Empowerment: key to a future civilization

One reason empowerment is so important today is that there are many forces combining to disempower us.
Marilyn Mehlmann | 248 words

At a time in history when humankind, especially affluent humankind, has powers of choice formerly only dreamed of by kings and emperors, more and more people experience themselves as powerless.

Isn’t it strange?

The great film-maker Tarkovsky once said that all great art is empowering. This is clearly not a criterion popular with mass media, especially those with most influence: newspapers and television. Their menu of failures and disasters, usually clinically free of context, is guaranteed to help most people experience helplessness and frustration.

The rapid change and shifting balance of power in the world have also created a situation where there is for many people a widening gap between what we believe about the way the world is, and what is actually happening. Consequently, we are able to take in less and less of the information that might help us make sense of life and the world, creating a disempowerment spiral.

Consider again the statement that this is a time in history when humankind, especially affluent humankind, has powers of choice formerly only dreamed of by kings and emperors.

Is that how you experience your life? Can you take in that statement and make it part of your frame of reference for understanding the world? In your professional role: can you see ways to strengthen the empowering component of your work?