Power corrupts: Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." This quote belongs to Lord Acton, an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer. Although many people would disagree, this is how power works on people. Absolute power changes a person in a way that it’s regrettable. This power makes most of people worse from inside, like feelings. Sometimes power doesn’t corrupt people because they are already corrupted. If we observe by this side then according to Abraham Lincoln “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” everyone has a corrupted character because absolute power corrupts them. These thoughts contradict each other. So we get that Abraham Lincoln doesn’t think that absolute power corrupts. Maybe this is because he himself had this absolute power and by agreeing to Lord Acton he would have declared himself corrupted too.
Although people with absolute power are not bad, but they are the people with the most chances to do bad thing. They have right to do anything they desire as they have absolute power. It is scientifically proved that human’s brain is designed in a way that it wants to do things, which are prohibited for him. In most cases these things are bad things. For example let’s take children, when he wants to do something that a little child shouldn’t do and we tell him that this is wrong and he shouldn’t do this, then he wants to do it more, the fact that we forbid him to do something strives him to doing that even more. So people with absolute power are more likely to do things, which are not acceptable by normal people who don’t have these kinds of opportunities.
“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” – John Steinbeck. According to an American writer John Steinbeck absolute power is not the exact thing, which corrupts people, but it’s fear of...