How Deep Culture and Deep Structure Sustain Workplace Bullying
Workplace bullying is often treated as a “personality problem,” yet it persists because it is typically sustained by deeper forces inside organizations. Drawing on Johan Galtung’s (2003) concept of a “deeper layer” beneath visible conflict, this article shows how bullying becomes system-consistent through deep structures (incentives, complaint pathways, risk logic), deep culture (minimization norms and gendered credibility gaps), and repeated violations of basic human needs for safety, dignity, and reality-validation. It also introduces a crucial modern asymmetry: organizations can function as legal “persons” while lacking an embodied moral nervous system, making it easier for harm to be absorbed by employees rather than repaired by the system. Read on.
When Power Cannot Feel: Managing Risk Over Care in Workplace Bullying
Power without moral interior is a particular kind of danger at work: an organization can speak the language of care, values, and psychological safety while remaining structurally incapable of remorse, repair, or embodied accountability. In bullying cases, this mismatch becomes acute when a harmed employee turns to HR expecting protection—only to be reframed as “the problem,” processed through liability logic, and pushed toward exit while the bully remains. This essay traces how institutions translate human harm into organizational risk, why reporting can intensify injury, and how the nervous system carries what the system refuses to metabolize. Read on.