Those In Power Rarely Share It Voluntarily
By: Elle Beau
Tags: Society, Power, Equality, Social Justice, Hierarchy

The reasons why the “just be nice” tactic will not work in a dominance hierarchy

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I have to admit that nothing frustrates me more in a discussion about societal equality than a person who advocates for oppressed people to just do a better job of getting along and being “nice.” On the one hand, telling someone they are a “despicable” probably isn’t going to move the needle too much in the right direction, but on the other hand, clear and progress-based suggestions for how to have fewer structural impediments and implicit bias is a necessary factor for any kind of social progress. Firmly and powerfully demanding better is the only thing that has ever lead to social improvement in this country (or anywhere).

First of all, most discrimination and marginalization of demographics with less social power is not being done consciously. It’s coming out of the subconscious and the dynamics of living in a dominance-based hierarchy, where a relatively few elites (white men are only 31% of the population but still the bulk of power and privilege), and everyone else is somewhere lower down the pyramid. White men have 8 times as much political power as black women, not simply because there are more of them, or they are inherently smarter and savvier. It’s because we’ve always had a system in this country where black women as a demographic are the very bottom of the pecking order and white men as a demographic are closer to the top. Until very recently, there were many overt structural systems to keep it that way put into place by the very white men who didn’t want to lose their spot in the hierarchy.

This is not necessarily due to malice, however. In a dominance-based hierarchy (which is what a patriarchal system truly is) everyone is trying to either hang on to their spot or to rise to a better one. It’s a zero-sum dynamic where in order for someone to win, someone else has to lose. There is no voluntary sharing of power or privilege. It’s a win/lose paradigm and for those most bought into this social system, conceding anything to someone else means that you have lost something. If it happens to be wrested away, through superior effort or force, or some kind of other circumstance, it’s usually given somewhat grudgingly. In many cases, however, the resistance continues on for decades afterward.

American women had to advocate for the right to vote, in other words, for the right to be considered actual full citizens, for close to 100 years. Part of the reason that it took so long, apart from garden variety misogyny, is that several large interest groups were afraid that a voting block of women would be more likely to go against their interests. Southern factories that used child labor didn’t want that practice disrupted, just as breweries and distilleries didn’t want a large voting block of prohibitionists. If the suffragettes hadn’t spent all those decades demanding the right to be treated as full American citizens, it certainly wasn’t going to just be handed over because it was “the right thing to do.”

Not only are those with more historic access to power unlikely to be willing to just give something to someone else because it may disturb their interests, but due to the elements of stratification that are inherent in a dominance-based hierarchy they undoubtedly don’t see why they should have to concede anything to someone “weaker.” A dominance hierarchy is a might makes right system. No one in such a system is going to just voluntarily cede some of their authority or privilege to someone who hasn’t taken it from them by force or by exerting concerted pressure over time.

Even among the suffragettes, there was a clear element of class awareness and snobbery. Susan B. Anthony was primarily interested in the rights of middle and upper-class white women, and the legacy of that is still being felt in modern feminism, where even today black women have legitimate grievances about the way that they have been marginalized within the feminist movement. Whether this is outright racism and classism or something more subtle and more subconscious is not really relevant because it has the same impact on those who are harmed by it.

Other types of subtle elements also impact who keeps the apex of the hierarchy, and who has to continue fighting for a place. The research demonstrates that having a more honed ability to manage the impression you give at work, often referred to as “an executive presence” does confer advantages over intelligence and actual competence alone. Co-workers from a working-class background may simply come off as less polished, or less elite — because, in a social hierarchy, part of the currency is elite status. Most people are looking to climb the rungs of the pyramid, and if someone is already “dressed for the part” then it’s easier for managers and others to imagine them there, whether they are truly the best candidate or not.

Social inequalities tend to lead to structural inequalities and this makes it easier for those nearer to the top of the pyramid to maintain their historic power and social authority. Up until the mid-1970s, there were hundreds of laws that applied differently to women than they did to men, to say nothing of our nation’s history of segregation, disenfranchisement, and marginalization of blacks, all of which was codified by law, and continued by custom long after the laws were abolished. Due to this long-standing history, it is not only possible but likely that most of us (particularly those born higher up in the hierarchy) harbor some deeply unconscious beliefs about the “natural order of things” that we’ve picked up from being raised in a dominance hierarchy, no matter what our conscious beliefs about equality may be.

Having a less stratified system feels deeply uncomfortable to many people, and one need only look into the headlines to see that being played out. After all, what else are The Proud Boys? What else are the people who were deeply offended when a black man was elected president or a woman played in a football game? In their minds, the stratification is set, and people who are supposed to be on the lower rungs are way out of line for imagining that they are on their level — because in their belief system, only one of them can “win.”

Those with that level of subconscious feeling of being offended and threatened will never voluntarily change the system to be a more egalitarian one when their own insecurities are assuaged by being born into one of the higher ranks of a stratified system. If you are always comparing yourself to others, always looking over your shoulder for who is coming for your social position or level of authority, always worried about where you rank in the hierarchy — so much so that you are willing to enshrine it into both culture and law — it’s not likely that you will give that up to someone of perceived lower-ranking just because they’ve been “nice.”

Some people like to complain that mass protests don’t accomplish anything except for destruction and civil unrest, but our country has a long history of change being fomented by just such protests, from the Boston Tea Party of 1773 to the Women’s Suffrage Parade of 1913 and on to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, all the way up to world-wide protests that emerged after the killing of George Floyd. Each of these mass demands for a less authoritarian, less stratified society did lead to positive social change — although there is certainly room for plenty more.

These types of mass protest, which do typically result in some injury, as well as the destruction of some property, wouldn’t be necessary if those who are seeking redress for the harms against them were listened to when they were speaking calmly. In each of those examples above, the people in question started by asking nicely, by speaking about the ways that they were suffering, and in each instance (as well as many others), it wasn’t until unanswered requests or other provocations boiled over into forceful demands that anything changed.

The Black Power movements of the 1960s and 70s came directly in response to decades of trying to assimilate into White culture by being “nice” and “respectable” and finding that it largely did not move the ball. Black Americans were still looked down upon, discriminated against in jobs and housing, and largely treated as second-class citizens. Groups such as The Blank Panthers sought to create both safety and self-sufficiency for Black Americans within a society that still often looked upon Whites as being inherently superior. When they saw that they could not win by playing “the game,” these Black Power movements sought to opt-out and create their own game.

After the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee decided to cut ties with the mainstream civil rights movement. They argued that blacks needed to build power of their own, rather than seek accommodations from the power structure in place.

I would say that hip-hop culture has a lot of similarities. It’s black musicians and others trying to opt-out of the established white power hierarchy by creating one of their own. Unfortunately, because it’s still a dominance hierarchy, bullying, violence, and the oppression of women is often an integral aspect. In order to have top rungs, you still have to have somebody else beneath, on the lower ones. It’s just trading out one pyramid structure for another one.

You can say that someone attracts more flies with honey than with vinegar. You can say that when people feel criticized, they feel defensive, and are less likely to be sympathetic to those they feel are attacking them, and you may be right on both counts. But none-the-less, in the history of this country, and the history of the rest of the world, no demographic with more traditional power has ever given it away to one with less out of the goodness of their hearts if they live in a dominance hierarchy. It simply goes against the grain of that sort of social system.

Exhorting marginalized people to be less forthright about how they are being systemically harmed is actually a bid for the comfort of those closer to the top of the hierarchy. The system largely works for them, so they don’t particularly want to know about how it doesn’t work for others, because they tend to be under the illusion that they have somehow earned that place, rather than been born into by an accident of gender, skin color, or sexuality. As well, it’s an integral part of a dominance hierarchy that one must accept abuse when it comes “from above” but then can dole it out to those “below” by way of recourse.

What I consider the appropriate balance between these two poles is to look at the flaws of the social structure, and how that encourages people towards viewing social stratification based on immutable traits as natural. I also look at the way that this is so deeply a part of our culture as to be almost invisible. Most people aren’t truly despicable, but that doesn’t mean that they might not still be contributing to the marginalization and oppression of others by defending this social system — something that may be taking place either without truly realizing it or without any malice. Not understanding that, or not meaning to is not a free pass, and resisting it tooth and nail when it’s brought to your attention doesn’t get one either.

If you want less “culture war.” If you want fewer marchers in the streets. If you want fewer pointed fingers, then it’s incumbent upon those with more societal cache to overcome some of their territorial instincts and listen and to encourage others like them to listen, and then to use their power to act in response to what they’ve learned. And if you don’t want to do that, then you’ll have to be prepared for the loud and uncomfortable demands for a more egalitarian system to keep taking place.

If you want to preserve a system rooted in a dominance hierarchy, then what you can expect is the fruits of that. Marginalized and oppressed people know that being “nice” is never going to get them anywhere. They’ve tried that already, sometimes for hundreds of years and they understand, even if you don’t, that this is not how a dominance hierarchy works.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2020

Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.