48 Laws of Power PDF
The powerful I have met over time have made very different impressions on me: some appeared nimble and flexible, others stubborn and stubborn, the eloquent sovereign was represented as well as the infantile cracker, there were cautious civilized and primitive protesters, Dionysian zampanos and diplomatic apparatchiks - accordingly, some rulers were quite sympathetic to me, others not. The lowest common denominator that all of them could be brought to is: that no one has ever mentioned a book that showed them the way to power, paved the way or even gave them the impetus to walk through it. Didn't such textbooks exist before? I can hardly imagine it, although 48 Laws of Power PDF is the first I have ever read.
The preface promises a lot. A thorough reading of the book will inspire your thinking and analysis for a long time afterwards. I have accordingly carefully studied the 48 Laws of Power and I have to say: Robert Greene's promises are not entirely empty. In many definitions, we first learn what power is: "Power is more divine than anything in nature." This is one of Greene's laws of nature. Because: "In the world of power, the dynamics of the jungle prevail." That sounds mysterious. And: "The mysterious," Greene's creation story teaches, "creates power. Tantrums, on the other hand, only create doubts and uncertainty about your power." And that has the sign: "Generosity is a sign and a magnet of power." On the other hand: “Irritability is not a sign of power.” Which brings us to the root of Greene's teaching: “The basis of power is to have one's own feelings under control. Because whoever is in control has the power”.
If you control them more closely, Greene's laws can ultimately be reduced to these two principles. Then why the ambition to distribute this simple knowledge among 48? Didn't Moses have difficulty formulating God's words in such a way that repetition and contradictions were impossible? And even after the original seventeen verses were reduced to ten commandments, certain overlaps remained, for example between the prohibition against committing marriage and the prohibition against lusting after one's neighbor's wife. Robert Greene has a lot more duplication and ambiguity. Already his eleventh law: "Make people dependent on you", only partially varies his second law: "Help yourself to your enemies". Historical examples are used in different contexts, and the same quote from Baltasar Gracian appears several times: "The truth is mostly seen, only heard exceptionally."
Greene obviously believes in this truth so firmly that, deviating from the normal printed image, he tries to give his text a more pictorial expression through all sorts of typographical barriers. You get used to it quickly. What is more disturbing is the sometimes penetrating tone of voice, which, in the worst case, reminds us of motivational seminars for columns of pushers, whereby the German translation saves us at least in the scrolling text and the pathetic, ingratiating you reserves the chapter headings. Greene's claim is sufficient: "The laws are timeless and definitive." This is of course nonsense, which already emerges from the fact that Greene feels compelled to re-enact at least three-quarters of his laws a reversal that shows their conditionality and leads to the vague conclusion: "You must choose your tactics according to the circumstances."
It is more than questionable whether the Ten Commandments mentioned would have been a worldwide success if Moses had added the unequivocal "You should not commit adultery" with the restriction: "Unless you are sure that you will not be caught". Greene's offer to use power as a social game also suffers a little from the fact that the author did not write down the rules. "When it comes to power, nothing is set in stone," he finds quite suddenly in the twelfth chapter. And the last law, "Strive for formlessness", even recklessly asks the reader: "Accept that there are no ultimate certainties and that no law is forever ... Never rely on stability or eternal order: everything changes. "
This definitive denial of everything that has gone before is of beautiful audacity, as Greene does not even apologize for it, but makes things even worse for his fellow believers with a final declaration: "Ultimately, it means that you have to throw the rules overboard that others preach, as are your books that tell you what to do. " A nice example of the author's omnipotence and the helplessness of his readers