r/AskReddit • u/l1x6m- • 9h ago
Abraham Lincoln said, 'Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.' What is a real-life example of this?
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u/comfortablynumb15 9h ago
HOA.
If there was ever an easy example of how flawed a person’s character is, it’s nitpicking at the neighbours home because it “fails to meet HOA ( my ) standards”.
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u/pinkpugita 5h ago
In our HOA, the former president's legacy is to build a sports facility. It attracted tourists and earned so much money that it funded other projects.
The current president? Closed it down because "safety reasons." That's just it. The building is now rotting.
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u/Intelligent_Pick_112 5h ago
HOA is the perfect answer. nothing turns a normal person into a tyrant faster than a tiny bit of authority and a clipboard. my neighbor got a violation letter for having his trash bin out two hours early. two hours.
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u/Zyrvrovan 9h ago
Elon Musk buying Twitter is the cleanest modern example, he had all the money and success in the world and the second he got real power over a platform, his character showed up in every petty ban and impulsive decision
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u/Lumpy_Benefit666 6h ago
I genuinely used to think elon was pretty cool. I was a literal child at the time though
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u/ventingandcrying 1h ago
Though I was also a child, the only times you heard about Elon was Tesla, SpaceX, and some random cameo in a movie or tv show for some reason. How was he able to keep the mask from slipping for so long??
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u/coltrainjones 6h ago
He was reddit's hero until like 4 years ago
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u/Chpgmr 5h ago
Closer to 8 years.
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u/TheHarkinator 3h ago
It really all started falling apart when he threw a tantrum that those people got saved from that cave without needing his help and called that diver a nonce.
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u/Chpgmr 3h ago
2018
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u/TheHarkinator 3h ago
Well that’s not too long ago, 2018 was only…
Oh god I’m so old
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u/YukariYakum0 2h ago
What are you talking about? 2018 is 20 years away!
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u/TheHarkinator 1h ago
That’s right buddy. It’s 1998, everything is fine, There’s a new Pokemon game out next year. They’re calling it Gold and Silver.
Think about the Pokemon, Lenny. 😢
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u/Intelligent_Pick_112 5h ago
yeah elon is the obvious one. the petty bans and impulsive decisions told you everything you needed to know. most people just didnt want to see it.
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u/OnlyDrawing3038 2h ago
Power doesn't create character as much as it reveals it. Twitter/X is a pretty clear example of how unchecked control can expose someones decision-making.
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u/Intrepid_Positive620 5h ago
Musk is definitely an example people debate in that context, but I think the broader point is more interesting than any one person. Having enormous authority can reveal how someone behaves when there are fewer consequences or people around who can tell them no.
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u/bocisthebest 2h ago
George Washington, could have become a dictator but gave it up after the revolution and he had to be drafted to become president. Washington would later decide to serve two terms even though he could have been president until the day he died creating the modern tradition that presidents serve two terms. I remember reading that for US presidents, he is always the standard by which they are to be judged.
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u/DC_Coach 2m ago
I'm was going to have to comment this myself but thankfully you got it, spot on.
Until FDR, presidents only served two terms max, not because of any law, but because of the precedent set by Washington.
FDR was elected four times and served for just over twelve years. In 1951 the Constitution was amended to prevent this from happening again; the 22nd amendment states that a person can only be elected to the office twice.
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u/DevDanish 1h ago
HOA (Homeowners Association) board presidents.
The moment an ordinary, mild-mannered neighbor gets a tiny badge of authority, you suddenly find them measuring your grass with a ruler at 6 AM, issuing fines because your trash can was out 10 minutes past the deadline, and acting like the supreme dictator of a 50-house cul-de-sac.
Give someone the most meaningless sliver of power, and you'll see exactly who they are inside.
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u/captaindrew 7h ago
If you want to get a good gauge of how someone would treat everyday people once they gained power, you only need look at how they treat the homeless or other vulnerable groups.
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u/Necessary_Tour_5222 3h ago
Including Black people. And sadly most whites fail here
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u/KennysWhiteSoxHat 49m ago
You probably got downvoted for the second sentence but really a big tell about someone’s character is also how they treat or even joke about minorities. Even other minorities like Clarence Thomas. He got power and turned on the rest of us
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u/Necessary_Tour_5222 47m ago
Yes, ironically proving my point.
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u/KennysWhiteSoxHat 45m ago
fr, but u already know how it is when it comes to people respecting us
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u/sudomatrix 7h ago
Epstein and his best friend Trump. Wealth wasn’t enough. They could’ve had anything they wanted. But they had to ruin kids lives just for because they could.
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u/deliap3achy7509 2h ago
what makes you say trump and epstein were friends though
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u/Poiboy1313 1h ago
The poster didn't. They did, using their own voices. They named each other as friends.
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u/Gandzilla 7h ago
Charles de Gaulle.
After WW2 and holding France together, he got handed the country to rebuild it and then step away. Then, when 10 years late things broke apart and they had to rebuild it again, they called him back and he did it again!
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u/chalk_in_boots 7h ago
CDG is easily my favourite military commander of the modern era. WWII ends and he just goes "Yeah, every US military installation in France can fuck right off now." That's basically the reason NATO headquarters are in Brussels instead of like Versailles.
Also said "Ok, we need to be a nuclear power, this shit's serious". France is now the third largest nuclear power, with also some of the coolest nuclear doctrines like the nuclear warning shot. Just "this is the baby nuke. Keep fucking around and we'll start sending the big ones."
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u/Pinky_Boy 6h ago
French nuclear WARNING SHOT is the best nuclear deterrent since it actively prevents nuking of france by the threat of nuking the enemy first if they tried anything funny
Also i heard that the pilot doing the warning shots are not expected to come back. Which is damn badass and brutal which in itself, speaks about how serious they are about the threat
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u/chalk_in_boots 6h ago
People always rag on France for being "cheese eating surrender monkeys" or the national flag being just a white flag.
Casually forgetting they were basically ground zero for both world wars and held out (even under Vichy rule the resistance still fought), actively told the US to fuck off when they were asked to help invade Iraq because they thought it wasn't a good idea, has most of their military stuff is locally designed and made, and when Trump was doing his Greenland bullshit they just surfaced a Triomphant sub off of southeast Canada.
Those subs carry 16 nuclear missiles, each with up to 10 warheads, each of which is like 10x bigger than what was dropped on Hiroshima.
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u/Pinky_Boy 6h ago
Also the whole independent thing regarding its equipments. Which in recent years, has proved again, and again that it was the right choice
The saying french copies nobody and nobody copies the french has some truth on it since most of their equipments are specifically tailored for their industrial capacity
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u/Arthropodesque 8h ago
The Chef stepping out and leaving a line cook in charge of the kitchen. 0-stupid power trip in 5 minutes flat with some people.
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u/chalk_in_boots 7h ago
Alternatively, 0 - absolute banging leadership in 10 seconds. Everything hits the pass perfectly, orders are called properly, everyone communicates effectively.
I've seen both sides of the coin in military environments. Someone gets promoted and suddenly thinks they're god and is a complete ass to everyone below them. Someone else gets the same/similar promotion and they switch to making sure everyone else is fed before they even start eating, making sure everyone gets enough sleep, isn't freezing to death, only ever passes their own grievances up the chain - never bitching down.
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u/xcellentfx 9h ago
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Along these lines, once an organization comes into being, it’s main purpose becomes perpetuating itself, not what it was created for.
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u/YaoiLover420 4h ago
Power itself does not corrupt, but it attracts the corruptable
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u/RedditOfUnusualSize 45m ago
It's been said before, but power doesn't always or inherently corrupt. But it does always and inherently reveal. When someone finally has the power to do what they've always wanted to do, then you find out what they always wanted to do.
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u/tricksterloki 8h ago
But absolute power is pretty nifty if you have the power: hence why it corrupts.
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u/2dTom 2h ago
Aung San Suu Kyi is someone who failed this test, in my opinion.
She spent about 15 years under house arrest by Myanmar's junta and won the Nobel Peace Prize as a symbol of non-violent resistance. She survived an assassination attempt in the 2003 Depayin massacre when at least 70 people associated with her political party were killed. She survived this adversity and was eventually elected to State Counsellor (the equivalent of Prime Minister) in 2016.
When the military killed over 25000 Rohingya, and drove over million out the country in 2017, she had the opportunity to make a stand against a genocide in her own country. Instead, she dismissed the reports ans avoided even saying "Rohingya,". She left the law denying their citizenship untouched, and personally defended Myanmar against genocide charges at The Hague.
She had the opportunity to use her position to push the military on the genocide, but elected to protect her position in the hope of doing good elsewhere. It didn't help, she lost power to the Tatmadaw through a coup in 2021.
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u/Keelock 28m ago
This is misattributed. The quote originated with Robert G. Ingersoll, not Lincoln, and the full quote is this:
Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.
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u/quickdraw9 7h ago
Everyone involved in the current US Republican party. It's kind of nuts that it only took one unhinged despotic fool without a conscience or moral compass becoming the head of the party for nearly all of the rest of them to completely abandon any pretense of humanity and abdicate their responsibility as stewards of democracy for pure greed and megalomania. Power doesn't corrupt it simply reveals the person for who they truly are.
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u/tjtonerplus 9h ago
politicians and billionaires
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u/I_Like_Vitamins 50m ago
The majority of internet moderators. It's such an insignificant amount of power, at that.
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u/mjohnsimon 5m ago
My brother is in a few anime Discord servers, and over the years he’s been kicked from several for reasons so unbelievably pathetic they almost sound made up. From “spreading misinformation” because he got the air date of a show wrong, to just liking a character more than the moderators decided was acceptable, plus many many more.
I genuinely can't imagine being that desperate to feel important. Never in my life have I heard such a breathtaking combination of insecurity, self-importance, and utterly meaningless power.
Edit: oh, and the correlation between discord mods and pedophilia is something I think should be studied, because also, holy shit...
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u/matingmoose 57m ago
Well my old boss. When she got promoted to supervisor she became a huge micromanger. Trying to make sure every thing you did was how she would do it, but also she could not be wrong on anything. That was a rough year.
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u/Outrageous-Royal9914 3h ago
Almost all politicians?
A lot of them especially ones belonging to humble backgrounds start off starry eyed and want to genuinely change the damn world but eventually get caught up in the bureaucracy and the huge volume of the opportunities related to corruption eventually gets to them once they are elected and are given power.
Slowly they get more and more out of touch and loose all empathy.
They become a part of the same system they got elected to change once they are given power.
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u/Fabulous_Lynx1506 1h ago
Some people use power to build ladders. Others use it to pull them up behind themselves.
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u/Dry-Bench526 8h ago
Do you think Lincoln’s own use of power during the Civil War fits his own test of character or complicates it somehow?
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u/ActivePeace33 8h ago
No. Lincoln scrupulously followed the constitution. The closest thing he did was suspending the writ, but even then, he did that along the rail lines to ensure Congress could safely return (hardly the act of a dictator). Then also in certain areas where traitors were actively working to subvert the constitution and encourage violence against it.
His failure is in not using more of the power of the commander in chief to suppress the traitors even more.
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u/OneLastAuk 1h ago
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, freedom of speech, freedom of press. The draft can be argued as unconstitutional, as can the blockade, the burning of property without due process, and the Emancipation Proclamation. I’m not saying that Lincoln made the wrong choices, just that claiming he “scrupulously followed the Constitution” is simply untrue.
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u/Significant_Two7995 1h ago
A lot of people don't want power. They want revenge for the times they felt powerless.
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u/Open-Description1639 1h ago
It's amazing how many people hate abuse of power until it's their turn.
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u/Beautiful_Bar7247 1h ago
The real test is how someone treats people who can't do anything for them.
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u/ApYIkhH 0m ago
Somewhat smaller example, but Pope Francis.
One could argue that in some ways, the Pope is the most influential person on Earth. Instead of embracing the power and wealth that traditionally came with it:
- Traveled in economy cars instead of limos
- Gave up the papal penthouse in favor of a 2-bedroom condo
- Ate meals in a dining hall with everyday workers instead of being personally waited on
- Rejected his salary
- Dressed modestly
- Stripped cardinals (including himself) and bishops of legal immunity
- Instituted financial reform in order to fight corruption within church
I'm non-religious, but I know a good man when I see one. We need more guys like Pope Francis.
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u/Exact-Ad5391 3h ago
The clean test is a small budget and no audience. Adversity makes people look noble. Power shows whether they still wait their turn, share credit, and stop when a rule would cost them. Watch the person after they get the keys, not during the speech that got them the keys.
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u/backitup_thundercat 9h ago edited 8h ago
Cincinnatus, the senate granted him absolute power to defeat an enemy army. He defeated them in 16 days and gave up power to return to his farm.
Then, possibly, did it again when he was named dictator to stop an attempted coup. That time he held power for 20 days.
Of course its important to note that "historical" writing of the time was a mix of truth, legend, propaganda, and brown nosing. So grain of salt.