September 17th 2026

Tools of domination

Tools of domination

Pressure

Pressure (n.): from Latin pressura, from premere, to press. The sense “moral or mental coercing force, exertion of authority or influence” arrives in the 1620s — the word migrates from the body to the will. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

When do we feel pressure? And from whom, or from what?

Some pressure carries information. A deadline, a failing system, a body that will not keep going. These pressures exist because something real is true. Other pressure carries only force. It is manufactured, applied and withdrawn according to someone’s interest.

Telling one from the other is an important discernment.

In August 2026, the NSW Supreme Court declined to use the IHRA definition of antisemitism, Justice Desmond Fagan finding it “so verbose and imprecise that it could not realistically be attributed to the ordinary, reasonably informed member of the Australian public”, and pointing to its “inept drafting”.

Ahpra, the Australian national health practitioner regulator, had reached a similar view. Internal documents show it resisted the definition through February and March, resolving not to adopt it “at this time”, noting it “may create further ambiguity” and might see practitioners’ legitimate political commentary misread. By June it had adopted the definition as a reference tool. Its chief executive told the board of “heightened external pressure on a range of public sector bodies, including regulators, to adopt the IHRA definition.”

Note the sequence. The regulator’s own analysis did not change. The pressure did.

So the questions are these. Where is the power? Who holds it, or is perceived to hold it? Is the pressure manufactured? Does it ask you to set aside a principle you would otherwise defend? And what are the precessional effects – the consequences thrown off at right angles to the intended action, arriving long after the decision is forgotten?

We capitulate most often not because we have been convinced, but because we do not like the feeling of being pressed.

Pressure, coercion, manipulation: worth examining all three. They are tools of domination. And their first target is not your position. It is your willingness to hold one.

Published September 17th 2026. Photo taken September 17th 2023

Precession https://syntropic.world/imagine-if-our-goals-are-not-the-point-the-principle-of-precession/​

Sources: ABC News on the Fagan judgment · Deepcut News, Daniel Hurst​