Welcome to the PowerMyth Index

Invisible and otherworldly forces have overwhelming influence on our existence. The economy. Levers of government. Spurious minds of the elite. All are complex entities with their own logics, to be controlled only by the small selection of operators who appear to know best. But what has come of this society shaped by experts and their algorithms, aside from a public too anxious and divided to afford even basic opportunity for the poorest among us? The human experience is far too rich to be contained or represented by any rational order, yet claims of universal truth merely reinforce winners and losers of what should be a collaborative story.

Only through the mystical can the unseen be known and humanity find harmony. We can reshape our destinies if we uncover that which masquerades as divine will: Power. Despite how it may often seem, Power is not exclusively held by those supposed experts who know how to wield it. Power can be generated. The forms it takes on are numerous, however, and we are always partially blinded by Myth of our own making. The stories we tell to perceive the world eventually become the unstated, the taken-for-granted, and the assumptions that inform our decision-making. So, only through collective action can we truly comprehend these hidden mechanisms of society.

Individually, we are captured by the influence of what we do not yet know. Together, we can QUESTION EVERYTHING.

Okay so basically, I think a lot of our knowledge has been siloed across specialty and identity in a way that obscures patterns and forsakes our inherent connectedness. At the same time, there can be no single explanation of the world in the absence of an objective reality. That only leaves us with one option, best explained through the words of the preeminent philosopher of our era:

This website aims to build out Power as a universal contact language so that perspectives across fields of study can be in conversation with one another. That means everything included here may not be ideologically consistent, but hopefully it helps you find what you need to get the job done. In other words, the PowerMyth Index is your grandpa's old toolbox. Goodbye overwhelming hopelessness, hello decentralized avenues for direct action in a unified mission!!

It goes a little something like this: Understanding Power solely as a means for people to dominate each other is insufficient. Instead...

• Power is a ubiquitous force that determines the boundaries for what every person can or can't do (11. Realms of Freedom).
• When we come together to govern a society, the views and perceptions of some people are more represented than others (12. Dominant Realm).
• That influence is baked into institutions and culture, which maintains the status quo and reinforces exclusion (13. Realm Enforcers).
• Those advantaged with certain accumulative properties, such as wealth and status, have greater potential to shape boundaries (14. Power Capacitors).
• An eternal process of 15. Boundary Negotiation underpins society to determine what is good, possible, normal, legal, or rational.

Please visit the Sitemap to get started, or to get situated with the academic debates (and personal decisions) that informed this Index, head to the Bibliography and Resources section.

Fun Disclaimers

I am not a researcher living in a bubble of pure science and reason, nor is this all intended to be some objectively correct lighthouse for the world's problems. Just because I'm compiling a bunch of perspectives doesn't mean I'm absent one of my own, which also comes with limitations and blind spots. Expect contradictions! I will criticize Categorization despite doing just that, I will question Academia while being part of it, and so on. Maybe two things can be true at once, maybe there's no such thing as truth, idk. But just keep that in mind I guess?

Also, this Index will be WEIRD AND MESSY FOREVER!!! :O Ideas will keep evolving over time. Expect some pages to be delicately crafted essays while others will just be reference lists for now. Either way, my hope is that each page offers something you can chew on to help reexamine your own experiences.

ALSO! Sometime in the future when I get my life together, the end goal is to turn this project into a collaborative wiki. We need your contributions. We need your disagreements. I just... don't know how to logistically open that up yet?? In the meantime, if you have thoughts, recommendations, or hate mail, please send it my way at belmontindex@gmail.com!

~ Dillon Belmont, 4/16/2026