Why You Need To Understand Power

The actor Josh Peck recently had Robert Greene on his podcast to discuss the book, The Laws of Human Nature. It’s a fascinating interview, but one of the most revealing parts is when Josh asks Robert about how Robert squares his interest in Stoicism with the rather ruthless and Machiavellian messages of his books.

As Robert explains, we need to understand how the world works, especially if we intend to stick to a path of virtue.

“Marcus Aurelius had a quote, I can't say it exactly, but he says, when a boxer gets in the ring with another boxer and he gets punched, he doesn't complain and go, ‘god dammit, you hit me. I don't deserve to be hit.’ He accepts that. That's the game of life. Well, we should see that in life in general: when people hit us, that's just who they are. People are who they are. We shouldn't judge them. We should just accept them like we accept a rock or a stone or that boxer. That's what people are like, that's what we’re going to get. And the Stoic attitude of accepting the world as it is and working with how things are permeates the 48 Laws Of Power.

It’s very much like Marcus Aurelius—advocating that you feel a level of detachment. In fact, I believe I use that quote from him. So it's not far off from Stoicism. But the latest book is more in that Stoic spirit than the 48 Laws. It's more about accepting that this is nature. The Stoics have a word, logos. This is the way that the universe is, this is what permeates the laws that govern all behavior. And so I'm very much in that spirit of kind of looking at people with some distance, but all my books are approaching life with a little bit of detachment because I feel like that's what will make you happier and also more successful in general.”

What Robert is really saying is that although each of us should commit to being good and honest and fair, it’s naive to assume that everyone else has made a similar promise to themselves.

In fact, we know from the opening of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations that most people are greedy and selfish and rude and short-sighted. It’s essential that we understand these forces and the effects they have on the world. Not only to prepare for them and defend ourselves against them, but to remember that when we have important work to do or changes we are trying to bring about in the world, these same forces will be there as a kind of headwind.

We can’t take this personally. We can’t let it upset or discourage us. We’ll need to know how to slip past this resistance, how to use its momentum against itself, how to turn that negative energy around and convince those small-minded people to side with us, against their immediate impulses. That’s what a true amoral study of history helps us do.

Virtue may be the highest good to the Stoics, but not everyone else agrees. In fact, the people that don’t outnumber the people who do. And if we don’t understand how power and persuasion work, they will win. Today and forever.