Dominance and Submission pt. 2: Reinforcements Arrive
- Wait, it's all about satisfying the dom? - Always has been
The Dominance and Submission series:
Part 2: Reinforcements Arrive
In the first part, we discussed how all high-functioning social relationships are based on dominance and submission and we reviewed examples of high-functioning dominance/submission relationships and low-functioning non-dominance/submission (egalitarian and cross-dominance) relationships.
Dominance and Submission pt. 1: High-Functioning Relationships
All high-functioning social relationships are based on dominance and submission.
Now, we will look more closely at low-functioning dominance/submission relationships, how they differ from both high-functioning dominance/submission relationships and low-functioning egalitarian relationships, and how to build and maintain dominance/submission relationships which are both high-functioning and sustainable.
Failure modes
As a (former) mechanical engineer, I can say that dominance/submission and egalitarian relationships have different failure modes.
Egalitarian relationships are like metal. A typical failure mode of metal parts is fatigue.
A metal part can endure many cycles of stress before anything happens. Then, a small crack appears in the highest stress location.
The crack grows with each stress cycle: it reduces the cross-section of the material in the high-stress location which increases the average stress, and the sharp edges of the crack concentrate the stress even more. Eventually, once the crack grows big enough, the part ruptures.
However, if you inspect the part regularly, you may notice the crack before the part fails. You can stop the crack propagation by simply not applying the load. Then, you can prevent the failure by fixing the crack by welding, or replacing the part altogether.
In egalitarian relationships, their inherent low-functioning nature is the source of stress and fatigue. Over time, people became stressed and tired: work is not being done, free-riders are slacking, progress is stalled, time is wasted on negotiation, consensus seeking and arguing. The purpose of the relationship is not being achieved.
Yet, at this point one can notice the cracks forming up on the surface, and if they’re up for it, bring it up: “This is not working. What do we do about it?”. Note how a person doing this is temporarily stepping into a leadership role, which brings an element of dominance/submission into the otherwise egalitarian relationship. This is what allows people to inspect their relationship and patch things up - possibly, by shifting into a more high-functioning dominance/submission relationship.
But if no one dares to speak up, the relationship remains strictly egalitarian, the fatigue cracks continue to grow all the way until the breakup.
On the other hand, dominance/submission relationships are like glass. And the failure mode of glass is brittle fracture.
Glass is very rigid, and can handle much stress without any visible deformation. But when the stress passes the threshold, the whole thing shatters in a split second.
One way this plays out is shown in the story that went on to become the most famous modern depiction of sexual dominance & submission - Fifty Shades Of Grey. In the first part of the story, Ana asks Christian to punish her to find out if she can handle an unrestrained BDSM sexual experience - it turns out that she can’t, and she breaks up with Christian.
This is something that might happen even in honest dominance/submission relationships, whenever the boundaries aren’t clear (to be fair, they never really are, which is why the BDSM community invented safewords).
But a far more common type of brittleness of a dominance/submission relationship is when the premise of the relationship is bullshit.
The sub enters the relationship believing that the dom is somehow rewarding them for their submission - or at least, that they will be rewarded someday. But at some point, the sub experiences an “Aha!” moment. A red pill moment. The scales fall from the sub’s eyes and they suddenly see their dominance/submission as it really is: a game rigged against them.
Everything that the dom told them was a lie. It was never about the sub, or about anything inherently valuable or virtuous - it was always about satisfying the narcissistic urges of the dom.
As we’ve just brought up Fifty Shades, you are now probably trying to imagine the above as some horrible, abusive sexual relationship. But the same exact thing happens in any other non-sexual dominance/submission relationship:
An employee realizes that the promotion and pay rise their boss has always promised them if they grind hard enough all year is never gonna happen.
A teenager learns that the Growing Kids God’s Way protocol their parents followed was severe parental abuse.
A communist sees that what their communist party is actually doing is “not real communism”.
Soldiers in the trenches realize that they’re nothing but cannon fodder.
What follows after a brittle fracture of a dominance/submission relationship depends on whether the sub is independent enough to terminate the relationship and carry on on their own. If they can, the relationship simply ends, like a couple breaking up.
But if they can’t, their only option is to seek support - from another dom (an employee finding another job before leaving their toxic workplace, a BPD girl branch swinging between relationships with abusive Dark Triad men), other subs or institutions and the broader society. 1
But what about cross-dominance relationships2 - the category that includes most modern heterosexual relationships?
They’re low-functioning, which means that they’re prone to fatigue: “I’m tired of arguing, we are wasting so much time and we can’t get anything done!”
But they’re also based on dominance and submission, which means that they’re also brittle: “You cheated on me - we are done!” or “I’ve just realized our relationship was bullshit: all you ever cared about was yourself!”.
Dominance/submission relationships are high-functioning, but brittle. Egalitarian relationships are low-functioning, but sustainable. And cross-dominance relationships are both low-functioning and brittle.
Typically, we want relationships that are both high-functioning and sustainable. For this, we can try to incorporate features of different types of relationships, and consider tradeoffs between high-functioning and sustainability.
A brief history of dominance
The story of how our entire social system evolved over the years is full of great examples of above.
The first humans were similar to other great apes, with full on chimp warfare and the dominance of alpha males who fathered large percentages of the population.
The purpose of these early communities was maximizing the chances of survival and reproduction. With that in mind, the “winner takes it all” reproductive system where the alpha male fathers most children in his group is high-functioning - the best fighter is also the best hunter/gatherer, as both are tests of physical fitness.
The problem with this system was that it was not sustainable. Humans differ from animals in that they can think, innovate but also cooperate. According to the self-domestication hypothesis, other males eventually figured out that they can defeat the the dominant, aggressive alpha male if they gang up on him.
This led to hundreds of thousands of years of egalitarian hunter-gatherer culture. And from that moment, monogamy has become a prevailing mating pattern across all human cultures.
From the reproductive fitness perspective, the new system where most males could produce offspring was sub-optimal (low-functioning). But it was more sustainable - and this is why it prevailed.
Relatedly, the new system was optimized for quantity over quality. More fathers → Less children per father → More paternal investment per child → More children3. Human population growth led to splitting of tribes that have grown past the Dunbar number of 150. Eventually, a high concentration of hostile, warring tribes on a limited hunting/gathering area turned out to be unsustainable.
Before, the biggest threat for a male was being killed by his tribe’s alpha male. Now, it was being killed by a warrior from another tribe.
The solution was to pivot back to dominance/submission. Allowing a military leader to emerge and lead the charge resulted in more effective warfare - squads lead by commanders easily defeated more egalitarian groups of tribal fighters. A solution where the leader was granted high status, but unlike the alpha male, was not allowed to hoard all females and resources proved to be both high-functioning and sustainable.
The next step was the emergence of multi-level dominance hierarchies. This allowed accomplished warlords to effectively control large swathes of land and populations. The age of ancient kingdoms and empires began.
The Roman Empire was the peak high-functioning society based on dominance/submission, ruling over many conquered nations across Europe, Asia and Africa and the social & economical system based on slavery.
But as it turned out, even such high-functioning system was unsustainable. The subs - slaves and conquered nations - have had enough of the Roman rule. The Empire was strong and robust enough to prevent a brittle fracture - a revolution. But around 30 AD, a new social paradigm emerged:
“So the last shall be first, and the first last”
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth”
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
What followed was a slow, 400-year process of adopting Christianity which made the Empire even less brittle, but also more and more low-functioning. Eventually, the fatigue made it impossible to resist the barbaric hordes, which led to the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire.
At its peak, the peasants of the Roman Empire were protected by its institutions. But with the progress of its military and institutional decline, it could only provide protection and support for the major landowners. The peasants had no choice but to voluntary submit to the landowners - otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to fend off the raiding bands of outlaws on their own. This was the colonate - a new dominance/submission system that emerged as a response to the low-functioning late-stage Roman Empire.
All of this eventually led to the medieval social system, that turned out both high-functioning (at the time) and very sustainable (lasted 1000 years), based on both Roman Empire’s dominance/submission (the monarchy and feudalism, based on the colonate) and egalitarianism (Christianity).
The medieval times ended when the new progressive elites - artists, scientists, atheist philosophers (sounds familiar?) - became frustrated with how the medieval system stalled progress. The Renaissance humanism called bullshit on the medieval system pointing out that the egalitarian facade of Christianity - preaching that all people are equal in death and before God - is not enough, and when it comes to actual life on Earth, the medieval system is brutal and abusive - it’s all about pleasing the kings and feudal lords. The new progressive elites decided it’s time to crank up on egalitarianism.
Humanism paved the way for the discoveries and innovation that ultimately led to the industrial evolution. A new caste of industrial tycoons slowly displaced the dated aristocracy. Monarchies all over the Western world were superseded by democracy.
And after the hiccups of failed ideas like communism and fascism, we arrived at the state-of-the-art Western social system I dubbed the Western Egalitarianism:
History shows that the high-functioning and sustainable systems were based on dominance/submission, but were also infused with elements of egalitarianism. But neither of them could last forever: environmental changes, population growth, Black Swan events and technological & cultural innovation can render any previously .previously high-functioning systems low-functioning. Given the high inertia of social systems, the most common result is fatigue, cracking and collapse, rather than pivot and adaptation.
Reinforcements arrive
There are various methods to make dominance/submission relationships more durable.
Legal & social constraints
In dominance/submission relationships critical for the society, such as the military, marriage, traditional marriage and parenting, legal and social constraints were historically introduced to reinforce the fragile relationship and hold it together even in case of complete fracture.
These constraints can be applied at all stages of the relationship:
Formation - Sometimes the formation of critical dominance/submission relationship was forced, like conscription or forced marriage.
Submission - Legal & social constraints were applied to maintain the dominance/submission in relationships. A sub who refused to follow their dom was punished or considered low status by the society. To a degree, submission and conformity are still seen as virtues, especially in East Asian cultures.
Breakup - Legal & social constraints also prevented subs from leaving their relationship - desertion punished by death, no divorce in traditional marriage, children unable to leave their parents unless they’re victims of several parental abuse.
Existential threat
A narrative warning about an existential threat can be used to coerce a sub into obeying the dom: the sub(s) are in great danger, but they can save themselves if only they follow the dom.
One example of that is war propaganda:
Another common type is everything in the religion spectrum, from major religions to cults. All of them are based on an existential threat: if you don’t follow the teachings of the priest or the cult leader, you will be damned, if you do, you will be saved.
Ideally, the existential threat narrative should be true. But it can also be bullshit, if it’s credible enough - the less credible it is, the more fragile the relationship becomes. 4
Some religious existential threat narratives are built such that you can only find if it’s bullshit when you die - but then, it’s too late to file a complaint if it is. This is basically a Schroedinger’s Cat situation, except that YOU are the cat.
Egalitarian bullshit
Western Egalitarianism, our modern social system is both high-functioning and sustainable. This was achieved by creating a dominance/submission-based core which defines how everything works, and a bullshit outer layer of egalitarianism that allows everyone (except those brave - or stupid - enough to take the red pill) to believe that the world is fair and just and thus maintain emotional and social well-being.
This concept can also be deployed on a smaller scale in social relationships where a couple or group believes that they’re “equal partners” but the reality is that someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes. Sometimes it’s even possible to make the sub believe that they are the dom and the dominance/submission relationship is reversed, like in the “man is the head but woman is the neck” dynamic.
Agency bullshit
A variation of above. Here, the the bullshit layer is the illusion of agency. The dom provides the sub(s) with a choice: they can vote for a party or a presidential candidate, choose an activity, a meal or a sex act. The sub can choose what they want - from a selection of options carefully selected and presented by the dom.
But the reality is that the subs have to vote for current members of the political establishment (and the total replacement of the establishment is impossible), choose from a menu of dom’s favorite restaurant or select a tool the dom will use to spank them in bed.
Feedback loop
A non-bullshit solution where a dom collects feedback from the sub(s) and actively incorporates it in his decisions to make sure their sub(s) believe that the dom is acting in their best interest. The feedback is collected via ongoing communication or rituals like marriage councils, corporate feedback reviews and sprint retrospectives in agile management.
Fake feedback loop
A bullshit variation of above - the dom collects feedback from the sub(s) and then just ignores it. This includes things like advisory (non-binding) referendums and corporate employee surveys. The fake feedback loop can also be considered a type of Agency Bullshit.
The wise dom
Here, the dom uses their wisdom to provide their sub(s) with what they really need. This is different from the feedback method, since what the sub(s) actually need might be different from what they want - in some (if not most) dominance/submission relationships the dom is wiser than the sub and knows better.
A benevolent king. A wise kung-fu master. A good father. A great boss. All of these archetypes are examples of wise doms.
The wise dom approach includes both maintaining credibility with a track record of good decisions, and building a narrative that confirms that following the dom is the best option for the sub(s), especially compared to leaving the relationship or following other doms instead. This narrative may, or may not be bullshit, but like with other methods, the relationship will be more fragile if it is.
The healthiest and most sustainable reinforcement methods are those not based on bullshit: the wise dom, feedback loops and existential threat narratives whenever a real existential threat exists.
In the next part, I will share my thoughts on dominance/submission as a skill and being a powerful dom.
In some cases, the support from other subs, institutions and the broader society gains cultural momentum, rapidly spirals out of control and turns into something powerful enough to take down a particular dom, a group or social class of doms or an institution they represent.
This plays out either in a violent or non-violent way.
The violent way is basically riots in the streets, like the Floyd Summer, or an actual revolution like the French Revolution. The non-violent way is a new powerful cultural movement that shakes the foundation of the society: an “abolition of <dominance>” movement, a “<subs’> rights movement” or a next wave of feminism.
Either way, a brittle fracture of a dominance/submission relationship can unleash a cascade of events with tremendous consequences, up to and including the falling of empires, like the Roman Empire and the Soviet Union.
In the previous part, we defined “cross-dominance” as relationships where a dominance/submission dynamic is ambiguous or both parties dominate the other, but in different circumstances or dimensions.
It’s not like at this point the egalitarian monogamous fathers were more eager to help with childcare. But they were more eager to provide resources for their own children, as opposed to supporting the children of the alpha male in the previous system.
Another difference between cults and major religions is that a major religion typically demands less (attend a weekly service and donate small amounts of money) than the cult (leave your life behind to live at the cult’s communal house, sever your ties with the rest of the society, or even have weird sex with the cult leader).
When the demands are excessive, it’s more likely for the sub(s) to eventually realize that the existential threat narrative the cult is pushing is bullshit.
Also, Rome collapsed because the Imperium always had an expiration date. You’re just regurgitating Gibbon’s long-disproven theory that feminized Christianity killed the empire.
Pre-empire republic-era elites couldn’t tolerate land reform — which has since been proven in the modern era to have significant economic impacts on development success — and thus kicked off a retaliation spiral ending in the Imperium.
The empire in turn became an iterated zero-sum power struggle over a throne that increasingly dominated the entire economy. This inward turn meant that right as the empire reached its maximum technologically-possible geographic extent, it also turned inward and became fatally xenophobic.
Previous eras of Roman leadership had always recognized the usefulness of subjugating supplicant peoples into Auxilia that could supplement the military and were much more effective on the outer reaches than Roman troops could be. Although Roman attitudes of racial superiority can of course be called xenophobic, the system of Auxilia was ultimately integrative and thus xenophilic in outcome.
Late-Imperial xenophobic Roman elites forgot the lessons of the past and refused an auxiliary deal with the Goths as they fled the Huns, boneheadedly turning potential allies into an internal insurgency. This basically signed Rome’s death warrant.
Your ideas on efficiency in relationships reminds me of this theory on the biological foundations of certain social attitudes. It holds that in bad times, a dominant conservative mindset is best as it advances order and efficiency for survival. During times of affluence, a liberal less heavy handed approach can work despite its inefficiencies. Conservative because you have to, but liberal because you get to. Dominant and subordinate relationships seem to work for all scenarios for efficiency sake but it’s interesting to consider those where it really really matters. For acquaintances, it might be okay to have inefficiencies but for others you really need the format you describe. Here’s the first of the series of articles by “The Dosage Makes it So”: https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/biofoundationalism-i-moral-foundations