“Then said Jesus unto him, “Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Matthew 26:52 (KJ21).
I was discussing with a friend about what the Paradox of Power actually meant. A common conclusion to my idea is that it’s simply a metaphysical trap; someone gains some power, and thus cannot give it up, and therefore is trapped by their own power, making them powerless. I supposed that this is a decent conclusion of the general idea, however, there is a real world application to this idea, and I believe we see it with anyone who gains the ability to compel people into action, especially through the threat of violence.
People of notoriety, especially political leaders, need bodyguards, contingencies, and all sorts of insurance, compared to the average person, because the chances of targeted violence towards the person of note is far higher than the average person. This is not to say that average people never encounter violence, especially targeted violence. This is to say that if you are someone of note, you are more likely to have someone who wishes to harm you.
There could be a variety of factors for this. With celebrities, there are just strange people who wish to do all sorts of acts against the celebrity for internally rational and irrational reasons. For politicians, especially controversial politicians, the chances of them doing something at their job that will aggravate a group or individual to act violently grows higher as the politician climbs the political hierarchy. Political leaders who involve themselves in conflict with other groups especially are at risk of targeted violence, and this has been the case for all of human history. Countless political assassinations have occurred all because someone with power engaged in conflict with another group, and that other group took an opportunity to kill that leader. Even within the group of that leader, they may seem too powerful and dangerous, and thus others within the group may seek to remove that individual violently. Julius Caesar, Ernst Rohm, and all of the Soviet leaders purged under Joseph Stalin are just a few examples. This means that anyone who wields “the sword of power” so to speak, is at risk of someone else wielding a blade against them. If you yourself use violence against others, it should be unsurprising if violence is used against you.
This is not universally the case across all political leaders. Some political leaders try their best not to hurt other people, or wield their power in a damaging way. However, as I noted in my rant about governance, our current system is set up to be coercive and violent by design. Even the best meaning leader will invariably be responsible, whether or not they want to be responsible, for violence enacted on someone, justifiably or not. This also does not account for insanity, or other irrational actors, as there will always be irrational people who act in irrational ways. The point is that coercive governance gives those who want to commit violence and excuse to do so.
This is by no means an exhaustive description of what the Paradox of Power means. This is merely a description of the Sword of Damocles, from which the Bible verse at the beginning, and the Paradox of Power, are based off.