The Art of Intimidation
The "Art of Intimidation" is one of the ancient principles among aggressive living things, and humans are no exception. Birds and beasts will use the implied threat of overwhelming assault as represented by being physically larger and/or making aggressive gestures, so as to take over better territory with its contained resources; and by implication of controlling greater resources, becomes more valuable appearing as a potential mate, resources being needed for raising of young. Being especially successful reproductively, the trait of intimidation is amplified down through generations.
There are limits to the level of intimidation, however. In a group setting it's effort uses up resources and can damage otherwise useful members, so it is more efficient in group settings to establish a hierarchy of intimidation instead of having continual internal battles to establish who gets the larger share of the cookie crumbles. A street bully who is establishing a gang, only needs to have a few fist-fights and knock-down drag-outs with one or two people, while others look on; hulk and flair and viciousness provide show amplifying resulting intimidation to onlookers. He does not need to have a nasty fight with each person in his gang being assembled and maintained; if so, through the occasional dings from those in the mutual assault, he would accumulate damage and eventually become too injured bit by bit to rule anything. So what actually is ruling the group is the threat of assault by the gang ruler, not actually that of being assaulted itself. Thus, the "art of intimidation" is what actually provides the ruling process.
Yet, all is not survival of the nastiest to breed.
Considering nurturing groups, like the individual family and groupings up to the nation and even the world of people, survival is often a matter of pulling together, not assaulting one another. In this setting, internal users of "the art of intimidation" are counter-productive to the survival and well being of the mutually nurturing group. Instead of influencing events through a hierarchy of intimidation, it becomes a hierarchy of ability to nurture, of thriving as a whole and individually provisioned in reasonable proportion to how much one helps the thriving.
Groups of people, from street gangs to corporations, seem to me to be composed of a mixture of these two hierarchical modes, the hierarchy of intimidation and the hierarchy of ability to nurture.
The ratio of the amount of the two, tells a lot about the nature of each group, what kinds of things to generally expect from them.
A grouping which has shown high thriving success through the nurturing of well-being of all of them, can also support a side warrior group that is there as an intimidation repelling external invasions by groupings who are in more of the intimidation hierarchy mode, perhaps even still hunter-gatherers. However, the thriving mutual nurturing group is still at risk of being taken over from the inside, using processes that seem to be normal balancing processes, but when it becomes apparent that the grouping is now ruled by intimidation's fearful atmosphere and guides their interactions, then it is quite difficult to return back to the hierarchy of nurturing well being that had brought on their thriving abundant success previously.
Rulership through intimidation is too easy and too plushly rewarded to completely let go of voluntarily, because any person, with a specific amount of effort, can destroy ten times as much stuff as he can build back up with the same amount of effort, thus tends to follow the easy path with greatest reward. Intimidation's threat of destruction is therefore much easier to do than fulfill the promise of reward of pulling together to achieve mutual benefits. Some folks will tend to take that easier path; so beware, watch for that indicator, the usage of the "art of intimidation." Both the individual and the grouping needs to beware the users of the art of intimidation, be watchful so as to maintain the hierarchy of nurturing mutual well being that brings on their thriving abundant success through their own creative labors, instead of through raiding the resources of others.
There are limits to the level of intimidation, however. In a group setting it's effort uses up resources and can damage otherwise useful members, so it is more efficient in group settings to establish a hierarchy of intimidation instead of having continual internal battles to establish who gets the larger share of the cookie crumbles. A street bully who is establishing a gang, only needs to have a few fist-fights and knock-down drag-outs with one or two people, while others look on; hulk and flair and viciousness provide show amplifying resulting intimidation to onlookers. He does not need to have a nasty fight with each person in his gang being assembled and maintained; if so, through the occasional dings from those in the mutual assault, he would accumulate damage and eventually become too injured bit by bit to rule anything. So what actually is ruling the group is the threat of assault by the gang ruler, not actually that of being assaulted itself. Thus, the "art of intimidation" is what actually provides the ruling process.
Yet, all is not survival of the nastiest to breed.
Considering nurturing groups, like the individual family and groupings up to the nation and even the world of people, survival is often a matter of pulling together, not assaulting one another. In this setting, internal users of "the art of intimidation" are counter-productive to the survival and well being of the mutually nurturing group. Instead of influencing events through a hierarchy of intimidation, it becomes a hierarchy of ability to nurture, of thriving as a whole and individually provisioned in reasonable proportion to how much one helps the thriving.
Groups of people, from street gangs to corporations, seem to me to be composed of a mixture of these two hierarchical modes, the hierarchy of intimidation and the hierarchy of ability to nurture.
The ratio of the amount of the two, tells a lot about the nature of each group, what kinds of things to generally expect from them.
A grouping which has shown high thriving success through the nurturing of well-being of all of them, can also support a side warrior group that is there as an intimidation repelling external invasions by groupings who are in more of the intimidation hierarchy mode, perhaps even still hunter-gatherers. However, the thriving mutual nurturing group is still at risk of being taken over from the inside, using processes that seem to be normal balancing processes, but when it becomes apparent that the grouping is now ruled by intimidation's fearful atmosphere and guides their interactions, then it is quite difficult to return back to the hierarchy of nurturing well being that had brought on their thriving abundant success previously.
Rulership through intimidation is too easy and too plushly rewarded to completely let go of voluntarily, because any person, with a specific amount of effort, can destroy ten times as much stuff as he can build back up with the same amount of effort, thus tends to follow the easy path with greatest reward. Intimidation's threat of destruction is therefore much easier to do than fulfill the promise of reward of pulling together to achieve mutual benefits. Some folks will tend to take that easier path; so beware, watch for that indicator, the usage of the "art of intimidation." Both the individual and the grouping needs to beware the users of the art of intimidation, be watchful so as to maintain the hierarchy of nurturing mutual well being that brings on their thriving abundant success through their own creative labors, instead of through raiding the resources of others.
posted by Unknown at
08:52
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