Will you show your personal ID card on the demand of an unidentified masked person in civies during a random check of your identity by those new G-Men? Checks are like living in the first scene of a familiar thriller movie. These are perilous times. Will dystopia win over social conventions of hope and goodness for all? The President of the United States uses a public persona of promising pleasure and threatening – and sometimes delivering – pain. He implicitly asks the ancient question: what will you do for me today? That identity has overwhelmed social conventions and dominates media with changes in how we conduct our daily social life. Ultimately, we – however you define it for yourself – stand as individuals vulnerable to dominance.
Consider
As is known from research, domination occurs with voluntary participation of those who submit in the ancient pleasure-pain social mechanism. An unanswered question by researchers about volunteerism that each person answers and re-answers continuously is what price will we as individuals and together pay for continuing to be dominated?
The Trump System of Domination (TSD)
Arguably, the Trump system of domination (TSD) is of the relationships among our normal daily social activities that give the federal government dominion over the consequences for us – the other participants in the system – and for the country. At the same time, it is generally understood that every system has weaknesses. The challenge for those who do not volunteer to be dominated is first to describe the Trump system of domination and its weaknesses. Clearly ‘shame’ in its many social forms has not worked as an antidote to Trump dominance. It has become an ingredient in the operation of dominance by diluting its impact upon members of the federal government by defiling the presence, reputations, wealth, and rights of ‘illegals’ as well as faithful public servants among others.
Principles and Conditions of Domination (TSD)
The Trump system of domination operates according to two generally understood principles of human behavior. These principles are accepted as involuntary. Its weakness is that the operation of these principles requires the interaction of at least two people.
- Shiny (glittery) objects distract attention from something being done that’s more important for domination; and
- Negative reinforcement makes response by participants more likely because participants acknowledge that the consequences could have been worse than they turned out to be, that is, it feels so good when the pain stops.
These principles operate under three conditions.
- Trust – a voluntary acceptance of a perceived fact – that the federal government has the capacity to deliver on its promises and threats. An antidote: skepticism by many names about that capacity.
- Natural responses to ‘shining objects’. People respond to a shiny or glittering object before they respond to other objects and events. Antidote: Personal discipline to redirect that response (energy) to its weaknesses as the federal administration has done with shame.
- Anomy – a lack of agreed upon rules for behaving – with an emphasis on individualism – a lack of an agreed upon alternative collective action plan to failing social institutions that normally support individual persons. Antidote: Reorganize and implement a Plan B, C, etc.
A Framework for Independence?
How problematic is independence from the Trump system of domination? Assume for the sense of argument that the system of domination continues into the foreseeable near future and expands in influence. Inflation climbs, food and health care are less stable, national conscription into public service is imposed, plus you know more about the system as fulfilling the Mandate for Leadership Plan 2025.
Assume further that the social institutions of the first 250 years based on interpretations of the U.S. Constitution have not survived intact with the same generally accepted norms. For example, the distributed authority of the federal government into three independent branches has been redefined and operates as a unified office of the President with legislative bodies establishing presidential edicts into laws that courts uphold and public administrators enforce.
What’s your price or plan to develop a voluntary antidote to adopting and adapting to a new system of government enforced norms for daily life?
Submitted by Robert W. Heiny