This is a neat and inspirational post! Minor nitpick:
The social incentive gradient will almost always push one toward king-power
I don’t think this is true. Being a wizard, especially if you’re the only wizard of that kind in your social group, can give you a lot of respect and admiration. I don’t personally feel like there are lots of social incentives pushing me in the king direction, but I do feel like there are lots of them pushing me in a wizard direction.
As one particularly notable example, I’m the chairperson of one hobby association which is a somewhat king-like position, but I largely have the position due to it being one that nobody really wants and I myself would be happy to abdicate it to anyone who did want it. But everybody just wants to either chill or focus on wizarding, and we only have a chairperson because we need a legal entity for our finances and the law says that the legal entity has to have a chairperson so somebody has to do it.
One of the things about being the King for a people, is that you get blamed. Even for things that aren’t your fault. Even for things beyond your control. Even for crappy-ass reasons like, “I’m scared and pissed off and you, you’re in charge here, so I’ll vent my feelings against you.”
This is the challenging part of caring. If you demonstrate a concern for the wellbeing of the people in your people, they will start seeing their wellbeing as your concern. Start taking responsibility for how things go in a group, and people will start seeing you as responsible for how things go in a group.
This, right here, is what causes many people to back away from Kingship. Which is their right, of course. It’s totally legitimate to look at that deal and say, “Oh, hell no.”
Our society tells us that being King is awesome and everyone – well, everyone normal – wants to be one. “Every body wants to rule the world.” No, actually, they don’t. My experience tells me that most people are very reluctant to step into the job of King, and this consequence of the role is a primary reason why. People who, even knowing this consequence, are still willing to have authority rest on their shoulders are not at all that common.
I don’t particularly expect to be blamed for things, but it sure would be a lot easier to drop the chairperson position and I know that people would be fine with me doing that. People have told me that they appreciate me doing the role so I do get some reward for it, but mostly it’s just my sense of duty keeping me there and the social incentive would be for me to find something easier.
I think there’s also a strong preference towards Wizard over King power (at least in this cultural space) because being seen as actively seeking power over others is considered threatening. Saying you want to tell people what to do because you think you know better than them how to get things done is going to make people defensive and wary.
This is a neat and inspirational post! Minor nitpick:
I don’t think this is true. Being a wizard, especially if you’re the only wizard of that kind in your social group, can give you a lot of respect and admiration. I don’t personally feel like there are lots of social incentives pushing me in the king direction, but I do feel like there are lots of them pushing me in a wizard direction.
As one particularly notable example, I’m the chairperson of one hobby association which is a somewhat king-like position, but I largely have the position due to it being one that nobody really wants and I myself would be happy to abdicate it to anyone who did want it. But everybody just wants to either chill or focus on wizarding, and we only have a chairperson because we need a legal entity for our finances and the law says that the legal entity has to have a chairperson so somebody has to do it.
Relevant siderea quote, that rings very true in my experience:
I don’t particularly expect to be blamed for things, but it sure would be a lot easier to drop the chairperson position and I know that people would be fine with me doing that. People have told me that they appreciate me doing the role so I do get some reward for it, but mostly it’s just my sense of duty keeping me there and the social incentive would be for me to find something easier.
I think there’s also a strong preference towards Wizard over King power (at least in this cultural space) because being seen as actively seeking power over others is considered threatening. Saying you want to tell people what to do because you think you know better than them how to get things done is going to make people defensive and wary.