68 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
68 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
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## **VI. Makerspace as Microcosm: Grassroots Authoritarianism in Action**
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🗎 **Filename**: `06_grassroots_authoritarianism.md`
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---
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When we think of authoritarianism, we imagine it descending from above—
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an iron fist, a charismatic tyrant, a top-down seizure of control.
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But what if the most insidious tyranny grows **from below**?
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What if it looks like helpful volunteers,
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procedural motions,
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and polite rule-followers who smile as they bury the soul of the commons?
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**Grassroots authoritarianism** is not a contradiction.
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It is a **pattern**—and Dallas Makerspace became its incubator.
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At its best, a makerspace is radical democracy.
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But democracy without vigilance becomes **ritual**,
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and ritual without soul becomes **coercion**.
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The illusion of participation masked a deep truth:
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power was no longer distributed.
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It was centralized in the **stewards of procedure**.
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Those who knew how to time agendas, enforce silence with "civility,"
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and redirect dissent into meaningless channels.
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Meetings became theater.
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Votes became pageantry.
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Bylaws became **barbed wire** around the castle walls.
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Members still believed they had a voice.
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After all, they could still speak.
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But the **frame** had already been set.
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The boundaries of permissible thought were drawn in advance,
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…not by open debate, but by unspoken consequence.
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And those who challenged that frame?
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They were met not with confrontation, but with **quiet punishment**:
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—muffled posts
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—dropped projects
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—vanished opportunities
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—and a growing sense of being “out of sync” with the culture they once helped build.
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This is not theoretical.
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It’s a **case study** in how democracy dies—not with a coup,
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…but with a committee.
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The tyrant is not always a monster at the top.
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Sometimes, it is the soft-spoken facilitator,
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the bylaw whisperer,
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the one who never raises their voice,
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…because they’ve already trained the community to whisper in theirs.
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Dallas Makerspace became a petri dish—
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not for invention,
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…but for **submission in the name of order**.
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And what grew there now reflects a larger truth:
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Authoritarianism does not need to seize power.
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It only needs **us to hand it over**,
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…one polite motion at a time.
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---
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