Authenticity City

 Most Madame M:

“Peppery complaints sprayed against the Occupiers”?  Nice turning of a phrase Madame, rich in meaning!

Perhaps the newly awakened will NEED hope, but perhaps also that is not the most important thing.  Because, Hedges says, it may not be there, at least not for themselves, or at the very least not in the short-term, and they shouldn’t buy into the illusion that it is.  Struggling on and registering protest, even when there is little to no hope in the recognizable future, needs to occur, however, at least so there can be a worthwhile future, sometime.   As Hedges says, that may be the most important thing.  Sometimes it is only when the desperate 1) cease to cooperate and 2) protest without hope, that change, oddly enough, becomes possible.  Those who have little to lose can be a welling and sometimes unstoppable force.  Yet unlike some other cultures, we have been poor strugglers for the long haul.  We are decent problem solvers for the short term, but long struggles?  We have rarely had the indomitable will and enduring faith, grit, and determination.

Becoming unstuck in time are you, pilgrim? :)

Is it manipulation to encourage healthy behaviors?  Not so much.  Not when there are steep costs to society.  Free riders are manipulating the system, albeit selfishly and perhaps unconsciously, by choosing their destructive habits and behaviors, and then expecting us to pay for their consequences.   I would therefore assert it is not manipulation to incent behaviors when that is the case, but only a mild implementation of restoring market rationality.  I have said before (and will again) that our society will function much better, and far more realistically, when the true costs for things are made apparent.  Our market system is demonstrably flawed (and failing at one of its central premises) because so many costs are absorbed by the society, diverted, subsidized, or masked, and NOT made part of the transaction.  The consumer is not operating with all the necessary information, and therefore is not making a really rational or well-informed decision in many cases.   From fuel costs to certain foods, to many other things, the list is really large.

But your concerns about manipulation are well-founded.  Hedges sums up many examples with these words: “the true purpose of positive psychology—how to manipulate people to do what you want.” (125)

Tendrils of weakening and diversion work better than boots on the neck for longer-term behavior modification.  Weakness sews apathy, and despair, and diversion breeds embrace of illusion.  Force can bring fear, it is true, but it can also bring strong reaction and determination (and thus force often contains within it the seeds of its own destruction).

It has been left to philosophers to register the warnings to our nearly deaf and nearly scatomic audio and visual receptors: As Hedges records, philosopher David “Jopling warns of grave moral consequences for a delusional society. ‘This means that the range of social, emotional, and personal relations that connect us to others, to the social world, and to our own humanity, are progressively weakened as self-deceptive strategies become progressively entrenched in behavior and thoughts.’” (124)

I am going to both agree and disagree with you about the techniques demonstrated on pages 125-126.  I would agree they would not be appropriate (indeed, could be counterproductive) for a pre-teen, but for a teenager, they may have a place, at least at times.  While it seems to this reader that Hedges has a bit too much suspicion sometimes of things that are well meaning (but perhaps occasionally misguided), I do agree with him that much of the subtle (and often insincere) manipulation is all about CONTROL, especially where corporations are concerned.

Ah, progress of a sort.  I have joined you, Madame Housewife, in proceeding a few pages into the chapter.  I do tarry a bit, ‘tis true, but there is just SO MUCH that is important!

And while I have seemed to blow my self-limit on paragraphs, many of them are quite short, so perhaps I can be given a pass? If you count the sizable ones, there are only five! :)