group-identification is a most rudimentary, primal power. It’s readily available and costs nothing, so is not confined to the rich and does not obey the laws of production and consumption. Anyone can use it at any time for any purpose they desire. Even babies.
and as a power so everywhere it is like water to a fish, it is eminently corruptible.
if you step back, you can see it at the root of every human conflict. Even those inside our own subjective selves, selves we tend to pummel to suit group norms, or pummel to escape them. Either way, we are engaged in group-identification power-dynamics: each of us doing the work of turning the Big Wheel of Civilization. Which is simply the codified output of our collective identifications, writ large on the stuff we say matters…
daily grist 