Power Punching Up as Art and Truth as Boxing Glove

Reader, you’ve returned! Splendid! Why are the loudest out there often the ones punching down? At some point you’ll notice these things for the distractions that they are. The most powerful liars out there are often the loudest because they fear being heard. Sound strange? It is precisely because they fear the consequences of their actual thoughts leaking out that they so loudly spout lies.

This brings us to our first pillar of discourse: speaking truth to power. It is a phrase as simple as it is revolutionary, yet its implications ripple through the everything in society, like an earthquake below the oceans. Why? Because the powerful are often the architects of lies, the weavers of deceit, and the keepers of systems that thrive on corruption. To speak truth to the powerful, especially the most corrupt among them, is not an act of mere rebellion but necessity; it is an act of moral clarity.

What does this mean in practice? Let us imagine a world where the powerful never feel any consequences of their own falsehoods, as the falsehoods are designed to do. A world where lies are perpetuated without challenge, where corruption is tolerated because no one dares to confront it. Such a world would be empty of beauty. It would lack the vitality of truth, the urgency of justice, and the courage of those who dare to say “no.”

Consider the story of Socrates, that ancient philosopher who dared to challenge the gods of forced compromise and mob-reality; the beliefs agreed upon outside of deeper discourse. He was not a revolutionary in the traditional sense; he spoke truth to power: to the Athenian democracy itself. His trial was not for treason, but for truth-telling. And yet, he was condemned, and rightly so, for that is what he did. Why? The powerful were corrupt and empowered by lies so naturally feared people thinking critically, they might question their authority and demand change. Criminals fear and hate justice the same way a rat does a cat.

Herein lies the crux: to speak truth to power is not to destroy it, but to transform it. It is to awaken the slumbering conscience of those who have grown complacent in their positions of influence. It is to remind them that power without virtue is a reinforced curse, and leadership without accountability is guaranteed ruin.

Let us be clear: speaking truth to power is not merely about being loud or assertive. It is about integrity and the alignment of one’s beliefs and words with one’s actions; the courage to stand firm even when the tide of enforced conformity threatens to drown you in mediocrity. It is the act of refusing to let silence become a form of complicity.

In this light, we must ask ourselves: What happens when the powerful are not spoken to? They grow fat on their own lies, insulated by the very systems they exploit. They forget that power is not eternal; it is borrowed from society, or stolen.