It does empower them. Until I came to the conclusion that my questions were well founded I had to waste a lot of energy trying things that didn’t work based on that narrative.
If you wake up you will see that is all speech and no bite. Unfortunately a lot of people don’t wake up and instead opt to play that game, basically creating a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts. People can also have the message so ingrained that even realizing its all bullshit they convince themselves its not.
Same can be said about all dogmatic view points actually.