Power’s gravest risk is becoming visibly unable to realize its own possibilities

Evidence

We will not go further into the question of whether this sort of manifestation really reveals deficiencies. Such a verdict cannot be derived simply from the fact that something better is imaginable. It could only be justified by an encompassing analysis of society and justification of the assessment dimensions and standards for comparison. We are a long way from this. At this juncture we are only dealing with the evolutionary risks of power and here we are interested in the question of whether, along with this chronic lagging behind of structurally anchored expectations, there is not a new sort of risk to power, namely the risk that it will become visible that power does not realize its own possibilities. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 755

Categorization

• XREF: This ‘power does not realize its own possibilities’ maps directly onto Stevens’s head butler identity — his total devotion executes the role’s programme flawlessly while the moral substance Darlington represents collapses; the possibility of the role is never realized. — connects to: Power produces only signs of resemblance and is obsessed with its own death — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 86; The 2008 crisis shows struggles for power are struggles over imagined futures — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 156
• SEED: The claim that a verdict of deficiency can’t be derived merely because something better is imaginable is a useful epistemic guardrail for the Luhmann-Ishiguro essay: Stevens’s abdication isn’t a ‘deficiency’ to be judged by imagining a better butler, but a structural feature of system trust.