Politics

I've been waiting for this kind of question my entire….errr… Well, for a while! This is my moment. This is it! I finally get to use Game Of Thrones to explain politics on Quora!

Let the Spider, Varys, do the talkin’

“In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me – who lives and who dies?”

I love this quote. It really makes one think about power and an individual’s relationship with power. When I first saw/heard this quote my mind instantly raced to the rich man and his gold. But that seems like more of a reflection of my own biases and my own time than anything else.

The way I see it, the answer is to Varys’ question is more subtle than predicting who lives and who dies. The way I see it, it's that man of common birth who holds all the power in that situation. If he does not listen to the priest, or the king or the banker, then no one will die. And if no one else listens to them either, what power do they really have?

People in power only enjoy it at our (the people's) pleasure. King Louis’ power did not save his neck during the French Revolution. The Pope doesn’t own large swaths of Italy anymore. Not everyone can be bought for indecent sums of cash.

The answer to your question is that We rule the world. And the sooner We the People figure that out, the better off everyone will be.

Power only resides where We think it resides.