Why Appeasement Sucks

The False Peace of Appeasement

Appeasement dresses itself as kindness. It whispers, Don't rock the boat. It smooths the surface while storms churn beneath. What it truly does is create blindness—the appeaser loses sight of their own truth, and the recipient loses sight of reality. It is the energy of false peace, and false peace always comes with a price.

Appeasement is a collective spell—our shared incantation of If I can't see it, it can't hurt me. It operates both personally and culturally, preserving the illusion of safety by turning away from truth. When we appease, we close our eyes to dissonance and call it harmony. Yet every time we choose appeasement over honesty, something within us dims. We sacrifice clarity for comfort, and the relationship—whether with another, with ourselves, or with society at large—ceases to evolve. Appeasement is the polite death of growth.

Blindness Born of Appeasement

The energy of appeasement doesn't remain confined to words or gestures. It shapes minds, bodies, and relationships in ways we rarely acknowledge.

When a child experiences trauma—even subtle forms—a common survival response is to hide from whatever caused the pain. They learn not to look at certain truths, not to feel certain feelings. When the adults around them appease this hiding (It's okay, we don't have to talk about it, or I won’t address this behavior because I don’t want to start a fight), the child learns that blindness is safety. The appeasement becomes an energetic cocoon—protective in the moment, suffocating over time.

This is how appeasement generates what might be called psychic blindness—a learned inability to perceive certain aspects of reality. The appeaser becomes numb to their own needs. The appeased becomes blind to the needs of others. Both lose the capacity to see what's actually happening.

This psychic blindness functions like a form of autism. Just as what society calls autism involves differences in processing social information, psychic blindness involves the inability to process emotional and relational truth. The person develops workarounds, learns to mimic connection without feeling it, performs empathy without experiencing it. Presence gives way to performance. Connection turns into mimicry. Authentic feeling vanishes.

We all carry psychic blindnesses—places where we cannot see clearly. The unexamined assumptions. The avoided emotions. The realities too painful to face. Appeasement thrives in these shadows, whispering Let's not look there. But what we refuse to see doesn't disappear. It unconsciously dominates us, desperate for recognition. Appeasement reinforces blindness in both parties, ensuring that what began as self-protection becomes shared imprisonment.

The Fortress of Mutual Appeasement

This blindness sustains harmful cycles. Consider the oppressor and the victim: both are locked in a pact of mutual appeasement.

The oppressor appeases their own fear and guilt by maintaining control, convincing themselves that domination preserves order. The victim appeases their fear of conflict or abandonment by submitting, feeding the oppressor's illusion of authority. Each gesture reinforces the other. The oppressor grows more entitled; the victim grows more compliant. The oppressor loses empathy toward the victim and begins to perceive them only as prey. The victim loses empathy toward the oppressor and begins to perceive them only as predator. Neither truly sees the other.

Appeasement becomes the glue holding the dynamic together, blinding both sides to their shared humanity. Each builds a fortress—walls of justification on one side, walls of fear on the other. Both stand as monuments to unspoken pain.

Only sovereignty from either party—truth without aggression, clarity without cruelty—can dissolve the spell and restore real vision.

Self-Appeasement and Addiction

Appeasement also happens within the self. Every addiction begins as self-appeasement.

The alcoholic appeases their discomfort: Just one drink to take the edge off. The workaholic appeases their fear of irrelevance: I'll rest after this project. The social media scroller appeases their simultaneous loneliness and refusal to be alone with themselves: Just five more minutes. Each moment is a quiet permission slip to remain blind to the underlying need.

The pattern is always the same: discomfort arises, and rather than looking at it directly, we appease it. The appeasement soothes for a moment but strengthens the underlying distortion. We become addicted not to the substance or behavior, but to the lie that peace can be found without truth.

The blindness has a particular quality—a fog or numbness that softens the mind's perception. Not inability to see the behavior at all (although with severe blindness that is often the case), but inability to see it clearly. The mind is muted, protected from the full truth of what's happening. It is numbed to the consequences of what it is doing.

The loop tightens: use appeases discomfort, discomfort returns stronger, more appeasement needed, tolerance builds, the original need grows louder while being heard less. The person becomes blind to their own desperation, performing normalcy while collapsing inside.

Self-appeasement is an abdication of sovereignty. It replaces presence with habit, clarity with comfort. Sovereignty ends the loop—not through willpower or punishment, but through perception. It looks clearly at what is and moves with grace. It doesn't resist desire or indulge it; it understands it.

The Mirage of "Agreeing to Disagree"

Appeasement even disguises itself as wisdom. The phrase agreeing to disagree sounds sovereign: you do you, I'll do me. Yet it often means: We're tired of friction, so let's stop before resolving the paradox. It ends the conversation before truth can emerge. It offers comfort at the cost of coherence.

True sovereignty can withstand paradox. It recognizes friction as refinement. When we stay in honest dialogue long enough, something greater than either position can appear—a higher synthesis, a deeper understanding. Appeasement prevents that emergence. It preserves the illusion of peace while reality remains divided.

Society and the Machinery of Mutual Appeasement

What begins in the self unfolds in the world. The distortions in our society trace back to this same dynamic of mutual appeasement.

Watch a couple struggling through this dynamic. Partner 1 moves the goalposts: first it's about Partner 2 not calling enough, then about Partner 2 not spending enough time with them, then about Partner 2 not dropping everything for them the moment they ask. Partner 2 keeps trying to be kind, adjusting their behavior to meet each new demand. But every adjustment is appeasement—avoiding the core truth that they're incompatible. Partner 1 is blind to their own pattern of control. Partner 2 is blind to their own pattern of submission. Both are blind to the unfulfilled needs giving rise to this pattern. Both perform goodness while drowning in dysfunction.

Scale this up. Citizens appease leaders by tolerating dishonesty for the sake of stability. Leaders appease citizens with promises of safety while concentrating power. Corporations appease consumers with convenience. Consumers appease corporations by trading sovereignty for comfort. Media appeases the public with distraction. The public appeases media with attention. Everywhere, truth is softened to avoid discomfort.

This reciprocal blindness sustains systems of imbalance. The oppressed and the privileged, the exploited and the exploiter—all maintain the dynamic through mutual silence. Each fears the collapse of the world they know if they face what lies beneath. Only a culture that chooses sovereignty—the courage to look clearly and act accordingly—can break the spell. Until then, our civilization remains trapped in its own unspoken compromises.

Sovereignty: The Counterspell

The answer to appeasement is sovereignty—the reclamation of the right to see and choose.

Where appeasement says, I will hide my sight to remain safe, sovereignty says, I choose to see, because what I see cannot destroy me. Sovereignty dissolves the fortress, unlocks the survival spell, and restores direct perception.

Sovereignty is not aggression or domination. It is clarity in motion, grace in action. It neither elevates one's own needs above others' nor subordinates them beneath. It listens for truth and moves accordingly.

When sovereignty is present, appeasement becomes impossible. There is no fear of conflict, because conflict itself becomes a teacher. There is no fear of loss, because what is real cannot be lost. Sovereignty restores balance where appeasement created blindness. It makes genuine relationship possible—where truth can be spoken, heard, and lived.

The End of False Peace

Appeasement sucks because it's the counterfeit of love.

Love tells the truth, even when it trembles. Appeasement lies to avoid tremors. In doing so, it teaches blindness and creates suffering. The peace that comes from appeasement is a truce with tyranny—the quiet surrender of vision. The peace that comes from truth is the end of war itself.

True peace is not the absence of friction. It is the presence of coherence—the harmony that arises when truth moves freely through relationship. When truth moves freely, blindness dissolves. What once felt threatening becomes clear. We see that sovereignty isn't about power over others—it's about the courage to see what is and act accordingly.

This is the work. Not to appease the world into comfort, but to see it clearly enough that real peace becomes possible. We can perceive, at last, that sovereignty is love’s seeing made whole. And in that wholeness, the world is made anew.