Canary Beck points us to an article by Auryn Beorn: Defend yourself from manipulators. It is interesting that this pops up now. A friend of mine just pointed me to The Federalist’s article by Stella Morabito titled How To Escape The Age Of Mass Delusion a day or so ago. Both of these writers are working with the presupposition that people are manipulating us. I’ll expand on that later.

Bobby and the Aversion Therapist by Robert Goldstein, on Flickr

Auryn starts off with entitlement. Auryn describes the entitlement people I have a problem with exactly as I see them. The TL:DR is give an inch and they’ll take a mile, cause you owe them. 

Auryn has some first hand stories of entitlement types trying to take her mile. Half way into the article she starts to write about how entitlement and manipulation go together. She makes the point that when one fails to comply with the wishes of the entitled, they get pissy and strive to make you do things. One of their manipulative tools is shame. As Auryn describes it, they try to make you feel bad about yourself to get their way. Have you heard anyone wanting something from you say, if you loved me you would…

Auryn suggests that realizing, admitting, and facing that you are being manipulated is key to being able to avoid manipulation. Recognizing manipulation for what it is allows you to defend yourself.

Our society is being taught to accept and submit to emotional manipulation without question. Those that believe they are entitled to have others support and serve them  have fully subscribed to the ideas being pushed. An effort is in progress to sell the idea you are entitled to… whatever.

The manipulators in politics are working to stop public discussion that reveals their manipulation. We can see some newspapers now refuse to print anything by those skeptical of manmade global warming, no matter how much hard science their writing includes. Essentially, in mainstream media science that disagrees with political agenda is suppressed.

Kirsten Powers, a columnist for USA Today, Newsweek and The Daily Beast, has a book out: The Silencing – How the Left is Killing Free Speech. Mrs. Powers is way Left of me and she is writing this?

The most revealing current book on the subject of manipulation is by Joost Meerloo titled: The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing.

Your Thinking

You can check your thinking to see if you have been influenced by this deluge of correct thinking. Ask yourself if you believe people can make you feel bad. If you believe that, you have a problem. You can be played.

I think most people know about Pavlov’s Dog. Ivan Pavlov (1850 – Russian) developed the ideas of classical conditioning that have grown into Behaviorism and Social Psychology. The abbreviated story of classical conditioning is; ring a bell, feed the dog, repeat for a time, and eventually when you ring the bell the dog will drool when no food is present.

A  key difference between dogs and humans that psychologist recognize is humans have a small time frame between experiencing a stimulus (ringing bell) and reacting. In that small time frame we choose how to react. Animals tend to react the same every time they encounter the stimulus. Humans way not so much.

To think another human can make you feel an emotion is a delusion. We do have a choice. There are things we all experience similarly. So, you may think you don’t have a choice about how you feel because… let’s take a close friend’s death… we all feel grief. We are unaware of that choice moment when we decide what to experience and how much of it. But, the variety of responses to news of a death shows people are choosing how and when they respond. For example no matter how close, we may postpone our grieving while we care for others. A wife losing a loved husband may care for the children ahead of her grieving. Choice…

We also see different people responding differently to the exact same ‘stimulus’. Whether it is a death, insult, or someone trying to manipulate us to their will. We do have a choice.

In our world now there are people working to place everyone in the position of a victim, in need of a white knight. Manipulative behavior is so prevalent it is being learned by almost everyone. It is your choice whether you allow yourself to be manipulated and/or to believe the ideas being sold. It is your choice whether you use the same tactics.