[This is the 16th in the series Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship.]

What People Want - Dignity

There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're half way there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow, Someday, Somewhere!
- Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story

What people really want in relationships is dignity, not domination. While it's not hard to understand why people who have suffered oppression might fantasize taking a turn at domination, to actually do so is to over-reach. Domination is not a reciprocal, symmetrical relationship. It's one of superior and inferior, and simply reversing the roles of sovereign and subject perpetuates indignity rather than ends it. Reversing the directionality of domination is not a long-term equilibrium solution to inequity, indignity, and injustice. Like other revenge-driven "peace" arrangements, it invariably unravels and the struggle for domination resumes.