Conversation about such decisions has to happen in the best common language available. This is very obvious with animals, where teaching them human language requires far more effort from everyone than learning how they already communicate and meeting them on their own intellectual turf.
Also, it’s rare to have only a single isolated power differential in play. There are usually several, pointing in different directions. Draft animals can destroy stuff and injure people if they panic; pets can destroy their owners’ possessions. Oppressed human populations can revolt; oppressed individuals can rebel in all kinds of creatively dangerous ways. In the rare event of dealing with only a single power gradient at once, being on top is easy because you decide what you’re doing and then you do it and it works. But with multiple power gradients simultaneously in play, staying “on top” is a high-effort process and a good-faith negotiation can only happen when every participant puts in the effort to not be a jerk in the areas where their power happens to exceed that of others.
Conversation about such decisions has to happen in the best common language available. This is very obvious with animals, where teaching them human language requires far more effort from everyone than learning how they already communicate and meeting them on their own intellectual turf.
Also, it’s rare to have only a single isolated power differential in play. There are usually several, pointing in different directions. Draft animals can destroy stuff and injure people if they panic; pets can destroy their owners’ possessions. Oppressed human populations can revolt; oppressed individuals can rebel in all kinds of creatively dangerous ways. In the rare event of dealing with only a single power gradient at once, being on top is easy because you decide what you’re doing and then you do it and it works. But with multiple power gradients simultaneously in play, staying “on top” is a high-effort process and a good-faith negotiation can only happen when every participant puts in the effort to not be a jerk in the areas where their power happens to exceed that of others.