Dominant groups control subordinates through conditional affection, not hatred

Evidence

Sustenance of the dominant group’s privileged standing in an unequal social relationship depends critically on the continued presence of subordinates and their compliance with the institutionalized transfer of resources to dominants. Recalcitrant subordinates who must have resources dragged from them through clenched fingers are more costly to control and must be guarded more vigilantly. Subordinates, for their part, are cognizant of their weaker resource base and their subsequent vulnerability. In a world in which uncertainty hovers menacingly, these realities make compliance less risky than resistance, but at the same time subordinates bear the everyday costs of compliance in their foreshortened opportunities and quality of life. The task for dominants is to tip these delicately posed alternatives in the direction of ready compliance. In this context, incendiary hostility is counterproductive. Dominants prefer to befriend, love, or reason with the subordinates on whose cooperation they depend. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 668

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the paternalistic/exploitative side of prejudice that contradicts a simple ‘hate’ model, echoing the reading goal about decorum toward subordinates versus practical logic. — connects to: Control society operates through familial emotional bondage — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 686
• CANDY: Counterintuitive and tweetable: dominants prefer to love or reason with the subordinates they exploit, because open hostility is bad for extraction.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 668