How Cultural Marginalization Enforces Unfair Loyalty Contracts
In my third book, Embracing Therapeutic Complexity, I speak about the powerful grip that unfair loyalty contracts have on people throughout their life span. Unfair loyalty contracts manifest within family systems where certain members (generally parents) exercise unfair advantage over other members through neglect or abuse. However, unfair loyalty contracts also exert their influence in the form of larger societal norms – that is, the collectively agreed upon rules of societal engagement whose function is to preserve the status quo.
In general, loyalty contracts are generally poorly known, outside of awareness, or accepted as “this is just the way things are.” These automatic relational response patterns are internalized as a collective social construction that becomes a significant factor and driving force in a person’s life. Isabel Wilkerson (2020) refers to this collective social construction as a caste system. Caste systems, much like unfair loyalty contracts, are hierarchical in nature. She explains that they are not necessarily intentionally or consciously unfair. They are simply accepted as normal. Wilkerson states, “Caste is insidious and therefore powerful because it is not hatred, it is not necessarily personal. It is the worn grooves of comforting routines and unthinkable expectations, patterns of a social order that have been in place for so long that it looks like the natural order of things” (p. 70).
If we are to understand this from a systemic vantage point, unfair loyalty contracts allow the dominant societal group to use their power in such a way that other less valued members of society must assume a subordinated position, essentially serving the needs of the privileged group. Refusals to assume a subordinated position generally result in some form of recrimination, a threat to safety, and/or fear of physical harm.
Domination is at the heart of all unfair loyalty contracts. Those who have positional power, whether that be the parent, the boss, or persons of great wealth, are allowed access to opportunities that are in the service of maintaining privilege and control; they are not in the service of mutuality and support. Subordinated groups, designated as inferior by the dominant group, are prohibited from equal access/equal opportunity. People in subordinated positions, whether that be the child, the “fairer” sex, the person of color, of poverty, or any identity considered separate from those who hold positions of privilege are not to question the status quo, which means they are to assume a subordinate position indefinitely.
Whenever there is an absence of curiosity and/or self-reflection about belief systems that are rooted in unfairness, even brutality, there is a high likelihood that the unconscious power of these unresolved forces will eventually make themselves known through some form of enactment. When enough momentum builds to the point that a collective acknowledgment that unfair privilege exists, collective voices then gain strength enough to cry out for change. Perhaps, this is one way to understand the recent outcry from the “Me Too” Movement and Black Lives Matter. And as we have also witnessed, whenever subordinated voices demand an acknowledgment of unfairness and a change in social status, a retaliatory backlash from privileged groups will follow.
I guess that makes sense on some level. After all, if one were to acknowledge complicity in unfairness, feelings of guilt or shame would likely arise in the perpetrator. People generally try to resist this level of self-examination because it feels too uncomfortable. The resistance to self-examination can take many forms, such as denying the fact that marginalization exists, or minimizing the actual impact of maltreatment on the marginalized person – saying they deserved it, they’re exaggerating, or they aren’t as capable; that’s why they’re in the position they are in. And, if others in the same privileged group agree to ignore the reality of injustice, the status quo can be maintained.
No one wants to give up positional power. However, just as unhealthy family loyalty contracts reflect the micro-enactment of power and domination, the social construction of collective unhealthy loyalty contracts reflects the expression of power and domination on a macro-level. One reinforces the other. And thus, the internalization of privilege and marginalization continues in an unbroken cycle – where shame denied and shame internalized on both sides of the equation – wield an unconscious, habituated grip on the soul.
You can learn more about breaking free from unhealthy loyalty contracts by reading my newly released book, Embracing Therapeutic Complexity, (Routledge 2022)