If you're going to argue in bad faith, is there any point to this discussion?
I am not arguing in good faith. You are making it more of an issue than is justified. That link was one of several but you choose to make it everything as I am using that alone and because I am defending this its bad faith.
I explained why I linked it and its relevance which is a fact. We often use animals especially primates for understanding human behaviour at the base level to show how much of our behaviour stems from primates. That is exactly why I linked that particular article to show that even animals form hierarchies in various ways and is not entirely a social construction.
I'm sorry, but this doesn't match what I've been reading. When humans use strength and power to establish hierarchies - with the strong controlling the weak - our behaviours are just as inappropriate as what we might see in other primates. One of the links I gave you gave examples; bullying, authoritarianism, violence, and so on.
Your not seeing the forest through the trees. Why are males more often those who abusively dominate and violently control. Because evolutionary like primates they are stronger and more powerful. So they will generally dominate all aspects of society that involve power and strength ie they dominate the building industry, mining, oil rigging, military, police ect.
But they also dominate crime, assault and violence, DV, gang violence, terrorism, prision. But its the same natural evolution that makes males stronger and more powerful but for humans because we are also capable of evil this natural instinct becomes distorted and misplaced into being used abusively.
Ah yes, if I had a dollar for every man who's argued for power and control over women because it's their role to "protect" us... I'd have enough money to buy my very own bear.
Who said anything about males using power and strength to abuse women in the name of protecting them. THis is another good example of how you conflate things towards identity politics rather than having a balanced view of things. Like the word 'control' being conflated into being only abusive, the word protection being conflated automatically into abuse or like the word mascullinity being conflated into only abusive. Its a lop side way to see the world where everyone is either a perpetrator or victim.
My point was that because of this natural evolution that males are bigger, stronger and more powerful that they will end up in positions of power and strength naturall, nothing to do with abuse. We see this in how they dominate construction industry and other heavy labor and strength based areas like sports and mining ect. But they also dominate the military and law enforcement which happen to be a big part of protecting society and our way of life.
Its this same natural instinct that gets distorted and instead of males being nobel and good protectors they become vicious and absuive, controlling and dominate. But the power and strength they naturally have is not itself a toxic or abusive thing.
That is a prestige hierarchy. A hierarchy which ranks people on particular traits is a prestige hierarchy. A hierarchy which involves dimensions of control is a dominance hierarchy.
And how do people get to the upper levels of a hierarchy but not by the status value and ranking they give people. They certainly would not elevate them based on traits of abusive dominance. Human relations are more dynamical and prestige and dominance are entangled.
What can be valued as prestige can become dominance, is the gateway to dominating because we are valuing human behaviour and how relationships are structured. So naturally any status and rank we give to these traits can become the same traits that are used to dominate others.
We are discussing abusive hierarchies. Non-abusive hierarchies are not relevant to this thread. At this point, I'd consider it progress if you would even acknowledge that control is a problem, rather than arguing for it all the time.
I have always been saying control can be a problem by the fact that I argue that control can be used for good and bad. I already have acknowledge this many times. You just don't recognise it because your completely consumed withj everything about control being abuse. In fact I see it as if I did not add balance and factual reality to the discussion I would be helping to cultivate and unreal ideology that is damaging in itself.
When discussing abusive hierarchies non abusive examples will and should naturally come up to understand how hierarchies work and what is actually abusive or not. As we have seen its contextual and demands unpacking otherwise we will misinterpret, misdiagnose, misunderstand and cause more harm.
No, I am not appealing to the same determinants. I am pointing out the problems with an ideology of hierarchy, power and control. I am not referring to cognitive and emotional distress at all.
The question is why notwhen its so central. But I though you appealed tothese determinants when you linked this
"Feelings of guilt, fear, and stress can be used as markers of a harmful disparity.". So emotions like fear and guilt and factors like stress are markers for the disparity within abusive hierarchies. That seems pretty straight forward that emotions and stress which also leads to distress are determinants of abuse.
A dominance hierarchy is one in which people higher up in the hierarchy control those lower down. That is very different to, say, one group dominating a particular field of work, or whatever, because that is not about control. It's a different sense of the word "dominance."
So why then are preventative measures aimed at reducing abuse and the dominance of say males in certain sectors while increasing women. Or reducing the dominance of whites and increasing minority representation.
I'm not at all convinced that's an accurate depiction of the history of either the workforce or the bedroom, but since it's basically off topic, I'm not going to pursue it.
Its not really off topic. We have to understand the natural and evolving differences and how people and society ended up in the situations they did as part of determining what is actually abusive behaviour.
Otherwise you mistakenly attribute abuse to what may be natural and healthy. You have already made this mistake which shows the need for unpacking what is actually happening and looking at the evidence rather than relying on subjective opinion.
I am saying any control of one person by another, beyond a necessary minimum to prevent harm, is a problem and at least highly likely to be abusive.
I agree but the point is determining what control is abusive or not and not assuming that all control is unnecessary. You have already conflated non abusive control as abusive so we need to clarify this and not assume.
Note, again, we are not talking about things like social structures of a democracy. We are talking about one person coercing or limiting the other.
But I though the whole point of prevention as you have said yourself is that its not just preventing individuals abusively controlling others in those specific situations but addressing the societal attitudes and beliefs that underpin abuse. That lay the platform and cultivate situations where abuse is allowed to happen.
In that sense social structures are all part of what cultivates abuse and create the situations to abuse and for abuse and violence to thrive.
So what? All sorts of harmful things can form "naturally."
No they don't. Our sex drive is natural and not harmful. But people rape and are sexually violent. Our drive to need food, susutigen can become gluttoness and our instinct to percieve threat for survival can become distorted percieving unreal threats and provoking abusive and violence behaviour. These abusive and controlling behaviours stem from our natural instincts which are expressed in negative ways.
Since we choose our social structures, we can reform the harmful ones.
Yes that is exactly right. These social structures can be positive or negative and we can come to understand when they underpin abuse and can become abusive and harmful. So just like all things there is a good and evil side and humans can be abusive or non abusive in the same situation.
The key is being able to identify clearly when its abusive especially upstream as this may seem ok to people but we have to look at what basis these beliefs are formed on to expose their unreality and potential to lead to abuse. We can only do that by understanding how and why humans abuse. What cultivates that in society.
(But for someone not advocating for dominance hierarchies, you sure seem to be very invested in, well, advocating for them).
Don't mistake discussion about clarifying what exactly is abusive dominance and control from non abusive situations. You once again conflating, crating Red Herrings and Strawmen to knock down.
I have been clear on this seperating what is abuse and what is not, well trying to. But you seem to keep turning everything back to abuse only as though its all abusive and there is no non abusive examples and behaviour to find. Thats an imbalance and dangerous view as it risks misinterpreting reality and denying who we are.
You just said, "I agree that concepts like dominance when it comes to human relationships should be discouraged." And this was your reply, when I asked on what grounds you would discourage it.
Thats because your worldview is biased towards all dominance and control being abusive. So when someone states the facts that dominance and control is not always abusive you interpret that as saying dominance and abusive control is ok. This is a common misunderstanding due to simplfying the world into abusers and victims. Seeing all differences as abuse and oppression. You have expressed this in many ways as I have pointed out.
So which is it? Should dominance (control of one person by another) be discouraged, or should we allow it because to refuse to do so would be to do deny the dominant person their natural abilities and creativity?
It depends on the context. I thought we already established this. You are creating an either/or fallacy that dominance is either always bad and nothing else rather than both bad and good depending on context.
We can determine abusive dominance when one person is dominating and abusively controlling another for no justified reason within the context. OPerhaps an example is needed.
Take pronouns and other behaviour that is being legislated into policy and law. A persons language and behaviour is controlled by someone else. They may have the right to disgree but will face sanctions and even dismissal. So its a forced control over another by a minority. This is seen as good policy to help stop abuse.
This example happens in many situations where one group and even on individual levels is dominating another and controlling their space, controlling what they can say and how to behave. Sure they can disagree but they face social condemnation, shaming, and suffer poor wellbeing and financial damage.
You seem pretty confused about the difference in the above exchange.
No am very clear. You just cannot grasp it because you ideological outlook limits what you can see in the reality of how people interact and how society operates.
I think @timothyu hits the nail on the head with this: "The world assumes we should accept oppression as its governance. God says the opposite." Oppression is another word for that dynamic of dominance, power, control, and so on.
I tend to agree. This relates to what I was saying that society thinks they are free but we are actually slaves to the system. We are more oppressed in different ways than we think. That most people follow an ideology that actually makes them sick mentally and physically is testament to this.
God does say the opposite. But He also has a standard of behaviour that needs to be controlled otherwise they will be punished. That is true not just of the afterlife but today. We are not free to do whatever we want and its unreal to think we arenot subject to controls in life.
If we are talking about GOds ideal which is HIs Kingdom on earth then much of modern society is the "opposite of God" and therefore is contributing to the cultivation of a society that will be divisive and destructive. Creating a worldly and secular ideology about how we should order society rather than one in which God is central in our relationships. The more we buy into that ideology the more we cultivate violence and abuse.
In fact modern society rejects God, rejects the idea of self sacrifice and putting others first. If we really want to talk about preventative measures then don't you think something like Gods Kingdowm on earth is the ideal setup. Not actually dispising and rejecting God and His order for humankind. 
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