the oppressive double-bind: demand for perfection

One of the ways authoritarians of all sorts manage to get control is through a particular double-bind that they are specialists in achieving.

1. They demand and expect perfection in every way.

2. They create exactly the sort of environment in which perfection is not facilitated but undermined.

This method was used against Rhodesian blacks. They had to be magically perfect, since every expression of life from them that was imperfect was taken as a sign that there was something inherently and irredeemably wrong with them. On the other hand, they were given none of the means by which they might express the levels of cultural and intellectual perfection that were demanded of them.

Caught in this contrived double-bind that demanded evidence of whiteness to advance, they were kept down. The evidence that they could not do perfection was used against them as evidence that they did not deserve to have the means by which they could achieve cultural and intellectual perfection. The increase in stress quotient, due to constantly failing to meet the mark set for them to show that they were deserving, would have made things even worse for them (but not for their colonial rulers).

Many use this same psychological justification against migrants, to prevent these from receiving equal treatment  (Their level of perfection -- e.g. education, moral conformity and spoken English) is not already exemplary, therefore they cannot be given the equal treatment they requested.

Present day xenophobia also thrives around this psychological double-bind.