Elective Outcome 1: Power and Control

Power. What is it? The first thing that comes to my mind is force, brute force. I also think about a hierarchical structure, such as in most jobs and places of employment. Power, in terms of physical aspects, is really the amount of force that something exerts. For example, if a car has lots of power, it will go faster, and run longer. If a river is powerful, it may sweep you under if you hop into it. Power is really a concept of strength and exertion. Power can also mean something of a hierarchical means. This usually crosses over into social control. A good example is the president of the United States. He/she has a lot more “power” than the normal citizen does. A normal citizen can’t just walk up to congress and tell them that their new bill is unacceptable and reject it. Only the president has the power to veto such things. Now, if you are talking about power in a social situation; that is called social control.

So that brings me to my example of power. I would say the perfect example of power, in our own nation at least, would have to be the government and congress. There is a certain balance of power. The people of the nation arguably have the most control, since they choose who gets to be in congress. The people in congress therefore have more power than the people once elected, since they get to make laws and whatnot. The President has the most power out of everyone, but can be balanced by the congress. So it is important that with power comes balance and control.

Social control is basically a combination of things. It’s basically how we as humans control ourselves and one another. There are the formal mechanisms of social control, such as laws and rules that make it so you cannot act in defiant manners. The formal mechanisms basically keep our society in “control” and make it so that we can all live with our own rights. There are also informal mechanisms, which are usually tacit, so we really don’t know that we are being “controlled” by them. An example I can think of this would be something like putting clothes on before you go outside. Now there is a law that prohibits public indecency, so one could not walk around in the nude in public, but we don’t really even think about that law when we put clothes on before heading out the door. We don’t think “Oh, I will get arrested if I don’t put clothes on, I better do that before I leave.” We just do it because it’s a cultural norm in our society to do so.

It is very important to study power in the cultural anthropological means, as it helps us better understand the structure and whatnot for when power takes place in our own lives. Studying it in an anthropological way means looking at the bigger picture. Not just looking at who is in power, but why they are in power, what they are doing, how they are affecting other people and other cultures, and how they are using their power to control or maybe even manipulate others. It is very important that we look at power in such a way because if we never looked at the big picture, we would never progress! It is also important to note that the power and control in our lives shape our norms, and who we are. Think about it. We are controlled in our every-day lives. The “power” figures, or the authority figures, establish rules and laws that we must abide by, and therefore affects our life-style and how we live, and thus affects our cultural norms as well.

Different cultures can be used as examples when examining the relationship between culture and control. One example can be the hierarchical system in cultures. Take the United States for instance; we control people through our culture through many methods. The main one is through the laws and regulations. We as a culture have set these up for us to abide by, and in the United States, if you do not follow them, there are consequences. One can be thrown in jail for a certain amount of time, even put to death for serious infractions. For less serious crimes, one can be fined or cited. This is how the United States has chosen to deal with rule-breakers with our cultural control policies. Now let’s look at another culture, in the past rather. The Ancient Egyptians. They had a hierarchical control system to keep their culture straight as well. The Pharaoh was the supreme being, and what he said went, and the slaves and peasants were all the way at the bottom of the “pyramid” (no pun intended) :). How did the Egyptians keep their culture in control? Similar to the United State’s ways, except more extreme. If one disobeyed the pharaoh or a higher-up, one would most certainly be put to death, or buried alive, or mummified. So, both cultures offered punishments for not following the cultural rules that were established, and that’s really how culture and control tie in together, because with culture, you need control, because without it, it would be anarchy. It’s just that different cultures choose to control their selves in different ways.

Power and control have a huge impact on my everyday life. A big factor is my job at Sport Chalet. I am controlled by my department head and my managers, along with people at corporate. Ultimately the CEO controls the Vice President who controls corporate who controls the managers who control the department heads who control us. Wow that was a long sentence. My job is a big part of my life, so the people who control me at my job therefore have a big impact on my culture and my life. The managers tell me what to do and I have to do it, otherwise I will get fired. You could even say the teachers at Sierra college have power over me, because they do. They can either pass or fail me based on my performance in the class, and therefore either help or hinder me in my path to my degree and my future, so in a way, teachers have control over me because I must do assignments and tests and things in order to progress towards my goal. So basically, there are lots of things in my life in which power and control affect me, there are just way too many to list here. I have explained the main ones though.