A Tyranny behind Closed Doors

What if my family was not a common family but a political system secretly set up by my parents? The evidence suggests it is in fact a very unstable tyranny.
Demands are abundant from my sisters and I, but there are rarely any outputs from my parents due to the active gatekeepers, namely time, and space for demands to be heard, which also prevent the members of the collectivity from giving feedback, thus averting support. The environment is hostile when support is needed but feedback is not processed by my parents. Power is understood as a rational-legal system, yet there is a traditional system behind it which is the wheels of the system. However, there have been transitions that have taken the political system through charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal authority. The latter being only a mask to hide the traditional form of authority that has always been in charge after the charismatic authority was dismissed. At the beginning, when the society was forming, pure charismatic authority made the system work. As a young child, I saw my parents as divine beings that I was to respect and obey. Their power to rule over me was legitimate and I could not see the system for what it was, an ever changing, display of favoritism, and politically traditionalist. Ever changing because until the present day the office holders act according to what is best for them without thinking about the collectivity when it comes to allocating scare resources such as cars, cellular phones, and freedom. They are helping the collectivity, however, when it comes to needed resources that are not so much scarce such as food, housing, and clothing. The system is also a private display of favoritism because the members of the collectivity, in particular the one that has been around for the longest time, realizes that some members are regarded as better than others in the office holders’ eyes even when this is not necessarily truth to the general public. Finally, the system is traditionalist due to the ways my parents were taught the system should work without knowing any better. There is also the fact that the members of the collectivity have allowed the office holders to do as they please for so many years.
Force, material and psychological rewards as well as legitimacy have all been used. The latter of which has disappear completely through time due to the aging process and intellectual growth of the collectivity. The system continues to utilize the other two as a mixed source of power. Force is used when the environment becomes highly hostile making the collectivity only a tool for achieving. In the past, the psychological rewards were prevalent since the collectivity was always looking for approval and affection from the office holders. However, as the collectivity has grown older, it focuses on receiving material rewards. For example, when showing grades to the office holders instead of looking for a smile and a hug as approval, a member of the collectivity seeks to acquire new shoes, clothes or simply money to be used at her pleasure.
If the members of the collectivity comply, the allocation of scarce resources benefits them. If, on the other hand, the members of the collectivity do not comply, the only beneficiaries are the office holders. Compliance has always being a problem due to instability. First, office holders took advantage of their position by using normative authority. When the collectivity was young there was legitimacy and normative compliance; it was reliable, stable and efficient. Later, the office holders employed a mixture of coercive and utilitarian compliance still in use today because it inclines the system to benefit both office holders and the collectivity, at different times. The members of the collectivity have an extensive use of free “riderism”; that is they manage to benefit without complying. However, the office holders lean towards using coercive compliance which is costly and only useful when the office holders or their enforcement officers are present. Alienation is also present since the members of the collectivity have detached themselves from the office holders though they remain attached through a powerful traditionalist bond and fear of being expelled from society.
The system will continue to be unstable and oppressive until the members of the collective are old enough to liberate themselves from the rule of the office holders.
Next time you see your family, make sure it is a representative government which is said to be ideal.


xoxo,
Poison Drops

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