Intimidation Rituals: Reactions to Reform by Rory O’Day Essay
Intimidation Rituals: Reactions to Reform by Rory O’Day
The article discusses the reaction of the superiors who work in social systems to their subordinate’s reform initiatives by way of intimidation rituals which are used to discourage an employee from his or her intention. These intimidation rituals represent two major concerns of the superior:
to have control over reformer in order to prevent other members of the group to support the reformer’s ideas.
The superior want the reformer to be silent. He tries to do everything possible to make the reformer leave voluntary.
There are two phases of intimidation:
Indirect Intimidation which includes nullification and isolation. Nullification is when the superior assures his “reform-minded” subordinate that his suggestions are invalid by means of conducting an investigation. This superior’s investigation should convince the reformer of his groundless accusations. Isolation is when the superior separates his reformer from other members of the group in order to prevent changes in the group.
Direct Intimidation which includes defamation and expulsion. Defamation is when the superior impugns the reformer’s motives by means of distorting events and or fabricating instances. Expulsion is the official decision of the superior to dismiss the reformer.
Indirect Intimidation makes it possible to exhaust the reformer psychologically and physically. The superior’s main goal is to strike the reformer with awe or to impress on him that his ideas are wrong. Direct Intimidation has the main goal to crash the reformer’s protest by means of his character’s destruction and to prove the fact that he is “a bad person” in this good organization.
The term reformer stands for a person who wants to act and to change the structure of his organization. Of course, such people always pose a threat to the established order and rules in the organization, and the superiors do not want to change anything that is why they use different intimidation rituals to stop the reformer’s ideas.
