Power generates the will it seems to express rather than serving a preexisting one.

Evidence

One cannot adequately describe the function of the communication medium, power, solely in terms of simply having the power-subject accept directives. The power-holder himself must be made to exercise his power, and there, in many cases, lies the greatest problem. Is it not easier for the more independent party, when in doubt, just to hold back and let things take their course? Even the motivation of the one who transmits the selection is constructed and attributed only in the communication process. And because of his power, the power-holder himself will have successes and failures attributed to, and suitable motives imposed on, him, whether he wants this or not. Thus power does not become the instrument of an already present will, it first of all generates that will. Power can then make claims on the will, can bind it, can make it absorb risks and uncertainties, can even lead it into temptation and let it miscarry. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 618

Categorization

• XREF: Exactly the reader’s Luhmann-to-Ishiguro bridge: Darlington’s power doesn’t serve Stevens’s preexisting will — it generates Stevens’s will, which is the mechanism of ethical abdication. — connects to: Power is an addictive drug that shifts from serving dreams to serving itself. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 96; Power is addictive and eventually becomes its own end, perverting original purpose — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 96; Power constitutes identities rather than acting between pre-formed ones. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 97
• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion ‘power does not become the instrument of an already present will, it first of all generates that will’ is a genuinely paradigm-shifting claim about how domination works through the subordinate; it resists one-sentence absorption.
• SEED: Essay angle: Lord Darlington’s institution generates rather than commands Stevens’s devotion — how deference is manufactured by the power structure itself.