By Mary Morken,mtdaily@aol.com,
posted 7/22/96:
For those who might find this of interest,
here's notes from some studies I have done on a "closed system" of
manipulation, first learned in 1972 when we were dealing with
friends who had become Marxists. I think this has new implications
with the power struggles that can take place in cyberspace on
forums, and with new movements that arise. Would be interested in
feedback from anyone.
Definition of manipulation: "To control or play upon by artful, unfair or insidious means, especially to one's own advantage; to change by unfair means to serve one's purposes."
The proper replacement for manipulation is not withdrawal but fair INFLUENCE: "Power to cause an effect in indirect or intangible ways."
To avoid manipulating others, one must protect people from unfair exposure, respect a person's freedom to choose and respect a person's freedom of self-expression.
How does it feel to be manipulated? Treated unfairly, abused, assaulted, accused, condemned, threatened, exposed, humiliated, insulted, flattered, bribed, indoctrinated, disrespected, labeled, fearful, confused, backed into a corner, given only limited choices, coerced.
What does it involve? Over-dramatizing; narrowing thinking; slogans; extreme call to commitment, confession or loyalty; discontinuity with the past; repetition; extreme submission to authority; no reasons given; no alternatives given; imagination closed down; history disregarded; no questioning or criticism or disagreement allowed.
How can one avoid or keep free of it? Ignore, evade, refuse to cooperate, concentrate on something else, keep your self-respect, indifference, courage, convictions (think for yourself), logic, humor, refuse to get excited, avoid worry, keep calm, happy, don't force yourself to reason it out or believe it, take time, consider careful protest when appropriate, pray (if you believe in it), read Bible (if you believe in it), seek counsel of several people.
How can one avoid manipulating others? Affirm a person's dignity, freedom and privacy. Allow people to speak for themselves. Affirm individuality. Allow questions. Be open to test. Be balanced. Be historical. Have a sense of allowing life to emerge. Respect a person's ability to change. Be aware of possibilities and variety. Be creative. Be restrained. Give people room to grow and disagree. Broaden the topic. Have a sense of the complexity. Keep a sense of continuity. Allow conflicts to be. Have a sense of incompleteness. Limit your responsibilities and roles. Keep conclusions tentative.
To be strong to resist manipulation, one needs to reckon with guilt and limits, know and have confidence in one's beliefs, have group affiliations, have a sense of personal continuity, have a sense of clear purpose, be committed to one's beliefs and loyalties, live a satisfying life with some time free of being organized, take responsibility and roles in community life, feel that one has the opportunity to influence others, respect one's own right and need for privacy, keep secrets, keep a sense of personal freedom of choice, make choices deliberately and consciously, express one's opinions and beliefs, express feelings and concerns.
What are the consequences of manipulation? Causes regression, fear, distrust and dependency, a closed system, weakness, depression, loss of identity, not able to think or clearly state beliefs, vulnerable to strong leaders, confusion, apathy, feeling powerless.
What is fair influence to help people change?
1. Confronting the needs and the challenges, questioning identity but no assaulting, encouraging introspection and expression but not stunted by coercion. Anxiety is a part of change, but not annihilation. There is proper guilt and shame in change, but not self-hatred. There is a sense of disharmony but not an antagonistic estrangement from one's self.
2. Reordering through self-disclosure with dignity, privacy and balance. Seeing the negative but not feeling like you are nothing. Terror and tragedy may be faced, but not a humiliating manipulated pseudotragedy. Learning is not sealed; test it, experiment, and moderate and qualify any judgment of self.
3. Renewal to a new identity, new ideas emerging, commitment made autonomously, independently in the face of alternatives. Open to more growth and change. Maintaining continuity with the past, sensing complexity, some conflict remains.
In a healthy open COMMUNITY there is conflict and change, but with relative balance and limits, and points of stability. In EDUCATION, there is both commitment and the flexibility to test beliefs. There are tensions between students, teachers and ideas. There is openness to the complex, the possible, variables, creativity and imagination. In PSYCHOTHERAPY, individuals are confronted with reality but in a varied and balanced milieu, in an historical and imaginative context. In RELIGION, there is the danger in heresy searches and revivals; balance is needed. Man's worth and possibilities are to be acknowledged as well as his limits; his capacity to change as well as the difficulty of changing; and faith and commitment should be done without self-negation or condemnation, with room for more growth and broadening. In SCIENCE, moral beliefs and values are needed, a sense of completeness, creativity, imagination, honesty and room for dissent. In POLITICS, protection of basic rights such as freedom of expression, choice, privacy, disagreement and respect for personality are needed.
Totalism is the extreme form of a closed society or group. There is a desperate sense of life and death, and thought reform is used on people, involving these steps: (from Robert Lifton's THOUGHT REFORM AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM, from interviews he did with people coming out of Chinese concentration camps into Hong Kong in the 1950s.)
1. Assault on identity.
2. Establishing guilt through confession.
3. Self-betrayal and exposure.
4. Breaking point of total conflict and basic fear.
5. Leniency and opportunity.
6. Compulsion to confess for survival.
7. Channeling of guilt to reinterpret personal history with a "higher
morality."
8. Reeducation, logical dishonoring of previously held values.
9. Progress and harmony in new system.
10. Final confession, official, public.
11. Rebirth.
12. Release from controlled situation.
13. Transitional limbo of adjusting back into open society if one
escapes.
Ideological totalism in a social setting involves:
1. Control of milieu--communications censored
2. Mystical manipulation--people are pawns, victims.
3. Demand for purity--guilt and shame catharsis.
4. Cult of confession--purging.
5. Sacred science--absolute ideas, dogma, no alternatives.
6. Loading constricted language--limits awwareness, reduces reality to
slogans.
7. Doctrine over persons-loss of personal integrity.
8. Dispensing existence--people are put in categories of persons and
"nonpersons."
Four ways people effect change in others:
1. Coercion - threats - cows - punishment
2. Exhortation - should - converts - promise of reward
3. Therapy - can - heals - promise of healing
4. Realization - can - completes promise of potential realized
First-aid kit to resist manipulation: protect your right to privacy, choice and expression, as necessary for survival of personality.
How to give constructive criticism: Let people know how we see their behavior so they can judge their behavior from another person's point of view. It involves giving information and leaving it up to the person what they do with it.
1. It describes behavior rather than judging it. By describing one's own reaction to another person's behavior, it leave the other person free to use it or not use it, as he or she chooses. When we judge another's behavior, the person might respond defensively.
2. It is specific rather than general. To be told that you are defensive will probably not be as useful as to be told, "Just now I felt that you did not listen and you were expecting me to accept your point of view or attack your weakness."
3. It is directed toward behavior which the receiver can do something about. Frustration and hurt happen when someone is reminded of some shortcoming over which that person has no control. Make a suggestion for a positive replacement.
4. It is asked for rather than forced on another. Criticism is most useful when the receiver has asked a question or requests suggestions.
5. It is well-timed. It is better to give someone a helpful comment right after the situation has happened, depending upon the person's openness to hear it, the atmosphere and the support available to them.
6. It is followed by reassurance, checking to see if you were understood, or what the other person thinks you meant.
To receive constructive criticism and benefit from it, it needs to be understood, evaluated, have positive suggestions that are possible to do and the receiver must be open to consider it.