With the tyranny of the structureless path, every attempt to share the commons decays into a fog of personalities, cliques, and unspoken power. What needs composting here is that, at best, you end up with a smiling violent man as the backstop of governance.

Without mediating structures, what emerges is not freedom but hidden hierarchy. “Smiling violence” – the agreeable man (or clique) who insists they’re just holding things together – quietly blocks challenge, manipulates process, and reserves the final say. If you’re not paying attention, and can’t move away, you wake to find yourself living in #feudalism, with its ever-present threat of personal violence lurking behind the smile.

This is how “horizontal” spaces rot. They confuse the absence of shared structures with openness, when in fact it is poisoned soil: domination by those most willing to coerce, block, or flatter. Without functioning myths and traditions, shared trust, and open processes, what grows is not commons but personal power, one person’s will, or a small group’s grip.

The smiling violent man is not an accident. He is the inevitable product of structurelessness:

Without flows of accountability, you get bottlenecks of control.

Without mediating trust systems, you get gatekeepers posing as “protectors.”

Without a backbone, you get a backstop, a hard edge of coercion dressed in kindness.

The result: commons replaced by fiefdoms, trust replaced by muscle, care replaced by the mask of “caring the most.” Once that happens, the commons are no longer common, they are held hostage.

When I see this again and again, I sometimes say: “grow a backbone.” But this rarely lands well. So let’s pause and ask what backbone really means in social settings:

1. Structure / Stability: Like a spine holding the body upright, a social backbone is the framework that keeps everything from collapsing into mush. In #OMN terms: the #5F framework is the backbone, UX, UI, and culture all grow around it.
2. Courage / Integrity: To “have backbone” means to stand firm under pressure. For movements, this means holding the line when mainstreaming forces, fashionistas, or gatekeepers push back. Backbone is refusing co-option, staying rooted in trust.
3. Invisible but Essential: The backbone is not the face, not the style. It’s the quiet strength – shared trust and open processes – that allows everything else to move. Often invisible, but without it, nothing functions.

A social backbone, then, is the shared trust + open processes that holds a community upright against both internal decay and external capture. By contrast, on the progressive path the #fashionistas build style without backbone (pretty, but collapses quickly), and the #geekproblem builds bone without flesh (rigid, alienating).

#KISS