The Permission Structure: Toxic Advocacy and Integrity

How We Learned to Be Cruel & Feel Righteous About It

At some point, we built a permission structure that made cruelty feel like courage. What once would have been unthinkable (mocking, shaming, or dehumanizing others in the name of “justice” or “truth”) has become a kind of moral performance. It didn’t happen overnight. Slowly, through politics, social media, and cultural reinforcement, we constructed a system of cues and stories that made it not only acceptable to act with hostility, but also admirable. We found a way to feel righteous while doing harm.

This is what I mean by a permission structure. It’s not a formal theory, though it has deep theoretical roots. It’s a proposed social and psychological mechanism that gives people moral cover to act in ways they would have previously condemned. And it sits at the heart of what I call Toxic Advocacy, a style of engagement that thrives on outrage, rewards division, and feeds the illusion that anger equals integrity.

1. Where the Term Comes From

In political science, “permission structure” describes the way leaders help followers justify a change in position. Suppose a politician wants to support a policy that their base opposes. They can’t just flip. They need a narrative bridge, a way to shift without appearing inconsistent or weak. So, they begin reframing the issue, often through trusted messengers, subtle cues, and selective moral reasoning, until followers feel internally licensed to change too.

It’s not persuasion through logic. It’s persuasion through identity management. As social psychologist Henri Tajfel (1979) showed, our beliefs are rarely just ideas; they’re expressions of belonging. If changing a belief threatens group membership, most people won’t change, no matter how strong the evidence. A permission structure resolves that tension. It gives the mind a way to say: I’m not betraying who I am, I’m being true to what really matters.

Originally, this concept helped explain shifts in political alignment. But over time, the idea expanded. Communication theorists like Robert Entman (1993) and moral psychologists like Albert Bandura (1999) described similar mechanisms in how societies justify harm or moral inconsistency. The structure itself is simple: it reframes the meaning of behavior so that the moral cost disappears.

Albert Bandura (Source: Wikipedia)

"Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends."

2. How It Works Psychologically

At the level of the individual, permission structures rely on a few core psychological processes.

Moral Disengagement: Bandura’s work on moral disengagement shows how ordinary people commit acts that conflict with their values. We do it through reframing. Harm becomes “justice.” Aggression becomes “courage.” Dehumanization becomes “accountability.” Once we label our actions as morally necessary, empathy no longer restrains us.

Normative Influence: Robert Cialdini (2003) demonstrated that people take cues from perceived norms more than from stated rules. If everyone in our social circle treats mockery or outrage as a sign of commitment, we quickly internalize that expectation. We become what the group rewards.

Group Polarization: Cass Sunstein’s (2009) research shows that when like-minded people talk primarily to one another, their views become more extreme. Each member raises the emotional temperature slightly, trying to signal loyalty to the cause, and the group drifts toward the edges. Permission structures accelerate this by removing internal dissent, because questioning the anger feels like betrayal.

Moral Licensing: Finally, there’s the quieter mechanism: the idea that doing something “good” earns moral credit to spend elsewhere. Once we’ve signaled that we're on the right side, we can behave badly without guilt. It’s the psychology behind the phrase, “I’m just telling the truth.”

Together, these mechanisms dissolve the tension between our values (ideals) and our actions. They tell us it’s fine to cross the line because the cause is just. And once that line is crossed enough times, it disappears altogether.

3. How It Shows Up in Advocacy

In advocacy spaces, permission structures often masquerade as passion. They appear as moral slogans that sanctify contempt:

• “If you’re not angry, you’re part of the problem.”

• “Calling them out is holding them accountable.”

• “I’m not being mean, I’m just being honest.”

Each of these carries a hidden message: "Cruelty is okay if it’s in the service of justice."

Outrage is proof of commitment. Calm is complicity. In this way, the culture of advocacy can drift from pursuing change to performing indignation.

This shift is Toxic Advocacy, when the emotional charge of the cause becomes the point. Instead of working toward measurable outcomes or structural reform, energy gets redirected into moral display. The louder the outrage, the higher the perceived virtue, but beneath the noise, real change stalls.

The tragedy is that most people who fall into this aren’t malicious. They’re morally earnest. They care deeply, but their moral energy gets hijacked by social and psychological systems that reward anger over integrity. The permission structure transforms empathy into a liability and conviction into a weapon.

Robert Cialdini (Source: Wikipedia)

"The greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct."

4. The Social Cost

When cruelty becomes normalized, it doesn’t just erode discourse; it erodes the moral fabric that holds communities together. Once we’ve justified contempt as moral, there’s no longer a shared space for dialogue, correction, or repair.

Coalitions crumble because trust cannot grow in the soil of fear. Reflection disappears because certainty leaves no room for curiosity. And empathy becomes dangerous because it blurs the boundary between “us” and “them.”

In that environment, advocacy stops being about transformation and becomes about identity maintenance. The goal shifts from solving problems to proving who’s righteous. We start fighting for belonging rather than for change.

That’s the paradox: anger feels active, but it’s often immobilizing. It creates the sensation of engagement without the substance of progress. We spend emotional energy defending our moral identity rather than investing it in practical solutions.

5. The Permission Structure in Everyday Life

You can see this dynamic everywhere, from politics to social media to professional activism. Consider how quickly online outrage can shift from awareness to annihilation. A single misstep by someone, real or perceived, triggers moral contagion. What follows is not deliberation or dialogue but performance: a rush to prove virtue by attacking.

Each participant tells themselves they’re defending justice, but collectively, the behavior mirrors mob dynamics. The permission structure makes it feel noble. “They deserve it.” “We’re protecting others.” “We’re speaking truth to power.” These are moral justifications, not moral reflections.

Even in smaller ways, within organizations, advocacy coalitions, or classrooms, permission structures shape how we treat each other. Once a culture defines certain people as “the problem,” normal rules of decency no longer apply. Sarcasm becomes accountability. Exclusion becomes safety. Public humiliation becomes transparency. And integrity quietly leaves the room.

6. Why We Fell for It (Myself Included)

Part of why this has taken hold is that anger feels good, at least temporarily. Neurologically, moral outrage releases dopamine; it feels empowering. It offers clarity in a complex world. In moments of powerlessness, anger restores a sense of agency. The permission structure harnesses that feeling and sanctifies it. It whispers: You’re not just angry; you’re brave.

In an era where attention equals currency, outrage also pays. News outlets, social media platforms, and even advocacy organizations have learned that conflict drives engagement. Anger is good for business. It keeps people clicking, posting, donating, and marching, not necessarily toward change, but toward the next emotional high. As with any addiction, the more we feed it, the less we feel without it.

The result is a kind of moral burnout: a society constantly inflamed but rarely transformed.

7. Breaking the Structure

If permission structures allow cruelty, then integrity must build resistance. Integrity doesn’t mean passivity or politeness; it means alignment, ensuring that the way we pursue justice reflects the justice we claim to seek.

Breaking the permission structure starts with reclaiming moral reflection from moral justification. Instead of asking, “Is my anger valid?” we ask, “Is my anger helpful?” Instead of measuring impact by decibels, we measure it by outcomes. Instead of defining integrity as loyalty to the group, we define it as loyalty to principle.

This requires courage of a different kind, the courage to disappoint our own tribe. Because dismantling permission structures means refusing to use the tools of contempt, even when they’re seemingly effective. It means saying no to strategies that win attention but lose humanity. It means holding ourselves accountable to the same standards we demand from those we oppose.

8. The Role of Integrity-Based Advocacy

Integrity-Based Advocacy begins where Toxic Advocacy ends. It insists that how we fight for justice matters as much as what we fight for. It is advocacy rooted in values rather than reactions, in empathy rather than outrage, in reflection rather than performance. It’s not about abandoning conviction, it’s about grounding conviction in humility and evidence.

In practical terms, this looks like:

• Slowing down reactivity. Taking a pause before responding allows emotion to inform rather than control.

• Reconnecting with values. Asking, “What principle do I want to represent right now?”

• Focusing on measurable outcomes. Defining success by impact, not intensity.

• Re-humanizing opponents. Seeing complexity where the group demands caricature.

These are not soft skills; they’re hard disciplines. They require self-regulation, reflection, and relational courage; the very qualities that toxic systems suppress. They can be researched, taught, implemented, and modeled.

Brené Brown (Source: Wikipedia)

"Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them." — Brené Brown —

9. Rebuilding the Moral Boundaries

Ultimately, the work of dismantling permission structures is moral reconstruction. It’s about rebuilding the guardrails that remind us who we are when the crowd shouts otherwise. This is not nostalgia for civility; it’s a call for coherence.

Because when we normalize cruelty, we teach the next generation that compassion is weakness. We erode the trust that makes collective action possible. We reduce moral life to performance art. But when we lead with integrity, when we resist the seduction of contempt, we create the conditions for genuine transformation.

The moral boundaries we rebuild today will determine the culture of advocacy tomorrow. The question is whether we will keep rewarding noise or start valuing wisdom.

10. Closing Reflection

Permission structures don’t appear out of nowhere. They emerge when people feel unheard, afraid, or powerless - and when institutions fail to model integrity. The antidote is not shame, it's awareness. It’s the moment of pause when we notice ourselves rehearsing the script of justified contempt and choose a different line.

If Toxic Advocacy is built on anger and contempt, then Integrity-Based Advocacy must be built on reflection. It’s the practice of returning, again and again, to the question: Am I becoming the kind of person this cause needs? Because movements don’t just change the world, they shape the people who lead them.

And that might be the deepest truth of all: the world we build through our advocacy will mirror the methods we use to build it. If we build it through cruelty, we’ll inherit cruelty. But if we build it through integrity, we might just inherit peace.

"Honesty is the best policy, but honesty that's motivated by shame, anger, fear, or hurt is not 'honesty.' It's shame, anger, fear, or hurt disguised as honesty." — Brené Brown —