Sometimes, our personal opinions surge and we bandy them about. Favorite colors, the perfect movie, the right book, the concept of what “pops”, the proper way to cook—on and on. Opinions are a pretty common thing until one person has the power to enforce their opinion. For example: You pay me to paint rooms. You like blue and hate mauve. I bring you a room painted mauve you will hate it. You might think every color I pick stinks until I paint the room blue. And I have to capitulate because I can’t enforce my opinion.

Power Tripping (verb): when a person’s opinion elevates to an enforced course of action based solely on personal authority. This happens when a Surge of Opinion sparks the Authority Spectrum.

The fact that we all have opinions in things within and without our sphere of expertise makes Power-Tripping Surges endemic. In Lingamesh’s series on logical fallacies he highlights the appeal to authority. To be an authority, a person must meet certain criteria (like being an expert in the field they’re offering an opinion on). But if there are multiple authorities in the same field debating the same question then an appeal to authority becomes a weak argument. In other words, if you’ve got a bunch of cooks in the kitchen saying opposite things about prepping the chicken, you’re going to have a tough time listening to any of them because they’re all pros.

And that’s how Power Tripping works. It’s an appeal to authority making yourself the authority because you’re the expert in the field, or the one with the higher position, or you’ve been with the company longer—whatever. To avoid that Power Tripping appeal to personal authority, you’re going to have to tap into a source outside of yourself.

I’m a college trained graphic designer with twelve consecutive years in the field. I’ve worked in a design firm with clients like Playboy and Jeep, a prepress company with clients like Nickelodean and Goodtimes Video (where a buddy and I pitched a lot of the design work and won web and print clients), then in an advertising / direct mail company where I conceptualized, created, color-corrected, and completed loads of campaigns interspersed with high-end photoshoots and systems implementation across the board. I am, no bragging, an authority in my field.

Now if I some designer shows me her piece and I tear it up because it’s not my taste, I’m Power Tripping. I have to back off and ask myself the three questions: 1) Does the design accomplish what the project requirements stipulate; 2) Does the design accomplish what the designer wishes to accomplish; 3) Am I focusing on my own tastes? If one and two are in the affirmative then query three is also likely in the affirmative—I am in fact Power Tripping and being a jerk. I am appealing to my personal authority as the final arbiter instead of seeing those things that are outside of my taste.

Honestly, some people used to find my help annoying because I wouldn’t always give an answer if they asked me “Do you like this?” Sometimes I would just answer “It’s fine” or “it’s cool”. When folk asked me for design help they would say something like “I’m trying to [accomplish X]. You got any pointers?” Then I could offer some suggestions because I knew what they were looking to do. Sometimes they would take what I said as the answer and often times they would come up with another solution that was appealing to themselves while still addressing the problem.

Now, maybe you’ll have to come up with your own system for a surge protection on Power Tripping. Mine is one way that is useful even if it sometimes (often in my case) fails. Try it with writing, reading, movies, dating, design, color choices, painting, parenting, speaking, friends, hanging out, tv-shows, cooking, cleaning, music— the list goes on and on. The point is not appealing to personal authority as the final arbiter.