Manipulation

“ Once having mastered the underlying reason, he can evolve schemes of manipulation to suit his own particular needs, although, as a rule, those given in the following pages will be found to embody the result of many years' experience. ”

“ When the body is sufficiently controlled, we can attempt the manipulation of the mind. ”

“ Thus in a word, to avoid a long detail, those suspicious attachments, loose conversations, ridiculous compliances, and desires of pleasing, too much attended, have filled you with dispositions so nearly allied to guilt and debauchery, that you are no longer capable of resistance against any of their attacks; the corruption prepared by the whole train of your past actions, will be lighted up in an instant; your weakness will overcome your reflection; your heart will go against glory, duty, and yourself. ”

“ Can you control your character? We have already seen that you cannot. Can you control the conduct of others,—others perhaps whom you have never seen, but who may ruin you at a word; a despot, for instance, or a warrior? ”

“ Instinct turns instinct out, and thought
Wheels round on thought. To bleed for others’ wrongs
In vindication of a cause, to draw
The sword of the Lord and Gideon oh, that seems
The flower and top of life! But fight because
Some poor misconstruing trifler haps to say
I lie, when I do not lie,
Why should I? Call you this a cause? I can’t. ”

“ Shall we impute guilt where there is no design? Shall a man extract food for self-reproach from an action, to which it is not enough to say that he was actuated by no culpable intention, but that he was swayed by no intention whatever? ”

“ And this mania about responsibility has been disastrous for you too—you know that perfectly well. It has spoiled your life by keeping you in a perpetual state of fuss and worry, and of dissatisfaction with your own conduct and everybody else's. ”

“ A RULE OF LIFE
‘If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly, and even to harm him,’ said a crafty old knave to me, ‘you reproach him with the very defect or vice you are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant ... and reproach him!
‘To begin with, it will set others thinking you have not that vice.
‘In the second place, your indignation may well be sincere.... You can turn to account the pricks of your own conscience. ”

“ Therefore the accuser, when he says that anything has been done in compliance with some impulse, ought to exaggerate that impulse, and any other agitation or affection of the mind, with all the power of language and variety of sentiments of which he is master, and to show how great the power of love is, how great the agitation of mind which arises from anger, or from any one of those causes which he says was that which impelled any one to do anything. ”

“ To one who is imperfect, unstable, passionate, and revengeful? To a being who has, in fact, no uniformity of conduct, no system of action, and no immutability of procedure? No! Those who place their confidence here must be wretchedly disappointed, and an agitated mind will be their unavoidable portion. ”

“ For though volition itself can control, reinforce, and determine the particular sentiment and thus govern conduct,—reinforce, for instance, a weaker abstract moral sentiment so that it shall dominate any lower brutish instinct or sentiment with which it conflicts, still, volition must be a more complex form of conation and itself issue from sentiments. ”

“ Yet it is only by such analysis, such imagination, and such grasp, that conduct can be rightly guided in the absence of all other control: only so can ultimate rewards and penalties be made to outweigh proximate pains and pleasures. ”

“ The great world of moral agency turns glibly upon its pivots, by the momentum of habit and the association of ideas: mischief attends the attempt to urge its onward force, by more motive or reason, in any instance, than is wanted. ”

“ The Truth of it is, we Govern our Lives by Fancy, rather then by Judgment. We Mistake the Reasons of Things, and Impute the Issue of them to Wrong Causes. So that the Lesson given us here, is Preceptive to us, not to do any thing but upon due Consideration. ”

“ And we learn nothing from being told that our conscience or sense of duty, our sentiments in regard to right and wrong, our obligation to pursue one course of conduct and to avoid another course, are ultimate principles which admit of no further analysis or explanation. ”

“ No, he plumbs below action, below even conscious thought and feeling, to those erratic impulses that would make criminals or maniacs of us all if we followed them, not only the great overmastering passions that have their place in the Decalogue, but all the fitful whims and inconsequential trifles that influence conduct. ”

“ How few men we see use their authority to repair an error, punish a lie or any villainy whatsoever! Weakness, hesitation, doubt, lack of initiative, indifference, have taken the place of moral courage, and that through the lack of character-training. ”

“ All these indications, and many others which might be pointed out, show that there is a deep-seated and permanent instinct in the human heart which condemns such things; and nobody can engage in them without doing violence to this instinct, and thus committing a known wrong. ”

“ Instead of having our eyes opened by this cardinal error, we proceed to reason that their conduct should be made to become like our conduct, and that we should treat them and deal with them as if they were still just like us, with a history behind them similar to ours, with institutions similar to ours, and with an ethic similar to ours. ”

“ Is it not plain that their religious training has not given them moral stamina, or a rational view of life? That it has weakened their resistage by the constant suggestion of weakness and dependence, and given them only an arbitrary rule of conduct and not a vital purpose in life? Believing themselves "vile worms of the dust," they act the part! ”

“ The choice that is finally made between the right, the expedient, and the wrong is determined by a variety of considerations—by conflicting emotions, by the balancing of probabilities and inclinations, by the degree or kind of temptation, by the presence or absence of witnesses, especially human, by other specialties of an animal's position, by the nature and extent of its moral training, by the character of the rewards and punishments offered on previous occasions. ”

“ I felt pleasant in punishing them, telling them straight to their faces the truth about themselves, what sort they were. Is everyone who dares tell the truth mad? I assure you, gentlemen experts, that I was altogether conscious that, when striking, I felt the contact of my hand with a live body experiencing pain. ”

“ Instinctively, as we must, all of us feel the weight of such colossal crimes against the meaning of instinct as those above—our cosmic disavowals (by our acts) of any responsibility toward men to come. ”

“ And here we may pause to observe how the strange contradictions that are found in the human character frequently produce a line of conduct which would, at first sight, appear irreconcilable with all probability, and yet which is in strict accordance with the secret workings of the wayward will by which it is directed. ”

“ The complex play of action and motive—the purpose blunted by overmuch thinking, the spurs to dull revenge, the self-contempt, the assumed antic disposition, at times the real mental disturbance—all this was set before us with a fine skill and resource. ”

“ They are ready for the sacrifice, which various motives concur to render agreeable. They resign themselves passively, mind and body, into the hands of the manipulator; and by his passes and grimaces, they are cowed pleasureably, bullied delightfully, into so 'much of the condition which their inclinations are bent upon attaining, as justifies them, they think, in laying claim to the whole condition, without bringing them under the imputation of being downright impostors. ”

“ The alleged relationship consists, not so much in the similar abuse which is made in both systems of the doctrine of necessity, but in the leading intention of both; which is to inclose the human mind in a perfect envelop of abstractions, such as may effectively defend it from the importunate sense of responsibility, or obligation, and such as shall render him who wears it a passive spectator of his own destinies. ”

“ In my work, I have seen the residue of mind control -- of the mind control process. Hundreds of distraught and helpless parents and relatives suddenly confronted with lies, contradictions, and the deception of their loved ones. They see sincere, frightened, mindless people who have been conditioned to respond to the push-button control of their leaders. ”

“ In action? By being idle ? — slow or impatient about my work ? Have I not been in evil or dangerous company ? Done any immodest action ? Been too free in my manners ? Been rude, cross, or disobedient towards my parents or superiors ? Been unkind, insolent, malicious, cruel or unjust towards my neighbor ? ”

“ Accordingly we say that it is right to acquire and to exercise this control; and the control is supposed to exist whenever we say that one feeling or disposition of mind is right and another wrong. Thus, in connection with the precept against stealing, we condemn envy and covetousness; we applaud a sensitive honesty which shudders at anything underhand or dishonorable. ”

“ Do thou, therefore, keep thy high office to thyself, with the reward thou wilt have from it: seek not to share it with me; for even if all go well with thee, yet hast thou naught to carry home with thee but an ill conscience. And if thou art minded to obey that conscience, then wilt thou be quickly deposed from thy commands as incapable, for all the world as if thou too wert become a stupid calf. ”

“ From most of the dangers to which mankind is exposed in the complex conditions of our own society, the means of escape lie in complex activities of a manipulative kind which seem to justify the term I have chosen. ”

“ Diligence, economy, perseverance, gentleness, pure thoughts—may all become the governing habits of our lives if we will but center our attention upon them repeatedly and crowd out the evil tendencies. ”

“ So it is with countless other questions of conduct, which at various times, in various communities, with various individuals, involve this feeling. In some people it is highly developed and frequently determines the motive of conduct, in a fine, noble, compelling way which is directly opposed to material considerations of self-interest. In other people, it is so feeble, and crude that its wee small voice is seldom heeded or heard in the calculations and decisions of their practical lives. ”

“ But our judgment concerning a man's motives, his temper, and his full conquest over self, vanity and impulsive passion, depends on the accurate knowledge of a vast variety of minor points; even the curl of the lip, or the discord of eye and mouth, may change our moral judgment of a man ”

“ But is he freed from responsibility because he is temporarily governed by his instincts, or is he steered by his instincts only when and because he throws away responsibility? Is it impulsive, instinctive action that excuses him, or is it excuses that are wanted by him, which makes him call his action, or the part of it he wants to be excused for, instinctive? ”

“ What moral purpose can be answered by extolling good dispositions, as they are called, when these good dispositions are described as instincts: for instinct moves in a direct line to its ultimate end, and asks not for guide or support. ”

“ However ridiculous and pernicious we must admit the vulgar accessories of this creed to be, there is a certain analogy, not wholly absurd, between the consequences resulting to an individual during life from the virtuous or vicious, prudent or imprudent, conduct of his external actions, to those consequences which are conjectured to ensue from the discipline and order of his internal thoughts, as affecting his condition in a future state. ”

“ Though he might occasionally seek a compromise in simple matters of conduct, realizing the fall of man and the infirmity of human nature, where matters of doctrine were concerned his conscience was inflexible. ”

“ Manners are what vex or sooth, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarise or refine, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and colors to our lives. According to their quality they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them. ”

“ In these Sentiments, then, not in a Discovery of Relations of any Kind, do all moral Determinations consist. Before we can pretend to form any Decision of this kind, every Thing must be known and ascertain'd on the Side of the Object or Action. Nothing remains but to feel, on our Part, some Sentiment of Blame or Approbation, whence we pronounce the Action criminal or virtuous. ”

“ So the double origin of conduct offers a very serious difficulty, which, when it is understood, is not unlike that of the two powers or selves or classes, but even more is to be said in exposure of our moral judgments. ”

“ If we connive at abuses, we juggle with our own reason and integrity—if we attack them, how much, how fatally we may derange that solemn and conventional ORDER which is the mainspring of the vast machine! ”

“ He learns that the external, with which he is identified, is a will which can be asserted against himself with painful consequences, and that its pleasant or painful assertions in relation to himself, are connected with certain classes of his own activities. He finds, or should find, that the willing against the will of the superior is useless and, besides, gives pain to himself, both by the displeasure of the superior, and also by more direct unpleasant results. ”

“ It is an unfortunate but undeniable fact that conduct is least often determined by valuation. Realization or anticipation of the end of action is not the necessary stimulus of action, neither does it conform to volition or striving; but realization of consequences frequently inhibits the fulfilment of volition. Both conduct and volition are determined by the relation of subject to object, and by the constitution of the ego, conditioned, as it is, by the innumerable factors of heredity and environment. ”