Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
At its surface, gatekeeping appears to be about quality, tradition, or protecting standards — but beneath it lies a hunger for control. In this episode, we explore how gatekeeping functions as a subtle form of exclusion, transforming shared ideals into barriers. When standards become instruments of ego, the pursuit of excellence turns into the defense of privilege.
🔑 Key Takeaways
- Gatekeeping disguises domination as discernment, turning inclusion into hierarchy.
- True mastery invites participation; false mastery restricts it to preserve status.
- Freemasonry reminds us that worthiness is demonstrated through conduct, not credentials.
💬 Featured Quotes
- 0:00:06 — “Gatekeeping is a technique used by people who are looking to assert control over who gets to participate in a conversation or group.”
- 0:00:28 — “It’s a way to elevate oneself and gain control by asserting who gets access or privilege.”
- 0:00:45 — “You’ll hear it in comments like, ‘You didn’t go to the right school,’ or, ‘You’re not in the right organization.’”
- 0:01:12 — “When someone decides who is allowed to speak or belong, they’re protecting power — not principle.”
🔗 Explore Related Episodes
- Dark Rhetoric Series – Tone Policing: How Control Masquerades as Civility
Examines how manipulative calmness can be used to silence emotion and assert superiority in discourse. - Charity Starts Where?
Explores how compassion without exclusion redefines what it means to serve and belong. - Freemasonry Brings Receipts
Demonstrates how transparency and accountability are antidotes to elitism within systems of belonging.
Dynamic Inserts
Creators and Guests
What is A Mason's Work?
In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.
The next thing I want to talk about in our dark rhetoric series is gatekeeping.
And gatekeeping is a technique used by people who are really looking to assert control over
who gets to participate in a conversation or who gets to participate in a group.
It is a way to elevate oneself and gain essentially control and power over others by taking
and asserting who gets access or who gets privileged or whatever that might be.
And you'll see this in conversations, you'll see it in behavior in the form of people saying
things like, well, you know, you didn't go to the right school or you didn't read the
right book or you didn't, you know, you're not a member of my favorite organization.
You'll hear it in the form of, well, you're a X in name only or you are a false, you know,
Y. And whatever that might sort of be or sound like, it's always about essentially
creating an in group and an out group that the person who makes those statements is essentially
the controller of by saying, well, I'm, you know, I'm in the group and you are not.
And therefore your conversation or your opinion or your emotional content or whatever
it might be has no value is essentially again, part of that sort of elevating process.
So when you hear these things in conversation, you will immediately see that kind of what
they're really trying to do is puff themselves up.
Right.
The subversion here is a self elevation and a reduction of everyone else.
When you see it, they're, it might be tempting to say you may have heard this in old conversations,
well, you know, who died and made you king kind of thing.
When you look to get around gatekeeping as a thing, the important part of the conversation
there is to understand that if you continue to give them the authority to set the goalposts,
whatever they might appear to be, rest assured they will forever move.
So there's no point in engaging in the conversation when it comes to like, well, you know, I went
to this school or that school or, oh, I know this or that or I've done these X things,
X, Y and Z. There will always be yet another hurdle.
It's a moving goalposts kind of situation.
So when you're confronted with gatekeeping, you want to help talk about or essentially
move the gatekeeping conversation out of the possession of one individual and perhaps
into a larger organization is one way to talk about it.
As you start to look to resolve this, you might say things like, listen, you know, there
may or may not be a difference in education or experience or background here, but everyone
is impacted by whatever it is you're discussing.
And so as, you know, people that are impacted by this, we get to participate in the conversation.
There might be opportunities for debate like, hey, listen, I don't know what it is you
think that you're protecting.
Let's talk about that.
What are you protecting the, you know, what's the thing you're trying to keep these other
folks out of is there's some sort of integrity there.
Is there some sort of, you know, specialized knowledge or expertise that you are essentially
putting out of reach of everyone else?
As you go through the process of dealing with people that are gatekeeping, you're going
to find more often than not, it is just projected emotional content about their own insecurities
or again, deceptive ways to essentially maintain and gather power.
As you process this, look for those opportunities in yourself when you find yourself gatekeeping
because it will happen.
This is not, you know, we're talking about these as dark rhetoric techniques, but everyone
has probably done something like these once or twice in their life that may do it all
the time.
They may do it only periodically, but as you do understand that that's actually just pointing
you to opportunities for self growth and self development.