You're More Powerful than You Think

Power justifies itself, in countless small ways. But one of the big ways it does so is by creating an ideological narrative about how things got to be this way—and what must now change. These narratives are more than technical explanations. They are epic morality tales, and they typically follow this sequence: Paradise  Paradise Lost  Paradise Redeemed They start with an ideal alignment of values and institutions that existed “once upon a time.” They describe how that ideal was attacked from without and betrayed from within. Then they make clear that the only way people can get what they universally want—happiness and a fair shot—is to realign people, money, ideas, social norms, and other sources of power back to the old array. To fight and to challenge the status quo.