisis, at what point does a leader abuse his power and authority to manipulate others to his advantage?

Throughout the history of time, there are many examples of leaders using their power and authority to manipulate others for their personal advantage. Emperor Commondus, one of the most influential and feared Emperors of the Roman Empire, abused his power and authority for his own personal gain. He strongly believed himself to be a reincarnation of the demi God
Hercules and ordered many statues of him dressed in the clothes of the demi God. He also ordered the deaths of many roman citizens as he became bored, since he thought it was a fun activity. Commondus would participate in battles against exotic animals in the Colosseum to prove to the citizens that he was as strong as Hercules, and was in fact the reincarnation of the Demi God.

Similarly the actions of Commondus can be seen in the fictional character Jack, from the book, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Jack, once an innocent boy, just like Commondus, had the taste of power and began to abuse his authority for his personal advantage. Although Jack was not a leader in the beginning of the novel he slowly gained power and forced others to believe that his was a leader. “Jack was waiting for something. He whispered urgently to the others. “Go on—now!”…. The two savages looked at each other, raised their spears together and spoke in time. “The Chief has spoken.” ( Gift from the Darkness). This quote firmly connects to the example of Commondus forcing the citizens of Rome to believe that he was someone he clearly wasn’t. Jack was not assigned leader but used his power and authority to make people believe that he was a leader, thus relating to Commondus forcing people to believe he was Hercules. Both Jack and Commondus had the thrill to kill animals in their leisure time. “the sow staggered her way ahead of them, bleeding and mad,… excited by the long chase and the dropped blood…[Jack] hurled [himself] at [the sow]… Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with his knife…Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands.” (Gift from the Darkness). Jack used the kill of the pig to prove that he was leader, using his power, he made people believe in something he was not. This quote can be connected to Commondus killing exotic animals and abusing his power to prove his worth of being the reincarnated Hercules. The death of many citizens and people are widespread throughout the rein of Emperor Commondus and Jack. Most of these deaths were due to the abuse of power and authority to manipulate others into killing one an other. Numerous examples from the novel show Jack’s abuse of power and authority which manipulated others into murdering each other. “Kill the [boy]! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!” At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the [boy], screamed, struck, bit, tore”. Jack abusing his power got a young boy killed by his followers with out a blink of an eye. Both Jack and Commondus used their power to manipulate others into doing sinful work.

It’s not only leaders who abuse their power for their own personal advantage. Some leaders’ right hand men use their power and authority to manipulate others, sometimes even manipulating the leader themselves. In the theatrical play, Macbeth, the abuse of power from “Macbeth’s right hand man, or wife, formally known as lady Macbeth”, abused Macbeth and his power for her personal advantage. In the opening act, the reader is introduced to Macbeth, strong and fearless leader whom has great potential for endless power. His wife, Lady Macbeth sees this opportunity and wants to use it to her advantage. Although Macbeth does not care greatly about his potential power, Lady Macbeth does. Many examples from the play demonstrate examples of Lady Macbeth manipulating Macbeth for her own personal advantage.

“Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would, ”
Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?” (Lady Macbeth, Act I, VII).
The quote stated above, illustrates that Lady Macbeth knows exactly how to manipulate Macbeth, to the point where the consideration of taking another life has flooded his mind. She attacked what Macbeth takes most pride in, his manhood. Lady Macbeth, using her talents of manipulation, attacked her husband. By using her power and authority over him, she could control Macbeth till the point where Macbeth murdered innocent people which stained his hands. Although the powers of Manipulation are dominant between the connection of Husband to wife, this same power can be seen in the strong bond within best friends.

In the novel, Three Day Road, by Joseph Boyden, the unbreakable bond between Best friends is portrayed. The two men named, Xavier and Elijah are members of a First Nations culture and are shipped off to World War I at a young age. The incredibly influential war takes a toll on the two friends. From the time of their departure from home, until being sent home from the battlefield, a ghastly change occurred to the two friends. From living the simple life of a First Nations man to the life of a blood thirsty killing machine, Elijah and Xavier fought a battle for power. Although Ejliah was the one with most power and authority between him and Xavier, Xavier would slowly start to manipulate Ejliah into using him to gain power. “Elijah takes a long time sighting… gently squeezes the trigger, and misses… If I can do this I will no longer be so much the outsider… [Xavier] [squeezes] the trigger and as if by some magic the match flares and then lights… The men roar.” (Competition). This quote represents Xavier manipulating Elijah to gain power. Although Elijah is the favoured one, Xavier uses Elijah’s competitiveness to gain power and authority over others by defeating his friend. He defeated Elijah in his own game to gain the trust and respect of the others therefore furthering Xavier’s authority for his personal advantage. Xavier’s power and authority is slowly growing more superior to Elijah’s. The lack of competency from Elijah is inferior to Xavier’s use of manipulation to gain power for his personal advantage. As time goes on, Xavier’s authority surpasses his friend until he has no need for Elijah anymore. Eventually, Xavier does what everyone fears and murders Elijah. “I must finish this…I lean all of my weight down across the rifle. Elijah begs with his eyes… His mouth opens and closes, gasping for air…the rifle in my hands sinks down and I feel through the stock the collapse of his windpipe under the rifle’s pressure. He goes still. His eyes are open, still watching me.”(Murder). Xavier, once fully in control, has surpassed the need for Elijah. He has killed Elijah as his manipulation gained him power and authority, which towered over his friends after his death. The once tragic death of a dear friend did not matter to anymore as personal advantages were gained.
The use of power and authority is obviously abused in these given circumstances, not only were many life’s tampered with, many were lost. In doing so the manipulation of others was used for their personal advantage.

Now you throught there would only be writing. Wrong! I had to come up with a visual component to complement my work. I decided to create my very own conspiracy board, with my conspiracy of that, with manipulating others and abusing their power and authority what happens to them? After all, they are all pretty cruel, and the magic of karma should do its deeds. I used the examples from my written component to demonstrate my conspiracy. Funny enough those who abused power and manipulated other the most likely outcome was death.

I chose the background to be a battlefield as it seemed rather fitting. I connected the battlefield to the fight for power and authority as millions have died over both causes and most of death were towards the fight for power and authority.

To summarize what I have learnt, is that concepts are really apart of everyday life and that you can almost connect anything to a specific concept. I really enjoyed the written component, even though I’m not a big fan of writing, I feel like all this practice Ms Willemse has given me as actually paid off.