So what is it when you see society as a series of interlocking systems and institutions whose primary mission is to perpetuate those systems and institutions, often in cruel and inhuman ways, but almost always subtly, barely perceivable by those who are enslaved by the ideology of those systems? (Edit: I’m not entirely totalatarian/bleak about this; there is room for human connection even in a gulag.)
I think it starts with birth, when our parents decide to have children for their own ends. Then we are assigned a role inside that family system–savior, scapegoat, healer, mediator, surrogate parent, etc. We are taught how to see the world, to see relationships, in ways that benefit the family system. It’s not abuse, it’s love. We are taught to shut down, to not listen to our own voices, because to be independent, to see that the family system is there to serve itself and not you, the child, is emotionally- and maybe life-threatening.
Then it continues in school. In the most pessimistic systems, teachers–whatever there original desires to teach were–are there to fulfill metrics, and those that meet metrics are rewarded, and those that do not are punished. Your role isn´t to learn about who you are, or to develop as a human, but to fulfill the metrics the teachers have. Teachers who take time to learn about you or foster your growth as an individual are eventually weeded out.
Then maybe you go to work, maybe professional work. Your first job is to make your employer feel good about themselves and make them look good to THEIR superiors. If you are in a profession, your other role is to affirm the legitimacy of the profession. You are never to acknowledge that the system is corrupt, that the institution is there primarily to serve itself.
Then in our personal lives, in need of companionship, we make an arrangement with someone else: “I’ll be who you want me to be if you be who I want you to be.” And when this fails to satisfy us, we decide to have children, and the process continues.
I don’t have much hope. Yes, I do think a French-style revolution will somewhat reset the clock on capitalist exploitation, but ultimately, this is just HUMAN behavior. As long as we live in a society, we will create systems and institutions, and we will sacrifice our individuality to gain the protection of those systems and institutions. It is a cycle only escapable only by a few individuals, and at great cost.
So what is this called?
I’ll drop my personal experiences in a comment below because I’ve already shared the highlights before.
No i just name my accounts whatever is on my mind(thought idea sensation feeling) at the time to make it impossible to trace them across platforms, i was just thinking of food back then
Leverage can come in many ways, dependence, reliance, expertise, friendships, anything really
I’m part of a community with very niche skill and i’ve always hated hierarchies but i play along if they prove to be good or fair, i climbed up the ladder through expertise and i practically had no friends in it cause i’m anti social, eventually i was told if i wanted to progress more i should take a look into the inner circle and i did
It was all connections, i thought this is where experts would be but no it’s just more same level skilled people that are just really really well connected in this circle, i have no connections and nobody knew me so the logical thing would be to hang on to someone and be their pet lol, we’re in autism community though and because i think gaining position through connections is corrupt i didn’t kiss anyone’s ass when they kept offering them
For some reason they don’t like this though which doesn’t make sense and eventually hierarchy needed to be established through legitimate means, expertise, i won, most people would already avoid me or talking to me at all costs to not be kicked out of the circle but after this it turned malicious and they wanted to get rid of me, i’m talking a really niche community and skill so this was a closed closed circle
How do you get rid of people in a system? You abuse it and swear everyone with you into silence, everything actively offered to everyone is excluded to me, everything available to me specifically is now only accessible privately, this is the public community system not like private it’s the standard one, so i called them out, all swore into silence, their self interest is with the system, and now the system is for their self interest as well
So i left started my own system by now i’m even more skilled than most of the inner circle and i offered skills to people for free while telling them exactly what took place, leverage here is connections which i normally avoid lmao, and the expertise, they’re leverage because they can’t be taken away or are costly to do so, you keep this up for months(nearing multi years now) self gain is not the goal it’s change like i said, you offer the skills and you keep improving
Eventually the leverage of connections and expertise becomes so dangerous it has to be confronted and it comes at the cost of concessions of self gain for me, i refused it i was not even considering it, the cost has to be the system, which no one would allow, but the good thing is, only one of us benefits from stability because again i do not have interest in self gain and eventually system is going to be forced to change
That’s what leverage means, anything that moves people away from the system(VPN, EV, word of mouth) and can’t be stopped is leverage
Stopping it through force sets precedence for arming against it(boycotts, shaming…) and again the system does not benefit from instability
By the way they still refuse to allow me in, got all other similar inner circles in on exclusion, targeted all my connections and me with harassment and just spread lies about me and were forced to purge and stretch the circle many times to keep it intact but everyone(much large outer circle) openly knows it has bad reputation not even for the original reasons just for their own demands, the inner circle now isn’t bothered and are more comfortable with open threats and power abuse against anyone and are banking on the monopoly over the skill and the outer circle’s dependence on it, i’m working on an alternative though and when they knew about it they just banned me from any platform they could pressure with the monopoly, the alternative is another leverage they can’t control so they have to confront me and the change
Idk, maybe the bad reputation(i’m talking going from leaders hard-working rare -> lazy corrupt common) was too much for them because everything i do i make sure it can’t be undone plus changes to the system(inner circle goes from picking it’s members to outer circle choosing them) was what made them unwilling to ever tolerate me in power
Edit: for this example what i mean by not joining another system is i was offered to take part in other circles cause they also have competition with the original one but i’d have to do it while degraded and constantly needing to prove myself, and you can do that for the sake of taking down circle1 but then who’s going to deal with circle2 which has the same issues, you have to be ok with just doing your own thing solo and everyone coming to contact with you being targeted or controlled when you resist systems, which is super cool i’m not gonna lie
Holy fuck that sounds exhausting.
I’d rather just be okay with where I’m at and the fact that nobody in the work world wants to be my friend. They can tell themselves whatever story they like to rationalize their feelings about me, don’t care.
At some point, its a waste of energy to climb the professional ladder any further. Find a comfortable spot where you can reasonably support your life, and then focus on the life.
Honestly fair this is just my thing, i’m a moral objectivist i think meanings comes from being right, so i just live however i can and resist whenever i can
I admit i’m all sorts of screwed up lmao, when i’m not pushing back against evil i just feel weird now, like i’m overly enjoying life, which means i’m making roots in it, which means i can be controlled through them, and i just kick in to limit or assess how much dependence i’ve built and if i’d be ready to let go of it to be good if i had to or not
One weird thing though is nobody can understand this way of thinking, they just get confused like i did something unexpected when it’s the most logical thing to do, being part of an evil machine has just been too normalized and it’s why i look insane to everyone
Well, I mean, you gotta live according to your values in order to be happy with yourself.
I’ve really disengaged with the idea that I need to compete with or assert my own views of what is righteous over what society presents for me as the template to follow. Rejecting that template for myself and accepting that others prefer it, accept it or are just unconcious altogether doesn’t really cause any kind of issue for me.
Everyone has a right to their own reasonable way of life; judging their ways is a cope for my own ego that I try to resist.
All this to say, I think I understand your position. You’ve thought quite deeply on it, and it sounds like an okay way to be… but not for me.
Dang, I wish my field had expertise that mattered! But it’s largely an unaccountable profession that gets by on PR and guild protections, I have no shot to do what you’re doing.
There was an old show, MAS*H, and the lead character was a catanekrous, unhappy, often rebellious surgeon who get away with almost anything because he was so needed in the operating theater. I always wanted to be that good at something.
ANd, you know what, in reflection, as someone who has worked his way out of a bipolar diagnosis and off of disability, I am actually kind of “that good,” or at least the system has a choice to put me in a position to help people at the expense of itself, and it chooses not to give me interviews.
But, looking at it now with my new eyes, I see that there is no amount of skill that would allow Hawkeye to exist in the system. The conceit of the show is that the military, for all its flaws, actually cares more about the welfare of its soldiers than for maintaining hiearchy and order, and I think that, at this point, that is categorically false. Nothing is every more important than the system to the system.
But you’re experience certainly does highlight how systems do work and also benefit themselves. Like you point that the people in group1 are no more skilled than people outside of it, but because they have established credibility, they can charge more money, harm their enemies, etc.