The ‘Powers That Be’ Fallacy

We’ve all heard the defeatist mantras from eternal pessimists. You’ve almost certainly encountered that archetype — a nasal-voiced know-it-all who is quick to shoot down any innovative idea, but who rarely offers a pragmatic fix of their own. You can’t fight city hall! Why take on the system? The “powers that be” aren’t going to tolerate this! Interestingly, “the powers that be” almost never see their namesakes unveiled amidst the whiny choruses of skeptics who insist these Goliaths’ enormous feet are about to descend upon Earth and crush us all! Television connoisseurs may recall the 1992–93 NBC sitcom <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Powers_That_Be_(TV_series)" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">The Powers That Be</a> (featuring a ten-year-old Joseph Gordon-Levitt). In it, veteran actor John Forsythe portrayed U.S. Senator William Powers, a folksy do-gooder surrounded by his absurdly-dysfunctional D.C. family and staff. The whole point of the storytelling within this short-lived sitcom was to illuminate how even the most admired and influential figures are fallible. We should be careful when we elevate their ruling caste to one of perceived invincibility. That perception can quickly become a reality. Elsewhere on Medium, I’ve often written about one of my favorite high school teachers, Mr. Rykken. During my sophomore and junior years, I had him for both Civics and Advanced Placement (AP) American History. Mr. Rykken injected his lesson plans with an exceptional magnitude of thought and detail. Nevertheless, one of my pet peeves was when Mr. Rykken would lament some of our school district’s short-sighted policies by making broad references to “the powers that be.” I realize he probably just didn’t want to catch flak for bad-mouthing any individual school officials in front of us teenagers. But Mr. Rykken’s commentary seemed to be couched in a vibe of That’s just the way it is. In college and beyond, I continued to notice this aura of helplessness. Being involved with Greek life as an alumnus, our university was… <a href="https://medium.com/counterarts/the-powers-that-be-fallacy-25f38ad277bd">Visit Now</a>