Friday, August 19, 2011

Deference Over Dominance

I hear words, a phrase, whatever and my brain goes into doing it's own thing.  The title words I heard Wednesday afternoon, as usual on CBC.  First let me give a dictionary description fo the words:

Deference..... A deffering or yeilding in judgment or opinion; polite respect

Dominance...... To control or rule by strength, to overlook from a superior height

I see a lot of attemped dominance around me.  This was especially evident when I worked.  It is very hard to escape in a working environment.  Government really likes dominance.  I see it in families, work places and organizations of any kind.

Quite often I will defer to another person, if only because I think that person knows more about the issue at hand.  Of course if I feel that I know more, have experienced more of what we are doing I would expect the other person to defer to me.  Dominance is usually about power, not always about common sense.  I wish people who wanted, demanded dominance understood that for every action there is a reaction. Then they might use that power more wisely.

The person on the radio who was discussing deference and dominance was a dog trainer.  Apparently dogs in a pack will always have a dominant or alpha leader, but the system that works well them is not dominance.
Dogs defer by nature to each other in a healthy way.  I quite often wish that people would pay more attention to their animal friends, there is much we could learn.

Morning Thoughts................

Friday, August 19th, 2011............9:48 a.m.

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