Elizaveta Friesem
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A
        • B >
          • Binaries
          • Both sides
          • Bureaucracy
        • C >
          • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
          • Choice
          • Circumstances
          • Cognitive biases
          • Common sense
          • Communication
          • Coincidence
          • Content and form of this book
          • Coronavirus and me
          • Culture
          • Cycle of violence
        • D >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • Doing the right thing
        • E >
          • Emotional pain
          • Empathy
          • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Everybody is connected
          • Explain/excuse conflation
        • F >
          • Feelings and emotions
          • Forgetting about your purpose
          • Free will
        • G >
          • Good vs. Bad
        • H >
          • Meaning of honor
          • How much do we understand each other?
          • Human brain
          • Human nature
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          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
          • Hurt people hurt people
          • Hypertext books
        • I >
          • I am an optimist
          • Ideas
          • "I'll never understand!"
          • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
          • Inner compass
          • Interpretation
          • "It is what it is"
        • J
        • K >
          • Knowing your true purpose
          • Knowledge
        • L >
          • Language
          • List of completed pages
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • My Anxiety
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • Misunderstanding
          • My perfectionism
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms and normal
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power of the mind
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Stories we tell
          • Society vs Individual
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Symbolic interactionism and Buddhism
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • When conflicts get out of control
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
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      • Russian poems >
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        • Where are you now? (poem)
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        • Wondering (poem)
        • Wanderer II (poem)
        • What people call love (poem)
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Theory of Micro- and Macropower

Picture
Have you ever felt that you are not in control? It is not fun. This feeling is unpleasant for human beings because we long for certainty and predictability. Our brains work hard to create order out of chaos, so more often than not we do believe to be in control of a situation. When we think this is not the case, we resort to blame by looking for the guilty party.

But the brain may be tricking you to help you cope with your existence. The control each one of us hopes to have is very limited. Any individual is but a tiny speck in the vast social and physical universe. We are born into society governed by unspoken rules and by ideas that we do not fully comprehend. On top of that, we constantly have to deal with the limitations of our bodies, with forces and laws of nature indifferent towards our feelings.

At the same time, it would be wrong to say that we do not decide anything, that we have no choice whatsoever. As a matter of fact, we constantly influence each other through everyday interactions (this is one of the fundamental principles of communication formulated in my book). We shape our environments and use natural resources for the benefit of the human species. The question "who is in control?" becomes, therefore, more complicated than it may appear from the first glance. It is connected with paradoxes of individual freedom, free will, and power.​

Over the last century, the concept of power has been crucial in the vocabulary of movements fighting for racial, gender, and sexual equality. Scholars and activists talk about power to explain the persistence of injustices and to propose strategies for their elimination. This rhetoric, inspired by Marx’s analysis of struggles between social groups, describes society as divided into oppressors (powerful) and oppressed (powerless). The term "power" does not have to be spelled out, but it is often implied. In fact, all sides involved in debates on any social issue assign responsibility according to their perception of who is in control, who has made certain choices, and who has the freedom to change the situation.

The problem with this rhetoric is that it does not take into consideration the paradox described above. By introducing the theory of micro- and macropower in my book, I was hoping to highlight this complexity of human (co)existence. The proposed theory is meant to explain how individuals can be at the same time in and not in control, have and lack freedom to make choices, influence others and be influenced by them. My goal was to combine the acknowledgement of inequalities with the idea of our mutual interdependence. 

According to this theory, power works differently on different planes of social reality. If we zoom in for an extreme close-up of the social structure, we will observe interactions within pairs of individuals. By taking a snapshot of such an interaction, we should be able to point out who influences whom in each specific moment. This influence can be described as micropower. To visualize it, we may imagine an arrow running from the person in control to the one being influenced. If we observe the same interaction over time, we will be able to compare the number of arrows that run in each direction to find out if power within this pair is abused. 

Of course, relationships that form the social system as a whole are infinitely complex. In order to understand this complexity, we will need to go from one extreme (focusing on just one pair of individuals at a time) to another one: imagining a possibility of perceiving all relationships between all human beings at once, both over space and over time. On this macro plane of social existence, everybody is interconnected in ways that no individual human brain would be able to fully comprehend. 

The scholarship of Michel Foucault can be helpful for wrapping our minds around what is happening on this level. Foucault described power as not belonging to specific individuals but moving through society according to ways of seeing the world supported by many individuals simultaneously (commonly accepted truths). The power that is not owned but flows through the social system as a result of our global interconnectedness can be described as macropower. It depends on, influences, and complements micropower of the proposed theory.

Who is in control? It may well be forces that are stronger than each one of us individually but that consist of all of us – the multitude of people acting together in seemingly uncoordinated yet interconnected ways. While we should demand accountability in cases of specific abuses of power, it may be a waste of time to try solving major social problems by blaming individuals and even social groups they belong to. Enhancing our self-awareness and empathy, on the other hand, will help us move from blame to acknowledging the common responsibility for the future of our species.


This site features original, human-written content. AI may be used for occasional research, phrasing, and editing support.
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A
        • B >
          • Binaries
          • Both sides
          • Bureaucracy
        • C >
          • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
          • Choice
          • Circumstances
          • Cognitive biases
          • Common sense
          • Communication
          • Coincidence
          • Content and form of this book
          • Coronavirus and me
          • Culture
          • Cycle of violence
        • D >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • Doing the right thing
        • E >
          • Emotional pain
          • Empathy
          • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Everybody is connected
          • Explain/excuse conflation
        • F >
          • Feelings and emotions
          • Forgetting about your purpose
          • Free will
        • G >
          • Good vs. Bad
        • H >
          • Meaning of honor
          • How much do we understand each other?
          • Human brain
          • Human nature
          • Human needs
          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
          • Hurt people hurt people
          • Hypertext books
        • I >
          • I am an optimist
          • Ideas
          • "I'll never understand!"
          • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
          • Inner compass
          • Interpretation
          • "It is what it is"
        • J
        • K >
          • Knowing your true purpose
          • Knowledge
        • L >
          • Language
          • List of completed pages
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • My Anxiety
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • Misunderstanding
          • My perfectionism
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms and normal
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power of the mind
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Stories we tell
          • Society vs Individual
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Symbolic interactionism and Buddhism
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • When conflicts get out of control
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Learn more
    • Workshops >
      • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
      • Surviving the polarization vortex
      • Understanding yourself
      • Not enough
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Essays
    • Poetry >
      • Russian poems >
        • Stranger
        • Lonely heart
        • Fairy tales
        • Dreams and nightmares
        • Puzzles
        • Moon
        • Seasons
        • Muse
        • Art
        • Games
        • Sketches
        • Nonsense
      • Video poems (English and Russian) >
        • Butterfly (poem)
        • One day, I will return (poem)
        • Where are you now? (poem)
        • Hole in the world (poem)
        • Wondering (poem)
        • Wanderer II (poem)
        • What people call love (poem)
    • Epoxy resin
    • Photography
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me