Customer Reviews

A Theory of Power

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've made "A Theory of Power" available to read for free online at jeffvail dot net

An excellent analysis of how the mysterious functioning of "power", the relationship between different entities, manifests in the structure of society, governments, industry, even our own psychology. If you're looking for a simple but very new way to explain the functioning of everything, this book is a must read. "A Theory of Power" has given me a new perspective on the world around me, and on my role in it.

I found the discussion on the evolution of societies especially interesting: how our world developed from hunter-gatherer bands to great, centralized empires. Vail lays out the mechanics of society in a very straight-forward manner, and then lays out a plan to use that very framework to effect positive change. If you enjoy the kind of "ah-ha" moments from books like "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond or "The Global Brain" by Howard Bloom, then you will definitely like this book.

"A Theory of Power" explores the roles of patterns, especially the pattern of hierarchy, in our biology, psychology and society. One of its critical insights is the profoundly original theory that the ego serves as a link between our biology of "selfish genes" and our society of "selfish memes". I found this book insightful, not only helping me to better understand how I fit into the structure of the world around me (not to mention what "I" really am), but because Vail provides a clear course of action--not only to free our individual self from the control of biology and culture, but also to confront the pattern of hierarchy directly in our society and economy. A fascinating read that I highly recommend.

I was impressed by how well the book integrated everything together. Despite being short, the book will take a while to get through because its ideas take time to digest if your unfamiliar with the concepts talked about beforehand. If you are interested in a deeper understanding of hierarchy and power and their consequences for humanity, as well as a reasonable proposal for we can address these consequences, I'd strongly recommend reading this book.

In most books, I expect maybe one real "ah-ha" moment, one truly original thought. With A THEORY OF POWER I lost count. For those interested in the impact of politics and group psychology on our lives this is a quick read that packs a huge punch.

I give "Theory of Power" five stars because it made me think about the world differently, in much the same way that Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael" did.
This book gives you new and very refreshing (if a bit scary) ways to look at the world and the patterns, links and rubrics in it.
Any professor of History, Anthropology, or Political Science who does not challenge students with this book and its ideas has missed a great opportunity. This book forces you to think and challenges your long held beliefs.
You will not even notice that (as Vail says in a note to his introduction) the book is written entirely without the verb to be.
The book is clear and concise but you will still find yourself re-reading every other sentence. On every page you will want to stop and think about what you just read.
The list of references, alone, is worth the price of admission.
Read the book. You will be a different person for it.

"A Theory of Power" is a solid, thought-provoking essay essay on power and sustainability in society. Excellent reading for environmentalists, as well as those interested in political or economic theory.

Books that attempt to solve world problems in barely over 50 pages are a dime a dozen. I hate to be so critical of such a wide ranging intellect as his, or of attempts to understand what are VERY important questions of causality and blame for global environmental degradation. However, this review IS mostly critical. Despite that, the intent of writing a review is that I hope it has a silver lining to encourage the author to learn more about the particular origins and certain cases of the relations and issues he blithly assumes are responsible, mainly by demoting his complete reliance on an "idea-concepts" kind of argumentation. This is exactly the kind of "is" type of argument he thinks (falsely) he is demoting, simply because he expunged the word "is" in this short little book. However, HIS ENTIRE BOOK HAS an "is" on every page tacitly [1] in his slippery slope argumentation which is considered true by him; and [2] in his assumption about many idea-concept binaries which "is" running through the whole work as well.

This is not a full review.

My critiques, to be short, are going to concentrate only on the issue of how environmental degradation became institutionalized, as he argues. However before I get to that: something on genetics and markets which he seems to have conflated as an ideological sense, drawn from Richard Dawkins.

Before talking environmental degradation, I will insert a flat statement that he is really sadly wrong about his understanding of genetics which depends on another idea-concept instead of actual genetic empirical knowledge about genes in practice. He's totally wrong on the genetic issues as hardwired issues since genes don't even work that way, and nor do they work like the 1970s "selfish gene" model either which he relies upon. A few BBC Adam Curtis films might be the most accessible short introduction to correcting these views and seeing where he got his own ideas. Curtis's "Century of the Self" series explores this very politicized idea of the selfish gene--which is ONLY A PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT and not how genes actually work in practice. Besides the films of Adam Curtis, I suggest reading multiple Colin Tudge books as the easier route to find out about the way genes really work in practice (The Engineer in the Garden; The Time Before History: Five Million Years of Human Impact; The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control; his book on the history of genetic research as well, called The Impact of the Gene: From Mendel's Peas to Designer Babies), and not as Vail's (i.e., really Dawkins) idea-conceptual ways of 'using genes' in economic modernist arguments. The short of it is that genes are records of accessible variations, and they never 'operate as individual genes' since such a think doesn't exist, they operate in chords, and furthermore, they turn off and on based on environmental and nutrituional interactive influences, and that seletion is not on the level of the gene, it is on the level of the organism as a whole). Dawkins's views are just aother effect of the madness of the crowd (and the money of advertising in enforcing "big lies" that are repeated over and over though they're still not true) that has unfortunately influenced Vail to think he understands genes in practice. He doesn't.

He additionally makes some rather funny assumptions about markets and efficiency throughout the book, which is probabaly why he is drawn to the same models of genetics of Dawkins, both of which are not really provable. The former was just another political rhetorical statement-this one of British monopolists back in the late 1700s to early 1800s which they used to gain power (or justify the holding of it from challengers), which were just other idea-concepts as well.

There are obviously many other points in the book, though I'm at this point not comfortable in reviewing the correctness of any other of his views.

For such a short book, it's obviously not a fine grained analysis of particular cases even though his whole argument rests on his "is"-like claims that they are just that with regards to environmental degradation. So, his argument fails on its lack of detailed cases that really prove the realtional issues he is talking about. It's just a series of idea-concepts he really gives us with regards to environmental degradation.

Such a huge fault of using untested idea-concepts as your model typically is always self-corrected in any author who is forced to reconcile his ideas with a particular case (or variations across cases) when he actually goes out to research something. However, Vail seems to have never done anything like this. This self-correction process of testing his own ideas against particular cases seems to have never been done and is ignored--as he prefers to use an idea-concept based view of the world, where the chapters are idea-concepts instead of empirical arguments, and their assumed way they interact are equally nebulous and undemonstrated idea-concepts.

In Vail's theoretical highlights book--without case analysis--it's just airy theories waltzing down a slippery slope type of argument. "If this, then this, then this, then this, etc," It's walking over the cliff without anything below it and no looking back. If you follow his assumptions, or don't know any better, you'll like the slippery slope off the cliff. Don't look down though (i.e., attempt to actually go find what is the ground you are standing on). Thus for Vail, to write so succinctly came at the cost of providing real evidence for his assertions (as well as their relations) at each step of the way. Thus many of the assumptions of the author aren't actually proven, only assumed. This is despite claims of being a study of "reality". Instead it is only an idea-concept based philosophical text, that quickly move down a slippery slope form of argument.

The first hypocrisy I noted in his thought was that the introduction turned out to be quite different than the rest of the chapters.

I liked the liked the opening introduction concerning dynamics of holistic patterns to examine for power relationships and environmental degradation. However, that sort of is thrown out the window (down the slippery slope), turning into blaming certain idea constructs. He doesn't carry out his own introduction's thesis. Instead, he starts to assume various static independent variables (population, agriculture, etc., all in the abstract) as the blame for certain power relations instead of his introductions more holistic interactive view.

This quote from the book for example at the close of the chapter about agriculture:

"Agriculture represents one of the seminal developments in human history. Its two primary impacts--the end of human biological evolution and the enslavement of the agriculturalist to his culture--have influenced all subsequent events. Agriculture set the stage for the rise of culture, for the meme to dominate the gene. We will see the effects of memetic domination in our exploration of the development of economics, politics and technology."

Every link in the above paragraph makes huge idea-concepts and many working from dangerously over-clear "thought binaries" which are all dangerous self-inventions. So his abstract assumptions and his binaries I can't really see empirically demonstrated--or even demonstratable. It's an argument that can't "lock on" to data for proof or disproof which is a strange kind of argument.

Though he has desires of this 60 page book being a world history text on issues of the origins of power and environmental degradation as blamed on certain variables. My disagreements are based on having looked at his same questions for over 10 years in particular cases, i.e., in a case-based comparative historiography quite holistically for that interaction of power relations he talks about in his introduction. However, I don't really see any proof for much of the way Vail talks of his model:

- his argument basically of "it's agriculture causing all the problems" (assumptions of agricultural as an economic technological complex seem inherent in this; however, his own views elsewhere are that it is quite political and involved in material choice (for instance, http://www.jeffvail.net/2004/10/energy-society-hierarchy.html [particularly the issue of the politics of how certain things are chosen, which seems contradictory to me to hear him say it would not be occurring in a form of agricultural politics; at that link, he tends to have a fetish for other quick and easy idea-concepts that he doesn't bother to see if they really check out or are useful as a quick fix substitute for fine grained actual demonstration; at the weblink he "cites" Wittfogel idea-concepts as if he was correct, and throughout the Vail book he "cites" Quinn as well as if he is correct (which is instead just a philosopher citing another philosopher he agrees with, neighter of them the wiser for providing to the reader much in the way of a case analysis of what they are talking about); Earth to Vail: don't listen to Wittfogel--a high-political and rhetorical 20th century ideologue that Vail quotes as if he really demonstrated anything; on Wittfogel, read the real Chinese specialist, Needham, and his aghast review of the late 1950s Wittfogel's anachronistic attempts to insert Cold War politics into 'ancient China' (sic). You can find that review on the web at the Australian Myers's website. Wittfogel had some bizarre, silly, and false things to say about idea-concepts and categorical inventions concerning China and its general historical development).

In his book, as for the environmental degradation issues that are core to his argument, it tends to be a model where cases of nascent state formation interact and consolidating agriculture yielding "societal surplus." However, on two points I think Vail is wrong.

First, instead of for "social surplus" it historically was a form of military purpose, instead of intimations that it is somehow a common endeavor. This state formation/agricultural "ordering" for warfare by a novel tier of elite organizer's biased interests is a more demonstratable argument.

Second, it's hard to blame agriculture as Vail does, since it is this interaction that occurs thousands of years after agriculture is invented (between territorial states and agricultural biased organization that is developed). Anyone interested in this book by Vail might do well to read Colin Tudge's arguments first ("Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers" book):

"Colin Tudge overturns the traditional view that farming began in the Middle East 10,000 years ago, quickly led to the Neolithic farming revolution, and ended the hunting-gathering lifestyle. Agriculture in some form had been practiced for thousands of years before that, Tudge argues. Neolithic farming was not the beginning of agriculture but the beginning of agriculture on a large scale, in one place,..."

(Even if Tudge has the same (I would argue false) use of the term "surplus" as Vail).

The short of it is, contrary to Vail, agriculture existed for thousands of years before massive degradative based forms of it. Therefore it's this 'inbetween variable' of territorial state formation elites locking onto it
and making it serve various political purposes should be looked at. Vail does talk about this, though perpetuates the idea that "agriculture" caused the issue when the issue is the far more complicated and nebulous issue of what kind of organization of agriculture (and many other materials, after all, we do more than eat--there are probabaly about 75 other commodity use categories beyond agriculture we employ every day. See my Commodity Ecology blog for a list).

Another point that you should be aware of (and beware of) is his undefined use idea-concept "market" (do they ever really exist? i.e., non-politicized consumption? which seems to contract his sense that there are politicized consumptive arrangements elsewhere?). Vail additionally pulls out the Malthus idea-concept of "geometric population growth" (does such abstract population numbers ever interact in the environment that way for humans? no. It's an issue of distributional issues of environmental degradation and particular organizational issues instead of population ones.

However, strangely, I come through all of this with an agreement of his conclusion:

"The path to stability and sustainability in human society lies in the conscious manipulation of memetic control structures. Learning to weave cultural elements, technologies and political-economic structures to suit the individual requires a detailed understanding of our relationship with the meme. This, in turn, requires the consideration of two key factors: the degree to which we have the ability to use memes freely without creating a dependence on them, and the related power relationships
we must accept in order to utilize selected memes, such as certain
technologies...."

--though I would split from him here, since he is just introducing another idea-concept binary:

"The solution to hierarchy lies not in the failure of proper implementation..., but in the fundamental structure of hierarchy itself. In order to resolve the deficiencies fundamental to the structure of hierarchy, we must, by definition, abandon hierarchy as an organizing principle."

Personally "you can have your cake and eat it too" (like in my book, Toward A Bioregional State notes which has quite "hierarchy and rhizome" together to use his terms). Vail, the world is NOT full of such ideal types or 'either/or' mental things. The world is full of 'both/and' relationships always existing as interpenetrating.

However, if you cling to a particular idea-concept binary as opposed (i.e., locking you mind onto an artificial binary of relations) you'll never see that the assumption of the binary opposition itself is an artificial mental creation instead of in real life.

His or anyone's ideas about hierarchies and political feedback (and conditions where they are otherwise) might be improved by reading Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty.

In conclusion, as I have said, if you are the kind who likes slippery slope argumentation, and mirror-image idea-concept binaries, enjoy the self-enclosed ride.

However, as Foucault wrote, sometimes the most dangerous form of power is what Vail is doing where a discourse itself can trap you within it as a form of power.

As I noted above, even though he makes a great stance of not using the word "is" which he says--

"It avoids the irrational, dogmatic mannerism of stating that something "is" something else, without providing any further justification to equate the two terms than the mere presence of the verb "to be". The few exceptions, noted in quotation marks, are used primarily to point
out the logical fallacy of the verb "to be"."---

--however, as I pointed out--hello?--the whole book "is" chock full of "is"'s on other levels based on assumptions of idea-concepts or idea-binaries which are taken as the "is" kind of things hat he attempts to escape. Thus even though he consciously left out all the "is"'s vocally, the whole book is mostly a tacit bunch of "is" assumptions on every page of the work in its idea concepts and idea-binaries as being unchallenged and unchallengable "is" statements.

Hopefully I have provided a few skeleton keys to escape into the 'both/and' world from his 'either/or' one, as well as hopefully improve it by making the slippery slope clear for readers as well as himself.

This was a strange review. I have a mixed empathy for the author in terms of themes, though disagreement on his whole "is" view regardless of what he says in his claims he left all that behind. Far from it!

As I read his select bibliography (Deleuze, Holmgren, Fukuoka, Parenti, etc.) the mixed empathy only increased since I own all these books and am familiar with everyone he talks about throughout the book.

Addressing the same topic of the institutionalization of environmental degradation, my own posted author summary of my own book Toward A Bioregional State (at Amazon) might make the disagreements and commonalities clearer.