Strategy 101: An introduction to power
„One of the most fundamental lessons I learned from my training at the Monastic Academy was that wise and loving people should have power. Power is morally neutral—used by people who lack wisdom and love, it causes tremendous harm. Used by those who are wise and loving, it can be of tremendous benefit.“
This is one of these assertions that seem to make complete sense, until you realize that there is no agreed upon definition of “wise” and “loving“, and thus we cannot even start to assess if it is wrong or right. Any assessment not starting with sorting this out will likely end up in circular reasoning („that guy is wise and loving, because he implements policies I like“, „He implements policies I like, because he is wise and loving“).
I do not intend to hate, and I do not know the author (seems respected judging by the comments), still if someone says a thing like this is the most fundamental lesson he learned, I fail to understand what he could mean. How could you learn this? It also seems a very simplistic model.