Divide and conquer aka competition for individual performative “glory” (~980 words; ~7 minutes)
Including how sock puppets (i.e., tools) mistake abuse of others for what they misdescribe as “humour”
Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash (the members of one volleyball team celebrate as an opponent takes a fall)
Humans in the form of homo sapiens have been around for roughly a quarter of a million years. For about ten millennia, give or take a few millennia, humans have been subverted out of a collaborative way of life, still known and adhered to as much as is possible for many Indigenous peoples of this world, into an elitist power structure known as patriarchy, which has manifested more recently as capitalism, fascism, and neoliberalism.
The harm done by patriarchy et al has been - and still is - devastating. Our climate is being destroyed by petro-macho monsters, and wars and inequity (and inequity’s sprouts poverty, hunger, thirst, and lack of equitable opportunity) rob humanity of some of its greatest people and most of its people (certainly almost all the non-elite) of quality of existence (it hasn’t been quality of life for some time) - notwithstanding that some of the elitist power structures have been used to undo a portion of the harm that has been done (with performative back-pats and elitist celebrations about carefully curated charitable contributions).
I’ve written about a number of aspects of this evil elsewhere, and today I want to address - briefly - one of the elite’s favourite tools for controlling humans, especially the young:
competition between individuals/small groups
This is a form of the old classic divide-and-conquer and its successor divide-and-rule.
By portraying those who can perform in a way that is measurably - to the elites - “bigger” than others, the elites are able to characterise that as also somehow being better (which it is not: jumping higher than someone else does not make you more moral, caring, or better able to contribute to your community) and start promoting, as part of their limited, misleading, and set-them-up-to-be-controlled education systems, the notion that being recognised as “better”, in some way totally unconnected with wellbeing of community or planet, is something … admirable.
To put that more bluntly, this form of rewarding a specific type of exceptionalism fosters a culture of aggression and individualism, and hinders societal progress - promoting excellence through competition encourages individuals to see each other as competitors rather than collaborators. In politics, this competition leads to a narrow focus on power, neglecting critical thinking and emotional competence.
This does not happen everywhere. As an example, there is a scene in the movie “Seven Years in Tibet” where a Tibetan woman points out that Tibetans do not seek to push themselves ahead of others, and celebrate the good fortune of a friend.
That is also the case in other Indigenous cultures, and it quite possible was also the case in Europe before the age of Empires and mass agricultural based “civilisation”.
In the workplace, this problematic power structure and consequent behaviours and attitudes shows up as things such as setting arbitrary financial goals (i.e., profit) with no connection to consequences for how the profit is attained (and too often little connection to what is realistically possible).
In the vast majority of cases, that does NOT involve pollution, dam collapses, or other atrocious social-environmental harm. It manifests as things like getting money diverted into doing another study, or delaying some work that is needed because it can be - even though doing it now as part of something else makes better sense, and it promotes ubiquitous, invidious belittling of those who care on the specious grounds that the carers have not met a patriarchy-approved performative measurement.
It damages and shuts down people with the unfortunate (in the world of these last few millennia) combination of talent and caring, and it perverts the personalities of those doing the damaging and shutting into monstrosities lacking self awareness, empathy, and a proper, balanced perspective.
These monstrosities include the people who cheerfully or blithely say, “Oh, well, we recommend, you know, we promote the best” based on limited, arbitrary, measurable in ways the patriarchy/elite approves and their tools (“agents”) think they understand.
And I have been damaged and shut down by those monstrosities and their tools (the developing monstrosities).
But I have also been helped by decent people - people who may not have had the same perspective I am writing of here, but could see or sense something was wrong, or a need for decency was not being fulfilled.
This, to some extent, is also shown by awards based on more altruistic measures - such as the Nobel prizes (particularly the Nobel peace prize) and local community prizes.
Those reactions are good - truly admirable, necessary, and of positive impact.
But what they also need, in my opinion, is to be backed up by an awareness of the need to get rid of elitist power structures (without vindictiveness, Tall Poppy Syndrome, or other forms of power structure revenge, but genuine justice and accountability is essential) and commensurate action.
My experience is that it is people with an awareness of social class who are most likely to meet this additional criteria.
Those who are working to improve human rights (including me) are doing a task that is necessary and important, but without also addressing the fundamental problem of bigotry in and of itself, as well as the broader issue of elitist power structures, the problems will keep coming back in a different form - the cancer of hate will simply mutate (racism and white supremacism, sexism and misogyny, ableism, etc).
How do we change this?
By acting with empathy, patience, and a broader, balanced, socially aware perspective in everything we do in our daily lives.
By supporting the recognition of collaborative, community based excellence - including being able to praise others for being better than oneself in some mater without feeling lesser.
And by actively supporting (working with), or at the very least not getting in the way of, those who are trying to make this world a more caring, communal, collaborative place.
If you wish to encourage or support me you can do so at PayPal or Ko-Fi – and such would be appreciated, and help me to keep writing here.