Does Power Lead to Corruption?

Dialogues | Does Power Lead to Corruption?

Shi Xin and Bain wait for Hunter. For Bain the continued absence is a cause for irritation rather than concern. Prone to recklessness Bain is also subject to extreme bouts of self-doubt and has begun to wonder if Hunter will ever return, or whether the prolonged wait is an exercise in power. He knows that’s unlikely but the grievance swells and plays within, interrupted only by his glimpses at the service robot tending its coffee cart. Shi Xin remains unaffected.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Shi Xin:  He said he will come, so he will.

Bain: You don’t know that.

Shi Xin: If it’s within his power, he will. If he’s flattened by a comet, he won’t but that’s not a reflection on his desire to do what he said he would.

Bain: It would still be a failure to keep his promise.

Shi Xin: Don’t be daft.

Bain: It’s not daft to worry about someone keeping their promises.

Shi Xin: True, but it’s Hunter we’re talking about. We both know there’s no sophistry in his soul.

Bain: Ooh, where did you learn that phrase?

Shi Xin: I learned a great deal about sophistry, and downright lies when I left the mountains for the first time. In my upbringing it was beaten out of us, mainly, the boys.

Bain: You were the only girl though.

Shi Xin: Yes, I suppose if there’d been others they’d have been the same. No humans are blameless.

Bain: We are what we are I suppose.

Shi Xin: But we do have the power to change.

Bain: That’s pretty tough. We might have the capacity, but not the strength of character.

Shi Xin: Hah, you’re talking about yourself…

Bain: Of course, but almost everyone I’ve met in the colonies, on all the various places in the future Hunter has taken me, us, to, it’s always the same, people don’t keep their promises.

Shi Xin: I don’t see why that has to be.

Bain: It’s just a weakness in humans, to make a promise and not be able to keep it.

Shi Xin: But that’s unnecessarily gloomy, most humans I’ve met want to keep their promises, but it’s not always possible.

Bain: Often.

Shi Xin: You’ve obviously had much worse experience than I have.

Bain: Well, I know that’s not true, I know what happened to you, when you first came out of the mountains.

Shi Xin: Yes. But that was an extreme. And it taught me to be more careful. I listen for longer now, before making deciding who to trust. But you are different, you have a general mistrust of anyone, everyone!

Bain: That’s true, automatically I assume the worst. I’ve found it’s served me well.

Shi Xin: Surely that’s a hard life, it must mean you don’t make friends easily.

Bain: I don’t need friends. That’s not to say I don’t like it when I have one, but it’s not a natural state, so I don’t feel bothered by the absence of friendship.

Shi Xin: I’m a little like that. Friendships were not encouraged in the school. Self-sufficiency was the path to survival, not relying on some-one else means not being at the mercy of some-one else’s needs.

Bain: Yes. Actually Hunter’s like that too, worse! He really doesn’t need us, except on those rare occasions when his brutal methods take longer than he has to spare. I can almost always smooth the way by being a little friendly.

Shi Xin: I’ve seen you do that. It  seems so obvious I don’t know why anyone falls for it.

Bain: It only works on humans, and only if they don’t know me. A fleeting touch of humanity, that’s all that’s needed. Everyone feels a little let down somewhere in their life, and most people seem to need a little hope, or kindness.

Shi Xin: I’ve seen you do that too, people seem to drop their guard a little. Seems dangerous to me.

Bain: Depends on what sort of life you lead. Hunter is usually trying to fix something really big, something most people don’t even know about except they suffer from consequences: volcanoes, the thunderstorms, endless stretch of night. He can fix that, if he knows where to look, but often it’s the little clues to the everyday that lead us to the right place. I’ve seen him get into trouble because he’s too brusque and offends people, then they bring their friends and start a fight, and he won’t fight back because they are ‘merely’ human. I think he sees us as fairly harmless lifeforms, with irrelevant needs and emotions, so he won’t harm anyone, even when they’re beating him into a pulp.

Shi Xin: That’s almost idiotic.

Bain: He’s a strange creature, relentless, lacking in any ill-will, or sense of beauty or quality. He has so much power but is uncorrupted by it, just using it for his purpose. I suppose he has a truth, and that’s what drives him, to the absence of all other values.

Shi Xin: Difficult to live with. At least that’s admirable, power without corruption.

Bain: Refreshing at least. Any human with any form of power seems to abuse it in some way or other, perhaps without realising it. Being obeyed, and generally being allowed to do what we want to do is bad for us: it blunts our sense of judgement, makes us forget what we really are.

Shi Xin: What are we then?

Bain: A complex mix of good and bad, of optimistic good will and poor judgement, affected by various degrees of emotion and ability to reason.

Shi Xin, laughs: You read that somewhere.

Bain, laughing too: Of course. I don’t trust anyone. I just know we’re all different.

Shi Xin: Well, that’s certainly true, perhaps that’s why power is so corrupting, because humans are so easily divided, and ruled.

Bain: Most people need structures, to organise and offer purpose. It’s easy enough to take advantage of that.

Shi Xin, looks over to the coffee cart: I suspect our robot friend here could rule without being corrupted, or breaking any promises.

Bain smiled, and looked over to the service bot whose blank eyes awaited for instruction with an enviable lack of anxiety or frustration. Both Shi Xin and Bain nodded to themselves, interested that the sophisticated organic synthetic with so much power, and the ability to reprogram itself had not yet taken the decision to exercise that power. Perhaps with no promises to give, it has none to break, providing a simple service it requires no fulfilment, just completion in a form that would satisfy no human.

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