The myth of neutral starting positions
How domination systems create false neutrality
Walter Wink's groundbreaking analysis reveals that transformation models consistently assume they operate in neutral territory when they're actually embedded in what he calls the "Domination System"—a comprehensive spirituality of institutions characterized by the beliefs that might makes right, violence ensures peace, and hierarchical control equals natural order. "Any attempt to transform a social system without addressing both its spirituality and its outer forms is doomed to failure, Wink argues.
This false neutrality manifests in multiple ways:
Electoral politics assumes democratic institutions provide neutral ground for social change, obscuring how these systems were established through violence and maintain themselves through structural coercion. Campaign finance requirements, winner-take-all systems, and partisan primary structures ensure only system-compatible candidates can compete effectively.
Economic reforms treat markets as neutral mechanisms while ignoring their foundation in historical violence—colonialism, slavery, dispossession. Green capitalism and sustainable development initiatives assume extractive systems can be reformed rather than recognizing their inherently anti-life nature.
Educational transformation approaches schools as neutral knowledge-transmission sites rather than mechanisms of cultural domination that sort, rank, and indoctrinate students into competitive hierarchical thinking.
Inclusion programs operate within competitive, hierarchical structures that fundamentally require domination for their operation, focusing on representation metrics while leaving power structures intact.