Beyond the Binary of Resistance and Compliance: Systemic Capital, Non-Reactivity, and the Destruction of Coercive Utility in Institutional Environments

Contemporary sociological and criminological analyses of institutional harassment—specifically peer aggression and coercive intimidation within educational and corporate environments—predominantly operate within a dualistic dichotomy: victims are characterized either by passive, traumatized compliance or by overt, highly visible resistance. This paper challenges this conventional framework by introducing the theory of Coercive Utility Destruction. We argue that peer violence and coercive intimidation are fundamentally rational-choice transactional behaviors driven by expected emotional yield relative to systemic risk. Through a synthesis of Bourdieu’s capital theory, rational choice dynamics, and psychological non-reactivity, this paper demonstrates how an actor possessing high systemic capital (institutional trust, academic alignment, and procedural rectitude) combined with affective non-reactivity completely dismantles the transactional viability of aggression. Rather than provoking escalation, this unique structural configuration renders the target immune to coercive dynamics by shifting the aggressor's expected utility into negative yield. This theoretical model bridges a crucial gap in institutional victimology, offering a non-pathological, agency-centered paradigm for systemic immunity.