Once a system has been established, there are "tolerances" that shape the energies and forms that exist within it.
These normative parameters influence how we move through the world: slowly transforming and deforming under increments of utility and efficiency.
Said another way, our pathologies are incrementally ratcheted into expressions that can be grasped, that is certain "images" or "normative outcomes" that operate with the most efficiency inside the system.

These easy-to-grasp conceptual abstractions are recognizable forms -archetypes or stereotypes as well as inches and ounces- which reduce friction by universality: to get the results you desire quickly make it easy for people to grasp your "increment."