• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Blog by Author Traci L. Slatton

by author Traci L. Slatton

  • Home
  • About Traci
  • Book Reviews
  • Videos
  • Free Chapters
  • eBook Store

BROKEN: Power is pornographic

July 1, 2014 by Traci L. Slatton /Leave a Comment/ Filed Under: Broken, criminal behavior, errors, evil, hope, horror, kindness, love, maturity, psychosis, spiritual teachings, wholeness

Among the myriad ways to categorize people is one I have developed over the course of my life. It has to do with the paradigm a person subscribes to. That is, is this person about power or is he or she about freedom?

I have found that people usually fall into one of those two camps. Not always, of course, and there’s flow back and forth. Even people who believe in freedom can race into a power struggle when they feel unsafe.

As a general thing, people who seek power are looking for power over other people. They tend to develop skills for manipulation, currying favor, seduction, and insinuation, especially the sly delivery of a put down or a compliment, the aim of either being to control the other person’s feelings and achieve a desired result.

Power-mongers’ diction will be full of phrases like “squash them like a bug,” “hold them in the palm of my hand,” “grind them to dust,” “kick their ass,” “beat them to a pulp,” etc. You get the idea. This soul-less paradigm sees people as either winners or losers; other people are objects to be used, objects who either gratify or thwart the power-monger.

People who source themselves in freedom take a different approach. They look for mutuality and reciprocity, for the “win-win” solution, for everyone to feel seen and validated. Their language sounds different, you can hear it immediately. There’s reference to inclusiveness and respect, respect for both self and other people. “We’re in this together” and “let’s resolve this.” Words tend to be courteous. Praise is given out of kindness or because it’s earned, but not to sway the other person into a desired behavior. Notice that “kindness” and “respect” are the operative modes.

I think it takes a lot of inner strength to choose to seek freedom. It takes faith, perhaps even a certain amount of enlightenment. I think it’s a choice each person has to make regularly, because in the flow of life, we regularly encounter challenges and tests. Who are we going to be? It’s the question we face every moment as we choose our paradigm, our Source.

I’m deep in the next draft of this WWII novel of mine, BROKEN. It’s brought up all these reflections because the second world war perfectly embodied issues of power and freedom. That is, the Nazis sought power over other people–over just about everyone. And they were perfectly willing to take away the freedom of anyone who disagreed with them, or anyone who bore the “stigma” of Nazi projections of inferiority: Jews, gays, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Poles, Socialists, Communists, etc.

The Nazis believed in an embedded hierarchy that their god had established. I have come to understand that the belief in an external, hierarchical, gendered god–and by gendered I mean patriarchal–is the origin of a great deal of evil in the world.

So here’s the next draft of the cover of BROKEN.

Power is pornographic

About Traci L. Slatton

Author Traci L. Slatton is a graduate of Yale and Columbia, and the award-winning, internationally published author of more than a dozen books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe

Author Site

My Books

  • Immortal
  • Power is pornographic
    Broken
  • The Year of Loving by Traci l. Slatton
    THE YEAR OF LOVING
  • FALLEN
  • COLD LIGHT
  • FAR SHORE
  • BLOOD SKY
    Blood Sky
  • The Botticelli Affair
  • THE LOVE OF MY (OTHER) LIFE
    The Love of My (Other) Life
  • The Art of Life
  • Piercing Time & Space
  • Dancing in the Tabernacle
  • El Inmortal
  • Caido
  • El amor de mi (otra) vida

Follow Me

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Search

Archives

Categories

Copyright Notice

No articles from this Blog space can be copied, reproduced, or transferred in any format to other forums, Blogs or Web Sites without the express written permission of the site administrators.

Latest on Instagram

Load More...Follow on Instagram

The Year of Loving

https://youtu.be/CsOnO1GOcr0

Broken

https://youtu.be/zWPJXy8c6bw

Fallen

https://youtu.be/q0Vkpe-hnUM

Interview of Traci L. Slatton

Fallen Cold Light Far Shore

View Book

Blood Sky by Traci L. Slatton

View Book

The Botticelli Affair by Traci L. Slatton

View Book

My latest on Medium

New Sabin Howard video by his daughter

New London Day Article

  • Videos
  • Book Reviews
  • Free Chapters

© Copyright 2019 Traci L. Slatton · All Rights Reserved ·