Rollo May

Power and Innocence

Stressing the positive, creative aspects of power and innocence, Rollo May offers a way of thinking about the problems of contemporary society.

Rollo May defines power as the ability to cause or prevent change; innocence, on the other hand, is the conscious divesting of one's power to make it seem a virtuea form of powerlessness that Dr. May sees as particularly American in nature. From these basic concepts he suggests a new ethic that sees power as the basis for both human goodness and evil.

Dr. May discusses five levels of power's potential in each of us: the infant's power to be; self-affirmation, the ability to survive with self-esteem; self-assertion, which develops when self-affirmation is blocked; aggression, a reaction to thwarted assertion; and, finally, violence, when reason and persuasion are ineffective.

"Sheds new light on the timely topic of violence."—Library Journal

"[May's book] is an attack on the psychological rejection of power in the intellectual tradition of the Christian West. . . . With great skill [he] weaves together his political reflections and clinical experience. . . . [A] wise, humane, and admirable book."—William Hamilton, Christian Century