The desire to be dominant.

[weareunity]

Hello all.

What motivates the desire to be dominant?

Cheers. X

[Miss Hepburn]

1. Having no control as a child...when adults they are often saying
unconsciously, "By golly I'm gonna have control NOW!"
And can be secret or overt Obsessive Compulsives.
2. Lack of trust in others competence...usually from being around idiots previously.
3. Thinking of yourself as way more important, and usually smarter
..also from past experiences
4. Not wanting to waste time, you know, with some incompetent being in charge
5. Wanting to make sure your own comforts are not left in others' hands

But, hey, I'm only guessing.

[Bluto]

I believe two intrinsically linked principles govern all human behaviour: fear and desire.

Taking that logic, I believe the desire to dominate comes from the fear of being dominated.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by weareunity

Hello all. What motivates the desire to be dominant?

A deep insecurity, I would say.
I always have (had) troubles with people who are like this. It's why I tend to dislike groups, because there's always one or two people (and it seems they are always extroverts) who will take up the 'dominant' role, steal other people's ideas and points raised, and decide for ''the group'' and then individuals are neglected. Of course you do need leaders, but a proper leader, whilst being able to make difficult decisions, is socially aware and gives space to everyone. What I notice in people with dominant personalities is that often they don't really pause, reflect, introspect (hence more likely to be extroverted).

[weareunity]

Sometimes the desire to be dominant is motivated by the belief/feeling that dominance bestows importance, makes us of value, confirms our existence. Such method would likely tend to be that pursued--consciously or otherwise-- by those of us who, for reasons with origins in our personal back stories, have not had the opportunity to have been valued for simply being.

Sometimes the desire to be dominant is in order to be in a position to use that dominance as a means to redress a more particular personal grudge,--perhaps traumatic collapse of identity and previous power,--suffered somewhere in the back story. This form of motivation was imo evident in some of the humiliated "defeated" between WW1 and WW2 and is both understandable and also should have been given much more consideration by the "victorious"---but at that time it seems that wisdom was a quiet voice barely heard against the also understandable demands for reparation.

As a kind of aside, it is not clear that such wisdom finds itself heard even today---with the result that attempts to redress and properly heal the past are overwhelmed by grudge matches which are basically attempts to re run the past with the intent of this time achieving a different outcome---actually solving nothing apart from providing some kind of achievement of revenge. -- the need for which could have been avoided had wisdom been heeded. Imo.

Complex subject/s. Much more than meets the eye.

Cheers. X

[Miss Hepburn]

Yes! ALL good reasons!

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by weareunity

Hello all.

What motivates the desire to be dominant?

Cheers. X

People generally take up ‘control’ positions over others, to regain lost control as a child from others. For the child it’s often fear based parenting, -‘ do as I say’, hence leads to ‘’do as I do’ so unconsciously that kind of dominance plays out in all manner of ways depending upon how much external force has been placed on the child. It could be subtle or quite obvious..

My eldest brother tends to dominate the room. He is an extreme extrovert, but also I know as a child, he wasn’t heard as the first born and so consequently both that and early trauma from dominant abusive brothers in a college he was enrolled in, disturbed his abilities to not dominate for most of his life.

[HITESH SHAH]

Originally Posted by weareunity

Hello all.

What motivates the desire to be dominant?

Cheers. X

Name/fame/money/power/knowledge/missions in life etc .could be the reasons for the same.

[Goldcup7]

Imo the desire to dominate comes from the sense of being a separate self. It is the sense of self and other that give rise to clashing and competition. The extreme separate self sees itself as against the rest of the world. It is towards this extreme that the desire to dominate and control the world arises. That applies to controlling people close, controlling events, and controlling the masses, where possible. It is the action/symptom of the extreme ego.

The extreme ego, the extreme sense of being a separate sense, becomes the opposite of the true nature of being. It is the opposite of Oneness.