Unequal power relationship: Difference between revisions

An '''unequal power relationship''' is the basic component of a [[power structure]].  The person with superior power, either due to trust or to technology access or superior knowledge, does not necessarily have superior ethical judgement, just because they are trusted, technologically enabled, or better educated.  Very often, such a position is an open door to abuses, e.g. [[sysop vandalism]] or [[ad hominem delete]]s, to which the lesser powered have no recourse.  For instance the [[sysop power structure]]  

is based on unequal power relationships between sysops and their victims, whom they call [[trolls]].  Quite often, those on the victimized end of such an unequal power relationship claim and co-opt the label applied to them by their controllers, jailers, masters, owners, regulators, doctors or bosses.  For this reason, rap musicians may refer to each other as "nigger" and so-called trolls may refer to each other as, well, "trolls".  This is one way to reclaim the power of labels.

In some projects, language skills and ability to argue are necessarily unequal because of the projects' mission, e.g. a [[Simple English]] project which will necessarily involve more English-fluent writers and less fluent readers to some degree.  In these projects, overcoming unequal power relationships and allowing [[ethical relationship]]s to form requires some extra effort, for instance, the concept of a [[social network]] or [[power network]] or [[contact network]] and the difference between them, might have to be fully explained so that someone new to English can discuss a [[power structure]] and expect to be understood... these being the terms that the most fluent English users adopted for this use.  Without this "equalizing" effort, unequal power amplifies itself, and users are put in a "just trust me" position as power issues are resolved in language they can't unravel easily, and decisions are not justified with reference to any type of interpersonal network, and so each decision must be challenged alone, impossible if there are many such decisions, and challenging each carries some risk of exclusion and perhaps drawing the attention of some [[inquisitor]].  So for this and other reasons, [[Consumerium Governance Organization]] must make a special effort to ensure that its [[glossary]] is defined in [[Simple English]].