A comparative dissection of power consciousness across civilizations.
This is not about East vs. West.
It’s about lucidity vs. denial.
The word power makes people uncomfortable in the West.
It sounds authoritarian. Corrupt. Dirty.
But in many Asian cultures, power is... studied, codified and practiced!
This cultural gap creates blind spots that cost us influence, relevance, and resilience.
In the East, power is a tool.
Across the East, the study of power is a legitimate intellectual tradition.
If you study the great civilizational texts of Asia, you’ll find one recurring theme:
Power is not evil. It is real. It is everywhere. Learn to use it.
In China, The Art of War, The I Ching, and The 36 Stratagems are not obscure relics. They’re studied by leaders, CEOs, and military officers alike. Even tech founders refer to “winning without fighting.” Strategy IS WISDOM.
In India, the Arthashastra doesn’t sugarcoat anything. It teaches when to use fear, flattery, division, assassination, and diplomacy... depending on the CONTEXT. Kautilya was the Machiavelli of the East, a millennium earlier.
In Japan, power flows through kata. Ritualized patterns. And through tatemae and honne (public vs. private truth). Influence is silent, indirect, embedded in form. The samurai code teaches hierarchy not as oppression, but as order.
You see, power is not a dirty word. It’s a discipline.
And if you don’t master it, someone else will.
The problem with the West (particularly true for Europe), is that it wears a moral mask
The West tells a different story: one that sounds noble but disarms you.
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