Subordinates inflict harm on their own group with benevolence to succeed within dominant rules

Evidence

Self-interested, rational subordinates are also routinely induced to act as the dominant group’s henchmen in carrying out malevolent actions against other members of their own group, or even to inflict physical injuries on themselves or their children – with benevolence, not malice – in order to be successful players by the rules of the game in which they have been ensnared by their relations with dominants. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 683

Categorization

• SEED: A strong essay angle: how rational self-interest under oppressive structures produces self-injury ‘with benevolence’ — the tragedy of compliance that is not coercion. Connects to maternal-infanticide and self-policing literatures.
• STORYSTEM: A fictional character who harms their own child while believing it is the only loving act available — the benevolent henchman as tragedy, could fuel a speculative or realist short story about colonial or stratified settings.
• BMF: This evokes the obedience-driven self/kin harm that runs through Zamyatin’s ‘We’ — D-503 policing his own transgression and accepting the punitive mothering of the Benefactor — via an oblique cross-domain jump from intergroup domination to totalitarian self-surveillance.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 683
• XREF: connects to: The dominated reenact past injustice upon themselves to make it bearable; Benevolence masks malice by approving people’s role as their own hangmen — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1112; Subordinate self-determination is read as a threat to dominant rule — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1504 (+2 more)