Yeah. This destructive pecking behavior is absolutely a feature of dominance hierarchy. You see the same thing in chickens, pigeons, and rats. When it gets out of hand, becomes either too pervasive or too virulent, there's a population collapse.

As humans, we're in a unique situation in that there are more avenues of where it becomes persistent attacks on the psyche than just one on one acts of violence or pecking. We've got the added avenues or Abrahamic faith traditions, media, our economic model, our educational system, our legal system, pretty much every facet of life.

There's no escaping it and it's getting worse in the sense of being more pervasive and fewer escapes from it.