There are some people (I think they are born that way) whose main delight comes from manipulating other people. If people were made of clay or some other inert substance, it wouldn't matter. But since people are living, breathing, moving creatures with their own agenda of things to do and places to go, efforts to manipulate them, even if the effort to direct them is for their own good, are almost certain to generate resistance.
In addition, the nature of manipulation is such that to be really evident, the effect of the manipulation has to hurt, or at least discomfit, the victim. Which is why, at the point where manipulation meets resistance, the lie is born. Indeed, even when the manipulation is for the victims own good ("this won't hurt" says the nurse, as she sticks the needle in), deception is an integral part. Without the lie, manipulation is not likely to get far.
Now the manipulator faces a bit of a quandry. Why does behavior which brings such delight require more or less deception? In other words, why does something that feels so good have to involve perverting the truth--i.e. doing something bad?
Over the centuries, at least in the so-called Western Civilizations, this quandry has generated a multitude of explanations and justifications. Some have dealt with the intent of the manipulator, his peculiar need that others seem not to share, leading to the conclusion that deception on behalf of a good cause is not bad. Others have dealt with the victim's attitude, the failure to offer strenuous resistance to the manipulation, or any resistance at all, leading to the conclusion that the manipulation is either deserved or not particularly hurtful, after all. Or, perhaps, the victim is just insensitive and, like the other dumb creatures on the planet, made to be manipulated by those who know better how creatures ought to behave. In that case, of course, it easy to argue that manipulation, regardless of whether it needs to be disguised with a lie, is actually good.
Then, once you accept the argument that some people deserve to be manipulated because they are either too stupid to notice or too lazy to care, it's easy to take the next step and conclude that those who know better actually have an obligation to provide direction and govern the rest. Indeed, the absence of adequate resistance, the normal response to manipulation, can be interpreted as an indication that the subject population, in addition to or because of their stupidity and indolence, are actually bad. In which case, any effort to correct them is not just good, but a virtue.
Leaving the accuracy of this conclusion aside for a moment, let me turn to another most certainly in-born characteristic of almost all people--the inclination to socialize and arrange themselves in mutually supportive groups. Though there are some people who argue that social organization among humans is something that either has to be imposed from outside or results from a common response to the perception of danger (behavior that's been documented in the wild among our close cousins), I'm convinced that just as some people are born to manipulate, almost all of them, even those lacking some of the essential senses, are born to participate in a larger group.
Whether or not people forming themselves into groups is an in-born trait is only significant in relation to the interaction between groups and individuals who are born to manipulate. If manipulating one person is attractive to the latter, the prospect of manipulating a group of a dozen, or a hundred, or even a million is positively irresistable. And the rationalization that any large group "needs" to be governed follows almost automatically.
But, since in any large group there are bound to be some people who react poorly to being injured or restrained, being endowed, perhaps, with a keener sense of self-preservation and self-direction than the rest, resistance, which would be considered normal behavior in an individual, is not only magnified by its presence in a group (even if not all participate) but presents as a positive menace to the inclination to manipulate and govern.
At the least, when resistance is a component of a group, it's unlikely that deception will suffice to maintain the manipulator's control. When manipulation meets the resistance of a group, there are only two outs. Either the manipulator gives up the game and looks for another target, or he resorts to the use of force. And the problem using force is that it not only generates resistance much more surely and quickly, but ultimate force is self-defeating, dead people being beyond manipulation.
Whether or not manipulating other people is inherently good or bad, it's something that people do. And, although the consequences for the victim are often injurious, that's not necessarily so. The people who delight in manipulating others do have other choices. They can target other people who actually like it, have thick skins and/or are able to induce them to take turns. After all, that's what wrestling is all about, isn't it.
On the other hand, it wouldn't be necessarily to go through all these mental gyrations to justify behavior with false assumptions, if the manipulators were to redirect their attention from other people to the physical environment and come to realize that what humans form themselves up into groups for in the first place is to confront the forces of nature, which they can't control or manipulate as individuals for their own benefit or that of the group. In other words, if resistance and human conflict is to be avoided, then the manipulators need to accept that it's the environment that needs to be manipulated and governed, not other people.
But, that's hard work and "you can't fool mother nature." Which raises the question: who's really been lazy and stupid?
Posted by Hannah at October 25, 2005 07:00 AM