As soon as we challenge those that exercise any form of power over our freewill, we need to be prepared to deal with the caustic, damaging and cerebral attacks to our individual identity. Slave masters would typically physically and brutally beat their slaves into total submission. We often surmise that someone has been brainwashed when they have been totally subdued mentally and have ceased to assert any unique or distinct individuality. An well-articulated and sound personal identity has the very best chance of surviving in a complex world. The lack thereof leads to all kinds of personal and social pathology and everyone is apt to suffer to some degree from the inevitable consequences.
P erhaps the largest portion of most of our waking hours is invested in the workplace.
There is little question that so many of us identify ourselves in the terms of the various kinds of vocations and avocations that we purport. We are aware of the sometimes-awesome influence of peer pressure and most of that applied pressure is directed at the individual in an effort to have that person internalize the shared values of the dominate group. We have come to comprehend that captives often take on themselves the various artificial traits of their oppressors and only the strongest of individuals are capable of persisting to resist any of the changes that are imposed. Sometimes the only was to resist the onslaught is to put one's self out of harms way by suicide. That idea is too well illustrated with the idea that spies were often equipped with cyanide tablets to be taken in the event of capture.