jcsbimp01

These statements are separate ideas, as they spontaneously came to me. They are not organized as a single think piece, except inasmuch as one flowed as an idea from the one that preceded it, but the collection of these ideas may become an organized article of some form later.

Powerful and influential people, singly or in groups, often use techniques to create and spread popular ideas in order to establish or maintain their power and influence.

These ideas have features that, apart from their actual meaning or merit, cause their rapid spread to other human beings in ways similar to biological viruses: Their viral nature, or some rhetorical technique or sensory presentation used to express them, contributes largely to the speed and extent of their spread.

Those who maintain and promulgate these ideas, by whatever means, may do so with a deliberate intention of manipulating or deceiving other human beings.

Others may do so, and may attain wealth, power, and influence from these ideas' spread, without a deliberate or direct intention of manipulating or deceiving: They may believe their actions and intentions to be legitimate, even honest.

At the first, at least, the use of viral ideas and the skills in cultivating and spreading them may simply seem like practical and effective methods for securing some form of financial success or other form of power, wealth, and influence within human society.

The ability of viral ideas to spread separate from their actual worth or merit or morality can partially explain an ability of power, wealth, influence, and ambition to corrupt those by whom these qualities are most favored in life and society.

This corruption can occur, and can even become likely to occur, without ill intention on the part of the originator.

In fact, ideas with genuine or tangible value can also be spread using viral, and even manipulative or deceptive, methods.

By corruption I simply mean that there is something disingenuous or dishonest about the way in which a human being promotes or spreads an idea: his/her intention is hidden, or it is actually misrepresented.

Particularly, corruption can be destructive or detrimental in the guise of being constructive or beneficial.

By manipulation, I mean that someone uses factors in human psychology or sociology to gain leverage over a person's feelings, emotions, or value judgements, again in a way that is akin to misrepresentation.

Manipulation is more subtle than outright deception, and can be seen simply as influencing people, without the moral stigma of outright deception or lying.

Those who have power - social status, advantage over others, or other forms of strength or wealth, including financial - want to keep that power, to maintain their advantage over others, and to enjoy the fruits of such power

These fruits take the form of alleviation of their own pain or want, and prolongation of the pleasures such power, such advantage, such strength can bring.

Benefits of health obviously are desirable over the detriments of disease and deprivation.

Power and advantage over other human beings is, however naturally occurring, arguably more questionable and less obvious than the simple virtues of abundance, because here one seeks one's advantage over one's fellow human being.

"Power," "advantage," and "wealth" are, to some extent, ways to quantify how one human being may be considered better than another.

Wealth is a particularly powerful idea, because there is a strong consensus, among human beings and their organizations and corporate entities in most of civilized society now, on how much money each one has.

Relatively few people can spontaneously - that is, effortlessly - increase their own wealth, in terms of the raw monetary value they possess, and even fewer would even want to destroy such value once they attained it.

Human beings must persuade other human beings of the value of something they create or do, in order to gain monetary wealth from it.

Not as strongly, but similarly, gaining power, influence, and advantage requires persuasion of others.

Manipulation and deception are thus attractive techniques to use in accelerating such gain.

Methods of increasing skill at such techniques is valuable.

As such, methods of increasing such skill, and thus of increasing one's value in any of the ways previously described, are also valuable possessions.

Just as monetary wealth needs protection, so does the secondary wealth of the knowledge of means to increase wealth.

The protection of such wealth arises in parallel with the advantage of some human beings over others.

We talk in various ways about the haves and have-nots.

Rhetoric of all kinds, religious, political, commercial, and simple social conversation, can adopt conventions, techniques, and tendencies to produce and concentrate societal power where the skilled want it to be concentrated.

Thus, it is reasonable to say that some human beings are born with an advantage, and some born without.

The advantage is proximity to the means of acquiring power, wealth, and influence.