How Power Corrupts

For most of us, our favorite President was Abraham Lincoln. One reason is that after he acquired enormous power, he still had empathy for ordinary people, perhaps because he had himself failed often. Empathy in someone in power is rare. In my lifetime I suppose the person who exemplifies that kind of empathy was Robert Kennedy, and he didn’t have it until life had crushed him.

If a person in power keeps in mind how often he has failed, Jerry Useem wrote in the July ATLANTIC, he may remain human. 

We know what Lord Acton said about power (that it corrupts) and Henry Adams wrote that a friend in power is a friend lost and so on. We know what power does to people, but only recently has the power syndrome become a field of study in psychology. The argument is that power changes the brain like a traumatic injury. Powerful people lose some of the ability to see things from another person’s point of view. In power, someone has less need to for a nuanced view of others. You just tell them what to do. People in power lump others together, rely on stereotypes, ask fewer questions and depend on their own gut instincts. They show contempt for others.  They act recklessly and with growing incompetence, Donald. That gets worse if the Donald is aging "bigly" and losing his vocabulary and contact with reality.