Dominance or Cooperation
I have been talking about dominance and domination, without ever defining it.
Domination has one or several victims, dominance can either have a victim or would make any available person a victim.
Submission is yielding to perceived power. Submissiveness is the willingness to submit, when there is power.
Not every situation, when one person leads, instructs, guides or organizes, is domination.
Domination is defined by the following criteria:
1. The higher position in the hierarchy is obtained and maintained by power, expressed by aggression, violence, intimidation, coercion. There is a ranking by power.
2. The position of the dominator on the hierarchy cannot rationally be justified by any reason or quality. It is based entirely upon power, either physical or due to the possession of resources.
3. Without the power, no healthy person would consent to being dominated by the dominator. But the dominator has the delusion to be qualified by competence to have the power.
4. Domination serves selfish purposes of the dominator.
5. Domination is perpetuated and defended. The dominator needs to remain stronger than others to keep his position on top of the hierarchy, therefore he makes efforts to maintain the difference in power.
These examples are not domination:
1. The control of parents over their children, of wardens over prisoners, of institutions over severely disturbed mental patients.
2. When one person has superior knowledge about a skill and trains another with inferior skills, then he is tutoring or guiding the other, but not dominating. The goal is to reduce the difference, so that they both will have the same level of skills sometime in the future.
Learning is a form of cooperation to improve skill or knowledge.
3. If someone is given the role by consent of all as the organizer and coordinator of the division of labor, even though he then decides to whom he gives assignments and chores.
Here are several scenarios. This can be 100 000 years ago or 1 000 000 years ago, when prehistoric people lived in small tribes, their survival depending on the cohesion of the entire group.
A dozen men have set off on a hunt. Each of them has his special skill and strength, there is the fastest runner and the strongest fighter. One has the most dexterity to build a fire, one has the best skills to make weapons. One has the best memory for animal behavior and good places for hunting, one has the best eye sight and one the best ears.
Scenario 1. Domination:
The strongest has defeated them all in wrestling, and has become the chief. They all fear him. He is strong, but lacks intelligence. He leads the hunt, commands anybody to do anything, but is ignorant of different skills of the others. He has the top position, but he is incompetent and the hunting success is meagre. He believes to be the most competent hunter, this his subjective justification for his domination. He claims and keeps the best and biggest share of the prey.
Scenarios 2 and 3: They are all equals, who share the work and the prey. No one has any power over any other.
Scenario 2. Cooperation by consent, knowledge and insight.
They are only a small group, and they know each other well. Therefore there is an implicit and explicit agreement on the division of labor, they do not need a chief, because each of them knows what to do and when.
Scenario 3. Cooperation by selected leader
They elect a leader for a limited time like for one hunt, whose job is to coordinate the activities. He knows the talents and skills of all and is able to choose wisely whom to give which assignment.
People differ in talents, skills, training and knowledge. At any given moment, there can be a ranking according to their relative skill in a specific area, but this hierarchy is very flexible, as learning modifies it rapidly. Cooperation based upon equal rights enhances progress, while hierarchies of power can be a hindrance. If the powerful but incompetent chief of a group of hunters enforces his incompetent methods on others, this is detrimental, while in a cooperative setting all can learn and improve their methods together.
As a consequence, domination usually leads to two disparate hierarchies. The hierarchy based upon the ranking of power and the hierarchy based upon the ranking of competence. Many times the powerful incompetent repress the more capable, who are powerless.
The Peter Principle is strictly understood not about power:
I have been talking about dominance and domination, without ever defining it.
Domination has one or several victims, dominance can either have a victim or would make any available person a victim.
Submission is yielding to perceived power. Submissiveness is the willingness to submit, when there is power.
Not every situation, when one person leads, instructs, guides or organizes, is domination.
Domination is defined by the following criteria:
1. The higher position in the hierarchy is obtained and maintained by power, expressed by aggression, violence, intimidation, coercion. There is a ranking by power.
2. The position of the dominator on the hierarchy cannot rationally be justified by any reason or quality. It is based entirely upon power, either physical or due to the possession of resources.
3. Without the power, no healthy person would consent to being dominated by the dominator. But the dominator has the delusion to be qualified by competence to have the power.
4. Domination serves selfish purposes of the dominator.
5. Domination is perpetuated and defended. The dominator needs to remain stronger than others to keep his position on top of the hierarchy, therefore he makes efforts to maintain the difference in power.
These examples are not domination:
1. The control of parents over their children, of wardens over prisoners, of institutions over severely disturbed mental patients.
2. When one person has superior knowledge about a skill and trains another with inferior skills, then he is tutoring or guiding the other, but not dominating. The goal is to reduce the difference, so that they both will have the same level of skills sometime in the future.
Learning is a form of cooperation to improve skill or knowledge.
3. If someone is given the role by consent of all as the organizer and coordinator of the division of labor, even though he then decides to whom he gives assignments and chores.
Here are several scenarios. This can be 100 000 years ago or 1 000 000 years ago, when prehistoric people lived in small tribes, their survival depending on the cohesion of the entire group.
A dozen men have set off on a hunt. Each of them has his special skill and strength, there is the fastest runner and the strongest fighter. One has the most dexterity to build a fire, one has the best skills to make weapons. One has the best memory for animal behavior and good places for hunting, one has the best eye sight and one the best ears.
Scenario 1. Domination:
The strongest has defeated them all in wrestling, and has become the chief. They all fear him. He is strong, but lacks intelligence. He leads the hunt, commands anybody to do anything, but is ignorant of different skills of the others. He has the top position, but he is incompetent and the hunting success is meagre. He believes to be the most competent hunter, this his subjective justification for his domination. He claims and keeps the best and biggest share of the prey.
Scenarios 2 and 3: They are all equals, who share the work and the prey. No one has any power over any other.
Scenario 2. Cooperation by consent, knowledge and insight.
They are only a small group, and they know each other well. Therefore there is an implicit and explicit agreement on the division of labor, they do not need a chief, because each of them knows what to do and when.
Scenario 3. Cooperation by selected leader
They elect a leader for a limited time like for one hunt, whose job is to coordinate the activities. He knows the talents and skills of all and is able to choose wisely whom to give which assignment.
People differ in talents, skills, training and knowledge. At any given moment, there can be a ranking according to their relative skill in a specific area, but this hierarchy is very flexible, as learning modifies it rapidly. Cooperation based upon equal rights enhances progress, while hierarchies of power can be a hindrance. If the powerful but incompetent chief of a group of hunters enforces his incompetent methods on others, this is detrimental, while in a cooperative setting all can learn and improve their methods together.
As a consequence, domination usually leads to two disparate hierarchies. The hierarchy based upon the ranking of power and the hierarchy based upon the ranking of competence. Many times the powerful incompetent repress the more capable, who are powerless.
The Peter Principle is strictly understood not about power:
"The Peter Principle is stated in chapter 1 of the book with the same title: "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence"."
But even when the hierarchy in any organization is based more upon power than upon skills, the result can be a case of the Peter Principle. By power someone climbs the ladder, but when he reaches a position, where his skills do not match his power, he fails and messes things up.
Concerning couples, the decisive competence is the one for commitment, which consists mainly of emotional intelligence and maturity, empowering and enabling a person to be egalitarian and to contribute to mutual happiness. A couple of two egalitarian partners does not form a hierarchy, they cooperate by sharing decisions, by consent, insight and a division of labor.
Concerning couples, the decisive competence is the one for commitment, which consists mainly of emotional intelligence and maturity, empowering and enabling a person to be egalitarian and to contribute to mutual happiness. A couple of two egalitarian partners does not form a hierarchy, they cooperate by sharing decisions, by consent, insight and a division of labor.
A man forcing a hierarchy of domination upon a woman is immature and an emotional moron and therefore incompetent. Any egalitarian woman with average emotional intelligence is more competent than he is.
By establishing his domination, he creates two disparate hierarchies. The hierarchy of power, where he has the higher position, and the hierarchy of commitment competence, where has the lower position. Domination and commitment competence are mutually exclusive. A man dominating by using power is incompetent. The essence of commitment competence is not dominating and not using power.
The dominating man is stuck in his incompetence, and the woman is stuck in the position of her competence being overruled by his incompetent power.
Domination is abomination, and I as an egalitarian woman am looking for an egalitarian man as a mindmate.
