Self-endorsed ideologies substitute for physical coercion in hierarchy

Evidence

The real, corporal disciplines constituted the foundation of the formal, juridical liberties. The contract may have been regarded as the ideal foundation of law and political power; panopticism constituted the technique, universally widespread, of coercion. It continued to work in depth on the juridical structures of society, in order to make the effective mechanisms of power function in opposition to the formal framework that it had acquired. The ‘Enlightenment’, which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 346 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Freud gives an exhaustive account of the hierarchical element in irrational groups. ‘It is obvious that a soldier takes his superior, that is, really, the leader of the army, as his ideal, while he identifies himself with his equals, and derives from this community of their egos the obligations for giving mutual help and for sharing possessions which comradeship implies. But he becomes ridiculous if he tries to identify himself with the general’, to wit, consciously and directly. The fascists, down to the last small-time demagogue, continuously emphasize ritualistic ceremonies and hierarchical differentiations. The less hierarchy within the set-up of a highly rationalized and quantified industrial society is warranted, the more artificial hierarchies with no objective raison d’etre are built up and rigidly imposed by fascists for purely psycho-technical reasons. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 194 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Academic and freelance philosophers face opposite but equal forms of coercion — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 79; Internalized belief systems can shackle people more effectively than force — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1187; Ideological hegemony substitutes for physical coercion in stable hierarchies — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 3223 (+16 more)

Broader Connections

• Formal democratic liberties rest on an unseen foundation of physical coercion #complicates (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 346
• Artificial hierarchies compensate for the loss of real hierarchy in rationalized society #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 194
• Power operates through symbolic influence while coercion abandons symbolic generalization #complicates (0.75)