When Coercion Becomes Background Noise: The Invisibility of Power in a World Built on Control
To many people, coercion isn’t something imposed—it’s something inherent. It’s not an action they choose, but the default state of the world. It is so constant, so deeply woven into their existence, that they no longer register it as something separate from reality itself.
This is why, when confronted with the idea that they are coercing, pressuring, or threatening, their response is often confusion, denial, or even hostility. To them, coercion isn’t an exception to the norm—it is the norm. It is so omnipresent that it becomes the background music of their lives, always playing, always structuring the way they interact with others, the way they expect interactions to unfold, the way they understand relationships, power, and consent.
But just because they don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Coercion as the Default Mode of Interaction
For those raised in kyriarchal societies, power is not something that needs justification—it’s just how things work. The assumption that some people should hold more control over others is rarely questioned because it’s not framed as a decision but as a fact.
• Parents and children: Authority is assumed, disobedience is punished, compliance is demanded. "Because I said so" is considered an acceptable explanation.
• Employers and workers: Surveillance, control, and extraction of labor are normalized as "just how jobs work."
• Romantic and social relationships: Guilt, obligation, and manipulation are often mistaken for love, closeness, or care.
• Legal and institutional structures: Coercion is seen as necessary for order—without it, people are assumed to be incapable of making the "right" choices.
When coercion is this ever-present, it stops being recognized as coercion. Instead, it becomes the structure of reality itself.
The Invisibility of Coercion in Everyday Life
People who live in environments where control is constant learn not to question that control, but to navigate it. They develop strategies for avoiding punishment, pleasing authority, and securing survival—often without realizing they are responding to coercion at all.
Over time, they stop perceiving coercion as something being done to them and start perceiving it as the way life works. And once this shift happens, they also stop recognizing when they are coercing others.
• A parent doesn’t see "If you don’t obey, you’ll be punished" as a threat—it’s just "teaching respect."
• A boss doesn’t see "You can refuse this extra work, but it will affect your career" as coercion—it’s just "how the world works."
• A partner doesn’t see "If you really loved me, you’d do this" as manipulation—it’s just "expressing feelings."
• A person who says, "Be honest for once" doesn’t see it as a demand for submission—they see it as a call for truth, because to them, truth means agreeing with their version of reality.
This is why they react with shock or anger when someone challenges these dynamics. To them, rejecting coercion is not just a personal choice—it is a rejection of the natural order as they understand it.
Why They Fight to Keep the Music Playing
When someone who has always lived inside a coercive structure encounters a person who sees coercion for what it is, a rupture occurs. The person who questions coercion isn’t just questioning a single interaction—they are challenging the entire rhythm that others have been moving to without thinking.
This is deeply unsettling for them.
• If coercion is not natural, then their entire framework for navigating life is flawed.
• If coercion is not necessary, then they might have been complicit in things they now have to reckon with.
• If coercion is avoidable, then they have to confront how much of their own life has been shaped by it—not by their own choices, but by the pressure they didn’t realize was there.
Rather than face this, many people double down. They insist that coercion is just reality, just survival, just "how things are." They lash out at the person disrupting the rhythm.
"You’re overreacting."
"You’re making things difficult."
"You’re being selfish."
"You’re imagining things."
"You’re the one being controlling."
Because if they admitted that coercion is everywhere, they would have to confront what that means for their entire existence.
What Happens When You Hear the Silence
But for the person waking up, the music of coercion starts to sound different. What once felt inevitable becomes unbearable. What once seemed like "just life" is revealed to be something else entirely—something that was never necessary to begin with.
And once you hear the silence beneath the noise, once you realize that life does not have to be structured around control, there is no going back.
This is why people who see coercion are so often treated as threats. It’s not because they are wrong. It’s because they are right. It’s because they break the illusion that coercion is just background noise, and in doing so, they expose the fact that the world could be something else entirely.
Not something easier. Not something perfect.
But something real.
Something where people move not because they are forced, but because they choose to.
And that is a world many cannot even begin to imagine.
But that doesn’t make it impossible. It only makes it unseen. For now.
🫂
Note: This post was written with assistance from ChatGPT, an AI language model, to help organize and articulate the ideas shared here.
