.HOME
Commentary by
Eileen Workman
(Follow Eileen Workman on Sub-Stack)
WE TALK about “checks and balances” in politics, about who holds power and how they use it. But very rarely do we examine the mechanics of power itself—the underlying physics of how force-based hierarchical systems actually operate, and why they inevitably fall apart.
The trouble with these systems lies not only in the behavior of the people at the top. It lies in the roles the system demands everyone play: dominator or submissive. Those two roles form the spine of every force-based hierarchy, from authoritarian governments to abusive workplaces to dysfunctional families. And once a culture organizes itself around dominance and submission, the seeds of collapse are already planted.
Allow me to explain why:
The Energetics of Dominance and Submission
In a force-based hierarchy, people are not treated as full human beings with agency, insight, and wisdom. They are assigned functional roles:
.
- Dominators command, decide, demand compliance, and fall back on the threat or use of force to get their way.
- Submissives obey, silence themselves, and endure whatever is required to avoid punishment.
Neither of these roles fosters maturity, emotional intelligence, or creative thinking. Both roles express as survival patterns, not relational ones. Most significantly, these roles condition the entire system to operate from fear, not curiosity or collaboration. And fear narrows perception, distorts judgment, and destroys the capacity for adaptive learning.
The Psychological Toll on Dominators
Those raised or elevated into dominator roles often never learn the emotional or mental skills necessary for healthy relationships:
.
- They don’t need to listen; force gets faster results.
Because violence or punishment is always available as a fallback, dominators quickly grow accustomed to “cutting to the chase” and forcing obedience whenever they feel thwarted. This short-circuits the development of curiosity, empathy, and wisdom. In time, the dominator class becomes emotionally brittle, reactive, and dependent on escalating levels of force to maintain control. The more force they use, the less capable they become of governing collaboratively or creatively.
The Psychological Toll on Submissives
On the other side of the hierarchy, those conditioned into submissive roles are taught early on to silence their own intelligence and instincts.Asking questions risks punishment.
.
- Offering alternative solutions is labeled insubordinate.
- Expressing discomfort is called emotional resistance.
- Noticing flaws in the plan is considered defiant.
- Attempting excellence might be punished if it deviates from orders.
So instead, people “go along to get along,” even when they fear something is likely to fail or backfire. This creates a culture where the people closest to the work—the ones with the most lived knowledge—feel afraid to speak up. Mistakes multiply not because people are incompetent, but because they are silenced. And because dominators never listened in the first place, they certainly don’t listen when things go wrong. They reach instead for the nearest scapegoat, punishing the very people their system has forced into silence.
The Systemic Breakdown: When Fear Replaces Learning
A hierarchy built on fear cannot adapt. It cannot innovate. It cannot respond intelligently to changing conditions. Instead, its behavior becomes predictable, albeit chaotic:
.
- Scapegoating replaces investigation.
- Punishment replaces accountability.
- Gaslighting replaces transparency.
- Fear replaces communication.
- Violence replaces leadership.
This describes how systems become brittle, and how institutions lose their capacity for self-correction. And it explains how societies slip into collapse even while the people inside them continue insisting everything is perfectly fine. When a culture demands submission, it also destroys novelty—the lifeblood of adaptation. A system that cannot adapt, cannot survive.
The Most Dangerous Phase: When Violence Becomes the Only Tool
At the late stage of a force-based hierarchy, something predictable—and deadly—happens: The leaders lose the ability to maintain order through relational skill, persuasion, competence, or wisdom. What remains is force. And once force becomes a leader’s only governing strategy, they begin:
.
- Exaggerating threats
- Manufacturing enemies
- Criminalizing dissent
- Dehumanizing opponents
- Normalizing state violence
- Punishing truth-tellers
- Rewarding cruelty
- Demanding public displays of loyalty
This is not political or social ideology . Rather, it marks the collapse of systemic, adaptive capacity. Leaders who rely solely on coercion cannot govern a complex society; they can only terrorize it. And in doing so, they destroy the creativity, resilience, and cooperative responsiveness of the very people they rely upon to keep the system functioning. A dominator who drives the entire system into survival mode destroys the very future that they themselves depend upon to survive.
The U.S. Is Now Exhibiting Late-Stage Dominator Dynamics
We Americans are now witnessing, in real time, the consequences of decades spent training our political and economic systems around the logic and value of force-based domination:
.
- Rising cruelty
- Normalization of dehumanization
- Escalating threats of violence
- Leaders who cannot tolerate dissent
- Public institutions punished for truth-telling
- Scapegoating replacing problem-solving
- Fear replacing civic trust
This is not about left or right. It is about a system whose primary mechanism of control—fear—has corroded its own capacity to govern itself at all. Once a hierarchy decays to this point, the people who rise to the top are not the wise, the capable, or the most trustworthy. They are those most willing to wield violence and demand unchallenged obedience, now described as “loyalty.” And the rest of society, conditioned to avoid punishment, goes silent until the entire system collapses under its own brittleness.
Why This Matters Now
Force-based systems always fail for the same reasons:
.
- They destroy the creativity and adaptive intelligence of the people inside them.
- They suppress dissent, which contains the seeds of innovation.
- They silence wisdom, which contains the seeds of adaptation.
- They punish novelty, which contains the seeds of survival.
- And once a society becomes incapable of learning, it becomes incapable of self-reflection and self-healing.
- That is where the United States now stands.
The good news? Human beings are not problems to be forced into compliance.We are actually powerfully relational, deeply feeling, beautifully creative, fluidly adaptive beings—but only when fear of suffering is not what is driving the system.
If we truly want to rebuild a functional modern democracy, we must first nurture the conditions that allow human intelligence to emerge and flourish into wisdom, and that invite communal love and broad-based compassion to guide our shared experience.
This is the fertile soil in which a healthier future can begin to take root—not dominance, not submission—but the collective courage and heartfelt willingness to relate, listen, imagine, and to co-create again.
And I am free.
— Eileen Workman
Author of Raindrops of Love For a Thirsty World
and Sacred Economics (The Currency of Life)
.
by 
Dear Friends,
