Dominant Players (The Masters/Entitled Elite/the Powers)
Definition: The central actors or institutions who wield power and set the terms in a dominator system. They occupy the top of the hierarchy – patriarchs, oligarchs, or “Founders” – and claim entitlement to resources, authority, and truth.
Dominant Players function like a Narcissistic Gravity Well, bending the social space around their ego so that all attention, decision-making, and value center on them.
This role is characterized by a sense of inherent rightness (e.g. “Founder’s Rights” or divine mandate) and a refusal to truly change. They benefit from and fiercely protect unjust arrangements (be it patrimony in capitalism or political privilege), framing their dominance as natural order or Meritocracy.
Characteristics:
Dominant Players exhibit dimensional myopia – seeing others only through a narcissitic lens of being either instruments or threats to their agenda.
They demand loyalty and coherence around their narrative, often creating a cult of personality or an ideology that others orbit unquestioningly.
Feedback that challenges them is neutralized through gaslighting or blame-shifting.
In effect, they sit at the center of a self-reinforcing loop: any conflict in the Master's House is resolved in their favor, and any success is credited to their leadership. This dynamic is self-validating, as the Master's House “proves” its necessity by only recognizing outcomes it defines as success.
Examples:
On a platform like Facebook, the executives and algorithms act as Dominant Players – extracting profit and setting rules – while portraying their dominance as innovative merit. They invoke “community standards” and metrics defined by themselves to justify control.
In venture capital, the partner elite (overwhelmingly homogeneous) occupies this role, expecting startups and token hires to conform to their paradigm. Their entitlement is seen in narratives of founder exceptionalism (meritocracy) and “unicorn” culture.
In bureaucracy, high-level administrators or political leaders ("Petty Bureaucrats") assume they are the system (“I am the state”), often believing their perspective is the only reality – a phenomenon Gregory Bateson would identify as a dangerous closed feedback loop (the system's worldview blocks any corrective input).
The Dominant Players rely on the other roles to absorb tension, enforce order, and Scapegoat as needed, thus maintaining their central position unchallenged.