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 Peg's
Polemic
Every
month, philosopher Peg Tittle casts off the calm, measured and qualified
style of her profession to deliver her opinionated and impassioned
column, exclusively for the TPM philosophy café...
Number
34. Speaking
in Code
"I
just can't give any more, sorry." But of course he can. He
just doesn't want to. By saying "can't" instead of "won't",
however, he appears powerless and thus absolves himself of responsibility;
as a result, we don't even consider the matter of blame.
"That's
not gonna happen." Okay. So informed, we move on. But in most
cases, the accurate, honest, statement would have been "I
don't think that's gonna happen" or "I don't want
that to happen." By presenting an opinion as fact, the speaker
has diverted our attention from evidence and reasons.
"We
need to bring our product in line with contemporary standards."
The royal "we" effects a diffusion of responsibility,
deflecting accountability from the individual who's speaking. "Need"
is a lie: we won't die without it. But "need" is far more
compelling than "want" - it's harder to refuse.
To "bring in line" suggests cooperation, rather than obedience.
"Contemporary" sounds so much better than the "old"
standards, and "standards" implies something that's received
official, i.e., expert, approval. Really, he's just saying "I
want you to do what I want-this." And that would be
much easier to say "No" to.
"Hey
now, what kind of way is that to talk?" Code for "I don't
want to hear those words" - to which the person might simply
respond, "So?" Instead, he or she feels chastised.
The
manipulation is done so smoothly, it's impressive. I have enough
trouble getting clear about my true meaning, I couldn't possibly
engage in the simultaneous translation these people seem to do so
effortlessly in order to cover their truth and manipulate us into
assent, or at least out of dissent. They load their language without
even thinking. How can they be so quick, so clever?
They're
not. They are doing it without even thinking. They're not
translating from A to B - they're going right to B; they're not
even aware of A. I've been attributing far more consciousness than
is warranted. It's not that they're thinking more (let alone, more
quickly) than me. They're thinking less. They're not thinking at
all about what they're saying, about how they're saying it. Consider
that when I point out what I think they really mean, when
I decode what they say in order to challenge or simply clarify,
they insist I'm reading too much into a simple choice of words -
I'm over-analyzing. Truth is, they're not analyzing enough. Or at
all.
But
still - how is it they are so unconsciously manipulative? It just
comes 'naturally'. And that is far scarier than thinking they do
it intentionally. All those manipulative phrases 0 these people
are simply saying it the way they've been conditioned to say it,
or, more accidentally, just the way they've heard others say it.
So
it's not that I'm a relative moron at strategic behaviour - it's
that somehow I missed out on that conditioning. Probably because
I'm not a male. And I consciously rejected any parallel conditioning
directed to females.
So
here I am. Either taking what people say at face value and being
manipulated left, right, and centre, or trying to do decode everything.
Of course, by the time I decode what they've said, B into A, they've
said something else. And when I respond directly to A, they think
I've gone off-topic. So I have to explain that their B is a translation
of A. But they don't want to hear it. I suppose I could just respond
to their B with a B of my own - but to do that, I have to decode
their B into A, figure out my response to it, then encode my A into
a B. And by the time I've done that, they've left. Which is just
as well.
.
Peg's
Polemic will next be updated early December 2003
Previous
polemics
33.
32.
31.
30.
29.
28.
27.
26.
25.
24.
23.
22.
21.
20.
19.
18.
17.
16.
15.
14.
13.
12.
11.
10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
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