A. MANIPULATION (also known as MANIPULATIVE PERSUASI0N
Manipulation is a form of persuasion with these characteristics.
[Definition]: "I
manipulate another person
when I persuade the other to do what I want --
(1a) against the other's Will and
(1b) against the other's Best Interest
using techniques of
(2) Deception /Fraud
and/or
(3) Coercion /Force."
Manipulation carries its own underlying view of the person:
The manipulator sees the other
When you understand what manipulation means, you understand that it is non-reversible. You cannot reasonably agree to be manipulated in this technical sense. For that would mean agreeing to be treated not as a person but as a thing without value in its own right, without intellect and without freedom to consent.AS IF a thing to be used (having no worth in his or her own right)
AS IF without intellect (since the manipulator is willing to deceive)
AS IF without free will (since the manipulator is willing to coerce, to override free consent).
***********************************************************************************************Manipulators come is a variety of forms. Psychologist Frederick "Fritz" Perls distinguished Top Dog and Underdog Manipulators.
Top Dog manipulators use coercion or threat of coercion. They typically use an aggressive, bullying style. (My way "or else!")
Underdog manipulators are equally powerful but they use deception (e.g. hidden agenda). They typically play on sympathy or guilt, playing, for example, "Poor me, I can't . . . Rescue me!" See Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (New York: Bantam, 1959/1971)
Perls' student Everett L. Shostrum gives four types of Top Dog and four types of Under Dog manipulators. See his Man the Manipulator (New York: Bantam, 1968).
Paternalism is a halfway house. Similar to manipulation in all
but one small respect.
Thus, paternalism is like manipulation in everything except that it is allegedly done in the other's best interest. Suppose your son or daughter is riding a tricycle in the street. You come home and take the child out of harm's way and seek to rationally persuade the child how dangerous it is to ride in the road. But the child is unpersuaded. So you either coerced the child to stay out of the road or you deceive the child (e.g. by telling the child that there is a monster in a tree that eats children who ride in the road). Here reasonable coercion seems preferable! The test is delayed reversibility. When the child is grown, if asked, remember that time when you were three and playing in the road and I forced you to stay out of the road, do you now agree that was reasonable to do? Or if you force a drunk not to drive home, will the drunk when sober and reasonable agree that you did in fact act in his or her best interest?Paternalism is a form of persuasion that occurs
when I persuade another to do what I want
(1a) against the other's will
using (2) deception and/or (3) coercion
but with the contention that the course of action
is intended to be and can reasonably be said to be
(1b) in the other's best interest.
Non-Manipulative Persuasion occurs when manipulation is totally reversed.
You seek to persuade the
other
by deeply respecting who the other person is,
by appealing to the other's intellect, giving solid information and argument,
and
by offering the other person the full freedom to accept or reject your
advice
(with no manifest or hidden disapproval or abandonment).
Non-manipulative or Ethically Respectful Persuasion also reveals an underlying view of persons.
In NMP,
you are treating the other
(1) as a center of worth in his or her own right with
(2) a mind and therefore the right to relevant information, and
(3) a free will and therefore with a right to have his or her free consent
respected.
.
In the philosopher Kant's phrase, you are treating the other as "equal,
rational and free."
Such a mode of relating is fully reversible. You could agree to be treated in this way whether you are on the side of the persuader or the one persuaded.
Implications of these distincitons:
1. MP is also wrong to do -- although there are differing degrees of harm. Why? Because it is wrong to treat a person as if the person were a thing to be used, as if a person did not have a mind, as if a person did not have free will.. MP is not Golden Rule Reversible.
2. NMP is Golden Rule Reversible. You could agree to be treated as a center of worth with a mind and with the right to give free consent whether you are on the side of the persuader or the one persuaded. Hence, NMP is always ethically fine.
3. Paternalism is sometimes ethically justifiable and sometimes not. Each case must be evaluated on its merits.
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