Subordinates sometimes harm their own group out of rational self-interest, not malice.

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. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 683

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Echoes the structural-rationality theme in the Milgrom and bourse chapters — harm flows from gaming the rules, not from hostility.
• FICTION: The image of a subordinate with benevolence harming their own children to play by the dominant’s rules is a fertile character situation for fiction.
• STORYSTEM: A story about a trusted subordinate in a stratified society who must malevolently act against kin to survive the game — the benevolent-cruelty paradox as dramatic engine.

Related

• Rational subordinates enforce dominants’ violence on their own group (similarity 0.92)
• Subordinates inflict harm on their own group with benevolence to succeed within dominant rules (similarity 0.92)
• Subordinates themselves carry out much violence against their own group (similarity 0.80)