Manipulation Eight Ways to Control Others Joseph Kirschner

MANIPULATION EIGHT WAYS TO CONTROL OTHERS JOSEPH KIRSCHNER translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn

This is a shrewd and ruthless analysis of what everyone does to everybody else everyday—psychological manipulation. Here are the eight ways to make others do what you want them to, and to minimize your own chances of being exploited. The author warns you, first of all, to identify your opponents—and in the Manipulation Game, that means everyone: your boss, the media, your family, the opposite sex. In this training manual of basic human interaction, you can learn how to increase yourself-confidence by systematically demolishing your opponents; how to control your own emotions while profiting from the passions of others; how to understand fear and overcome it; and how to think on one level while talking on another. Manipulation makes it possible for you to win every game. Rule 1: If you want to be talked about, use your elbows. Rule 2: Don’t just sit there—do something! Do the unexpected, and do it deliberately. Rule 3: Don’t equate packaging with contents. Nobody’s looking after you, so fend for yourself. Rule 4: Repeat and repeat the message. Take advantage of your adversary’s mistakes and watch your self-confidence increase as you demolish him. Rule 5: Recognize the power of emotion. Control your dependence on it and prevent others from doing so. Rule 6: Motivate through fear and learn how to overcome your own. Rule 7: Make up your own mind or someone will do it for you. Rule 8: Use speech to your own advantage. You can tell anyone anything—if you know how to do it.

Manipulation tells you how to impose your views, convince others, assert yourself in a hostile environment, resist exploitation, and attain your chosen objectives by learning the rules of purposeful human intercourse that govern all success and much personal happiness. Joseph Kirschner teaches at the University of Vienna, where he also heads the metropolitan bureau for a German newspaper and is a television commentator.

Henry Regnery Company Chicago Jacket design by Ray Nyquist ISBN: 0-8092-8049-3 MANIPULATION EIGHT WAYS TO CONTROL OTHERS JOSEPH KIRSCHNER TRANSLATED BY J. MAXWELL BROWNJOHN HENRY REGNERY COMPANY CHICAGO Kirschner, Josef, 1931Manipulation: eight ways to control others. 1. Persuasion (Psychology) 2. Influence (Psychology) I. Title. BF637.P4K5313 1976

158M

76-5387

ISBN 0-8092-8049-3 © 1974 Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Th. Knaur Nachf. Muncha Munich/Zurich ©This translation 1975 by Abelard-Schuman Limited First published in Great Britain in 1975 under the title The Manipulation Game and How to Play It by Abelard-Schuman Limited, London.All rights reserved. Published in the United States in 1976 by Henry Regnery Company 180 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60601 Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-5387 International Standard Book Number: 0-8092-8049-3

To my son Harald Contents If you want to fulfil yourself and your ideas, master the rules of the game Some hints on how to make the most of this book Whenever someone opens his mouth to address someone else, he has just one end in view: to manipulate him RULE NO. 1 If you want to be talked about, use your elbows Our six opponents in the game:

1.

The opposite sex

2.

All who obstruct our progress

3.

Authority and those who wield it

4.

The society we live in

5.

The media

6.

Our families

RULE NO. 2 Don’t just sit there — do something! Next time you walk into a restaurant, think first Six effective ways of capturing attention 1.

Doing the unexpected

2.

Deliberate flattery

3.

Deliberate provocation

4.

Superior knowledge

5.

The indirect approach

6.

If at first you don’t succeed

RULE NO. 3 Don’t equate packaging with contents Why no angler baits his hoolc with cake Nobody safeguards another’s interests at the expense of his own, so fend for yourself RULE NO. 4 What happens when someone hears the same message repeatedly instead of once How your own self-confidence increases as you systematically demolish your opponent’s Three methods often used in the manipulative repetition of a message 1.

Stereotyped reiteration

2.

Quantitative multiplication

3.

Qualitative reinforcement

Forgiving an opponent’s mistakes may be generous, but many people are experts at turning them to their own advantage RULE NO. 5 Recognize the power of emotion and your approach to many aspects of life will be transformed overnight 100

Why it’s no accident that we rate courage good and cowardice bad, not vice versa How to control our dependence on emotion and prevent others from doing the same A few practical tips on how to profit from the emotional dependence of other RULE NO. 6 Many heroes are motivated by fear of disgrace Three common forms of fear which make us peculiarly susceptible to manipulation 1.

Fear of losing an acquisition

2.

Fear of uncertainty

3.

Fear of reality

The three crucial steps towards overcoming any fear and preventing its exploitation by others Some ideas on how to benefit by your opponents’ fear in the manipulation game RULE NO. 7 Make up your own mind or someone will do it for you The two extreme types of decision-maker and how they can be influenced Anyone who aims to influence a decision has a vested interest in supplying partial information only Take refuge on the summit of Mount Everest: your decisions will still be influenced by others Why we often want to reverse a decision just taken The decision-making process and how it can be influenced in others to our own advantage RULE NO. 8 Why few words often achieve more than many The art of thinking on one level and speaking on another You can tell anyone anything — without exception. It all depends how you do it Four effective ways of using speech to your own advantage Postscript

If you want to fulfil yourself and your ideas, master the rules of the game

The world is full of ambitious and hard-working people endowed with a wide range of exceptional talents, but all their plans and projects fall flat. Why? For one reason only: they haven’t mastered the ways and means of influencing people. Advertising men, politicians and professional salesmen know how it’s done. The rules they follow are the age-old rules of manipulation. Most people who fail to achieve their aims and intentions, wholly or in part, are quick to abandon the struggle. Brimming with self-pity, they blame their failure on others. That is why the world contains so many discontented people who have lost faith in themselves. They live life at second hand, waiting day after day for someone else to come and tell them what they ought to say, think or buy. Undiscriminating, easy-going and submissive, they allow themselves to become victims of manipulation by others. These people have failed to realize that manipulation is a basic ingredient of human coexistence. If you are going to impose your views, convince others, assert yourself in a hostile environment, resist exploitation and attain your chosen objectives, you must learn the rules of purposeful human intercourse which govern all success — and, consequently, a substantial proportion of your personal happiness. Those who master these rules will fulfil themselves and their ideas. Those who don’t trouble to recognize them, re-examine them daily and use them as aids to self-development, must not be surprised if they remain permanently dissatisfied with themselves and the world around them.

Some hints on how to make the most of this book Before delving into the pages that follow, better devote a little thought to how you plan to use the goods on offer. This is not the sort of book to be skimmed through and tossed aside with a few complacent comments. If all you’re after is a quick dip at the shallow end, that’s your privilege, but be warned: you’ll have thrown at least 70 per cent of the purchase price down the drain. This is a training manual. Its contents are designed to be of lasting benefit in everyday life. Its aim is to present the eight most important methods of influencing

people and explain their application. It will also provide you with continuous encouragement to make daily use of the knowledge you acquire. In other words, this book is a permanent challenge to you to manipulate other people more effectively and deliberately than before — and to derive the full benefits of such a process. Manipulate your fellow-men .... Your first, natural reaction to this summons will be unfavourable. The word ‘manipulation’ has acquired an exceptionally negative flavour. In modem parlance, it suggests underhand ways of doing people down, wanton deception and exploitation of the gullible dumbclucks with whom — curiously enough — we always identify ourselves. ‘Manipulation’ sounds unfair, impermissible and unscrupulous. The next chapter will deal with these hackneyed ideas and the misconceptions they embody. In essence, the content and form of each chapter devoted to the eight main rules of manipulation will fall into two parts: 1. A definition and explanation of the rule under review, complete with numerous examples and suggestions. We shall analyse the techniques and tactics of manipulation, also the behavioural background of those who are manipulated by such methods. 2. Recommendations on how you yourself can make use of the knowledge you have gained. You should therefore devote a fair time to each manipulative rule, but bear one thing in mind: making the most of what this book has to offer does not depend on exact compliance with each and every suggestion. All that matters is the practical benefit you derive from these recommendations, each and every day from now on. Manipulation, persuasion, salesmanship or self-assertion — or whatever we choose to call it — is a skill which can be acquired in the same way as accountancy, foreign languages or sports. In every branch of learning, the student’s degree of success is determined by two things: 1.

A thorough understanding and mastery of basic principles.

2.

Continuous self-improvement by means of regular practice.

Precisely the same applies to our ability to- influence others.

Whenever someone opens his mouth to address someone else, he has just one end in view: to manipulate him You may be one of those on whom the countless catch- phrases about the perils of manipulation have left their mark: slogans such as ‘We are the victims of the mass-media manipulators’, or ‘The bulk of humanity is manipulated by a few people for their own ends’, or ‘The more perfect our means of communication, the more hopelessly we are at the mercy of those who control them’. Before tackling the rules and techniques of manipulation, we must deal with a few erroneous ideas and behavioural cliches which have an important bearing on the matter. To get one thing straight from the start: it is, of course, true that a few people manipulate the bulk of mankind, likewise that they do so with the clear intention of benefiting as much as possible from the process. It is equally true, however, that most of us spend a lifetime waiting for someone to come along and tell us what we ought to think or say, do or buy. In other words: someone who will relieve us of a decision which we ourselves are unable or unwilling to make because we find it too arduous. We all have a secret itch to belong to the select few who know how to exploit others. On the other hand, we are fundamentally unable or unwilling to evade manipulation by our fellows. There is little point, therefore, in enlarging on the perils of manipulation in a practical discussion of this kind. What concerns us far more is the extent to which: we ourselves benefit from techniques of manipulation and the rules that underlie them; and can guard against being exploited by others to our own detriment. ‘Manipulation,’ declares the Swiss scholar Adolf Portmann, ‘is a phenomenon basic to our humanity.’ An American student of human nature, Professor Walter G. Pinecoke, puts it this way: ‘Whenever someone opens his mouth to address someone else, he really has just one end in view: to manipulate him and make the most of it.’ Exaggerated as Pinecoke’s assertion may sound, it does expose one fundamental motive governing our behaviour. We genuinely do spend our entire lives trying to prevail over others. They must do

what we expect of them, accept and respect us, acknowledge our capabilities and help us on our way. Anything that brings us nearer this goal is all right with us, be it the exercise of power, the wielding of wealth or authority, or the use of some other form of self-assertion. The boss says: ‘If you don’t meet your sales target, you can kiss that bonus goodbye.’ The teacher says: ‘Either you pipe down at once, or you’ll get some extra work.’ Or: ‘If you don’t put your back into it, I’ll have to flunk you.’ The business executive says: ‘My next car’s got to have more poke and a few extras.’ The television commercial urges housewives to buy a new detergent because it guarantees an even whiter wash, although they’re quite incapable of distinguishing the latest shade of whiteness from its predecessor. The subordinate says: ‘The old man told me I’m an incompetent fool — I’ll show him!’ The tycoon says: ‘X is worth a million more than me, but next year I’ll overhaul him.’ Representatives of government authority say: ‘Anyone who breaks the law must be punished.’ At bottom, their main concern is to prevent the undermining of their own authority. In many of the instances quoted above, a quite specific method has been used to gain a desired end: intimidation. In actual fact, fear is one of the commonest determinants of behaviour: the fear which inhibits us and governs our actions, and the fear we inspire in others so as to render them amenable to our aims. The teacher threatens his pupils with extra work or bad marks, and the pupils are afraid of being punished. They fear bad marks because these may displease their parents, whose goodwill they are frightened of losing. Parents, in turn, are afraid that their children will do badly at school, so they too employ fear as an incentive to greater effort. The State issues continuous threats of punishment, and citizens are scared of being caught in contravention of the rules prescribed for them — unless, of course, they have the money to hire a smart lawyer or tax accountant who will help them find

a gap in the law. Perhaps the most widespread fear is that of failing to make the grade or win acceptance socially. We make frantic efforts to do the done thing rather than attract unwelcome attention. We follow fashion and try to be ‘with it’, whether in telling jokes, describing our vacations, exhibiting our professional authority or playing the know-all. The reward for which we yearn is recognition. Naturally, fear also besets the ‘big boys’ who occupy the very apex of the pyramid of professional or social esteem. Bosses, showbiz personalities and senior executives are constantly harried by those who crowd them from below. The man at the top wants to stay there. Fear of being ousted keeps him on his toes night and day. Just like manipulation, fear — to quote Adolf Portmann — is ‘a phenomenon basic to our humanity’. Some people know how to inspire fear in others and bend them to their will. Others, less expert, are motivated by fear of their inability to perform what the intimidators expect of them. Here again, it is idle to raise the question of guilt. We all inspire fear just as we are all its victims. What matters is to ascertain the extent to which we are daily subjected to manipulative intimidation by others. Above all, we must determine how far we are able and willing to expand our scope for free decision-making by deliberately recognizing and controlling our fears. As to whether we wish to manipulate others by a more effective use of fear, this decision rests with the individual. After all, everyone is just as free to decide whether or not to impose his will on another by holding a loaded gun to his head. The question is, would that also be a form of manipulation? Of course not. Manipulation in our sense is based on a deliberate understanding of the person to be manipulated. It exploits his inertia, his ignorance, his apathy and indecision; it does not threaten his existence. He must be granted an opportunity to outdo us. This is an essential feature of the daily manipulation game, which would be unplayable without an opponent. This technique of self-assertion, this ‘phenomenon basic to our humanity’, can be used by and on anyone. The person who has a good understanding and mastery of it will fare better than someone whose grasp and expertise are less complete. In this game, each of us is confronted by six main opponents. All are governed by

the same objective. All pursue their own interests, which may well conflict with ours, and many of them employ the subtlest methods imaginable. Manipulative antagonism cuts clean across families and places of work, friendships and social groups. It exists in nursery school as much as it does in high society, so called, not to mention business, politics and the arts. No holds are barred in this contest, or almost none, for all its outward observance of form and displays of fellow-feeling. When the chips are down, charity begins at home. Under the first rule of manipulation, therefore, let us give our six main adversaries the once-over, like a boxer studying his opponent at the weigh-in before a world championship. Rule No. 1 The daily manipulation game brings us face to face with six main opponents. They all try to get the better of us, just as we try to get the better of them for our own benefit. A player’s degree of success or failure depends largely on the consistency with which, having deliberately manipulated and studied his opponents, he acts in accordance with his findings.

Our six opponents: 1. The opposite sex 2. All who obstruct our progress 3. Authority and those who wield it 4. The society we live in 5. The media 6. Our families

If you want to be talked about, use your elbows This rule simply enjoins you to familiarize yourself with the opposition. It summons you to accept that, in the daily game of manipulation, everyone — repeat, everyone

— is your opponent in the sense defined here. You may like or even love people — they may be your friends or children. The fact remains that they are for ever trying to manipulate you or you them. If you love people, you try to secure their love in return. You try to appear at your best, convince them that you possess the qualities which in your opinion make you lovable. In essence, you are behaving no differently from a commercial concern which stresses the merits of a product so as to make it attractive to the consumer. Deliberate acceptance of this fact and its resultant antagonism is an essential aid to ‘selling’ your projects and ideas, your desires and emotions, and — consequently — yourself. At the time when I was collecting material for this book, I happened to be a co-author of the TV series Wunsch Dir Was (Make a Wish). It was probably the most controversial, hotly debated and fiercely criticized programme of popular entertainment ever presented on German-language television. I am betraying no secrets when I say that one of our basic aims was to provoke the viewers, who sometimes numbered as many as 30 million. We wanted to goad them into a critical appraisal of, and attitude towards, the problems we presented. To put it still more bluntly, we wanted — in the present sense — to manipulate them. One of my most interesting experiences in nearly three years’ work on Wunsch Dir

Was was an encounter with a dainty, dark-haired little woman whose life changed completely as a result of the programme. Her name: Esther Vilar. We had the idea of staging a discussion between her and the female members of families entered for the quiz game. Some of us had read her revolutionary pronouncements on relations between the sexes, but relatively few people were at that stage familiar with the name Esther Vilar or the title of her book, Manipulated

Man. She was duly invited to appear on the programme. The night she arrived, I joined her in a restaurant to discuss the forthcoming show. It soon became clear that there was a big difference between her personal manner and the aggressive remarks in her book. I still have a vivid recollection of the nervous way she said: ‘Please tell me right away — how do I avoid putting the viewers’ backs up?’ There she sat, a woman with big and original ideas but no conception of how to

put them over. Her views were provocative in the extreme, but she could not see how to impress them on the people she so dearly wanted to provoke. She did not recognize her opponents as targets for persuasion. All she said, as she rather helplessly sipped her wine, was: ‘Tell me right away — how do I avoid putting the viewers’ backs up?’ She had devoted 200 pages of her book to an account of how women manipulate their menfolk. When it was a matter of selling herself to an audience of millions by deliberate manipulation, she failed. My advice was as follows: ‘You want people to talk about you and discuss your ideas? In that case, do precisely the opposite of what you’re suggesting. Rub them up the wrong way.’ She did so with a vengeance. Even before the programme ended, women viewers were bombarding the switchboard with threats to run ‘that stupid bitch’ out of town. Months later, newspapers were still printing pieces about her. In countless families, her TV appearance remained Topic No. 1 long after the event. Her book shot to the top of the best-seller list and made a great deal of money. I quote this example to show how important it is not to leave the influencing of others to chance. You must make it a deliberate and purposeful process. Above all, identify the opponents who confront you in your daily endeavours. The opposite sex is your first and permanent adversary in the struggle to prevail. Whether you succeed or fail will depend on your degree of manipulative skill. You want to impress and captivate your opponents in this contest, persuade them to hop into bed with you, possibly marry them. Many people claim that none of this applies to them, but their universal disclaimer merely amounts, of course, to an attempt to impress others with their ostensible superiority. It may also be a form of insurance against disappointment. ‘She doesn’t mean anything to me really ...’ The man who starts out on this note can always end by saying, when ‘she’ has sent him off with a flea in his ear: ‘It wasn’t serious anyway.’ Be that as it may, most couples marry ultimately because one of them has prevailed over the other. Throughout its duration, their marriage is governed by a daily trial of strength in which each tries to assert his or her dominance over the other party. This contest resembles a never-ending guerrilla war which not infrequently develops into a pitched battle when both opponents fail to grasp and master the rules

of mutual manipulation. In such instances, hostilities may culminate in the extreme behaviour which makes such colourful reading in the popular press. To quote a recent case: ‘Gerhard K., a 34-year-old office worker from Westphalia, stabbed his 22-year-old wife seventeen times with a screwdriver because she informed him over supper that her boy-friend had more stamina in bed .. .’ Other people resort to the less sanguinary expedient of divorce — that is, unless they for some reason prefer to spend the rest of their lives apathetically brooding in a state of resigned and hopeless self-pity. Why do these things happen? The answer is quite simple: because of a failure to see that all coexistence between two individuals bears the impress of an unremitting attempt by each partner to prevail over the other. People who accept this irrefutable fact will not regard every attempt at manipulation by their partners as a personal insult to which the only response is a declaration of war. Instead, they will join in the game and react with manipulative measures of their own. Those who grasp this will recognize, in addition to their own striving for approval, that others are engaged in precisely the same quest. One of the many advantages which accrue from the manipulative rules is that one attack need not be countered by another. The proper response may be a gesture which peacefully disarms the aggressor. For reasons whose exploration must be left to philosophers, psychologists and other trained theoreticians, we are all engaged in a ceaseless struggle to get ahead. We all hanker to earn more and acquire greater influence and prestige by climbing the professional and social ladder. On our upward route, we inevitably encounter one or two people who either obstruct us or could be helpful but are not. Under the rules of manipulation, they must all be classed as opponents. They include: 1. Anyone who occupies a position we covet ourselves. 2. Anyone who shares our designs on the said position. 3. Anyone qualified to decide who will climb the next rung or able to give us

positive assistance in taking our next step. Professional aptitude has a certain bearing on personal advancement, of course, but we all know that the best people don’t always get the jobs they deserve. There are hosts of conscientious, hard-working and highly qualified idealists who pin their hopes of success on performance alone but never make it. Why not? Let Claude G. Hopkins, an American pioneer in the field of advertising and modem selling techniques, supply the answer. He tells us that it isn’t enough to be ‘good’: at least as important as skill and know-how, hard work and goodwill is the ability to persuade people to appreciate ourselves and our achievements and reward them to our advantage. Because this seldom happens without our help, we must study the rules for success and lend practical effect to any inferences we draw about our future progress. Where many of our ambitions are concerned, we find ourselves confronted by people like brick walls — people who have carved out a special niche in the hierarchy of coexistence: the status of an authority. The authorities most firmly entrenched in our minds are: Parents Superiors The stronger The State and those who claim to represent it Experts of all kinds The majority Title-holders A child can be right a hundred times over in what it wants. If its father says: ‘I’m your father, I know better’, his view will prevail in the end. If your opponent is someone who can barricade himself behind the authority of a government department, you labour under an immediate disadvantage. He can always find some regulation to invoke. This relieves him of individual responsibility and enables him to coerce you. You have nothing to invoke but your personal interests, and the State never tires of drumming it into you that the general good takes precedence over your own. Doctors, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers and electricians — in a word, experts — all employ their superior technical knowledge as an aid to manipulation. Within and by means of a professional closed shop, they defend their authoritative status against outsiders. Anyone who can invoke an authoritative status in his dealings with other people has, from the first, a greater prospect of securing his advantage. To an opponent, his

status means: ‘I amount to more than you, I know more than you, I enjoy the backing of a power you don’t possess.’ Throughout our lives we are taught to obey and acknowledge various forms of authority. Is it any wonder that a person should insist on exploiting this advantage in his dealings with others? It doesn’t even matter whether that person is a genuine authority or not. After all, not everyone recovers from an illness because a doctor has treated him. What confers an immediate advantage in the manipulation game is that one person should be capable of playing off his status against another. Our manipulative counter-move can be launched from two different angles: 1. We ourselves acquire an authoritative status of some kind and use it against others. 2. We combat an opponent’s authority with different manipulative techniques and thereby neutralize his advantage. One factor should always be taken for granted: behind any form of authority there lurks a human being with egocentric ideas, personal desires and weaknesses. He will thus be as susceptible to manipulative techniques as the next man — or woman — and these are available to all. Why, asked that shrewd observer George Bernard Shaw, should the wife of a blind man wear lipstick? We might go further and inquire why women wear lipstick at all. Why do they swathe themselves in exorbitantly expensive mink coats for the sake of a couple of hours at the theatre? Why must their hands gleam with gold and glitter with diamonds? Why do millions of the world’s women so assiduously feed the cosmetics industry with billions of dollars, pounds, marks, francs and lire? For the sake of a bit more colour in their cheeks, a few less crow’s-feet round their eyes, a touch of green or blue on their eyelids? Why do men adorn their womenfolk with furs and diamonds? Why do they insist on owning a Rolls, Mercedes or Ferrari? Why do they jostle for government jobs which will give them an occasional opportunity to bask in public esteem? Why are there few sweeter moments in our lives than the moments when we can say, or just imply: ‘look at me, I’m so-and-so and such-and-such, and I earn so-and-so much’ — and detect a hint of envy and admiration in another’s eyes? Why? Probably because we suffer from a persistent desire to impress. Even if we ourselves are not hell-bent on doing so, the appropriate behaviour is enforced on us

by others. They are for ever challenging us to compete, go one better, keep abreast of fashion, prove ourselves. They foster our inherent and everlasting urge to be other than we are. Where this endeavour is concerned, we all engage in a merciless and worldwide war of competition — one in which we hope at least to win the odd battle. Many people consider these minor victories so important that they stake everything on them — and not infrequently lose. Others dismiss the whole thing as an irrational consumersociety compulsion or call it enslavement by blind faith in economic progress. They are not so wide of the mark. There is a large element of irrationality in such behaviour, undoubtedly. On the other hand, we are all at liberty to decide how far we allow ourselves to be ruled by it. We are also free to discern and define the extent to which we are prepared to be challenged and exploited by others for their own benefit. What is certain is that our ‘display behaviour’ is encouraged by others. The cycle into which they try to coerce us is invariably the same: 1. They persuade us to accept a certain standard, a behaviour pattern which they have established as correct and universally valid. 2. They promise us a reward if we model our behaviour on this pattern. They promise us promotion or medals. They guarantee us the admiration of others provided we conform. 3. Once we comply with their standard, they use us and our fellow-conformists as an example to others: ‘Look at them. They behave properly — why don’t you?’ And the others, their confidence shaken, say to themselves: ‘If so many people behave like that, it’s bound to be right. I suppose I’d better follow suit.’ We play both roles in the above cycle, and continue to do so until we perceive what holds it together and break out rather than allow our behaviour to be wholly dictated by others. In other words, we recognize the rules of manipulation and make use of them in two ways: We personally determine the extent to which we allow ourselves to be manipulated. We no longer tolerate exploitation by others but employ their methods to our own advantage.

The media comprise newspapers and magazines, radio, television, posters, films and books. They purvey information, entertainment and a multitude of messages which certain people have selected, devised or prepared for our consumption. The media are vehicles which transmit the manipulative stimuli of the few to the many — vehicles of advertising in the broadest sense. Anything we uncritically absorb and faithfully comply with will influence us as the few intend. Anything whose underlying associations and ulterior motivation we critically explore and accurately identify will be useful to us to the extent we deem right for our purposes. Victor O. Schwab was active in advertising for over 40 years before he embodied the fruits of his experience in a book (How to Write a Good Advertisement, Harper & Row, 1962). The introduction to that book lists five factors which Schwab considers vital to the selling of a product: 1. Capturing the attention of a potential customer. 2. Pointing out an advantage which the product has, or could have, for him. 3. Proving that advantage. 4. Arousing the customer’s desire to avail himself of that advantage. 5. Persuading the customer to act. These, then, are the classic principles observed by every good salesman who accosts us through the medium of press and television advertising — or from behind a shop counter — with the aim of inducing us to buy. Bear one thing in mind: no salesman begins by asking if we really need his product. He simply asks: ‘How can I make my product so attractive to the customer that he will ultimately buy it?’ But advertising is only part of what the media confront us with. There are also the so-called factual accounts, documentaries, on-the-spot reports and news stories with which they deliver events great and small to our door and explain the nature of so many things. All these pressures influence our views and decisions as far as we allow them to. Furthermore, the media and their masters have built themselves an authoritative status of their own: that of the all-knowing and always right. And right they always are, but only until we run a personal check on what is right for us too. We should never forget, either, that the media are themselves products which aspire to be bought by us. The principles on which they operate are identical with

those which Schwab put at the beginning of his book on advertising techniques. What can we infer from this? We can take it that always and everywhere, whether in the media or on the counters of any store, there is a discrepancy between the actual product and its value to us and the content of flattering statements designed to sell it. At this point, no one could blame you for lodging a protest. ‘What!’ you may say. ‘Am I expected to regard my family as an opponent too?’ Of course you are, even if the word strikes you as a trifle harsh at first. I had a fresh demonstration of its aptness only this evening. My three-year-old son came toddling upstairs to my study, one hand gesticulating wildly, the other clutching a peeled banana. He was bawling hard, and big fat tears were rolling down his cheeks. It took me some time to discover what he was trying to tell me. It turned out that he would have preferred a nice piece of chocolate to the banana, but his mother thought a few vitamins would be better for him than ‘all that sweet stuff, which only ruins your teeth’. I shared her view that a banana would be better for our heartbroken son, and tried to explain why. If you have a family of your own, you’ll know just how much weight such arguments carry with young children. Then, out of the blue, I said: ‘All right, if you won’t eat the confounded thing, at least give me a bite.’ The request took him aback. He stopped yelling and instinctively clasped the banana to his chest in a possessive way, staring at me as if to say: ‘What’s the matter with you? Have you really given up trying to make me do something against my will?’ In the end he held the banana out. I took a hefty bite and chomped contentedly without taking any more notice of him. He must have concluded that the banana wasn’t so bad after all, because he soon retired into a comer and noisily consumed the rest. Perhaps his need for attention was satisfied now that he had prevailed on both parents to spend time on him and his problem. A trivial everyday occurrence, you’ll say, and quite rightly so. However, everyday life provides the widest possible scope for mutual manipulation. Our little family circle behaved precisely according to form.

The child wanted some chocolate. His wish was not fulfilled. His mother wanted him to have a banana instead of chocolate. The child persisted in his wish. Not having the authority or resources to fulfil it himself, he fell back on the one method available to him: tears. He also sought an ally in me, hoping that I would help him fulfil his wish. I, for my part, could have exerted my authority and somehow compelled him to eat the banana. Suspecting that I would only gain a limited success and utterly fail to convince him, I resorted to another method. This appeared to satisfy the child’s need for attention. I was confirmed in my superior paternal status, which pleased me. My wife was quite happy too, because I had relieved her of a problem without storing up trouble for the future. As an additional bonus, I had preserved my image in her eyes. It was a minor manipulative game in ten moves — one which turned out to the satisfaction of all parties. Reflect on the probable outcome if, instead of gently manipulating my son, I had forced him to eat the hated banana against his will. Finally, let me ask you once more: isn’t it true that each player in this domestic manipulation game was an opponent of the others? I must concede, in general, that I owe much of what I have learnt about the subject of ‘manipulation’ to my wife and children, and not merely to twenty years’ experience as a journalist, copy-writer, public relations consultant and television writer. Above all, I have learnt that there is virtually no difference between the ways in which various categories of people persuade each other to do as they wish: politicians and voters, car manufacturers and customers, parents and children. That is why we ought to shed our awe of the professional manipulators and cease to regard manipulation as a highly suspect technique whose use should be eschewed on principle. Why, indeed, should it? We all try it from childhood onwards, with varying degrees of success. We are therefore quite justified in exploring this faculty and developing it still further. Rule No. 2

He who fails to capture people’s attention cannot expect to be listened to. He who fails to secure a hearing has no chance of asserting himself or influencing others to his own advantage. He who does the ‘done’ thing rather than attract attention will not be noticed. He who fails to conquer his fear of attracting attention and is loath to risk doing something wrong or futile will miss the chance to assert himself. Thus, the first step towards self-assertion entails seizing the initiative and drawing attention to yourself. There are six particularly effective aids to attracting attention: 1.

Doing the unexpected

2.

Deliberate flattery

3.

Deliberate provocation

4.

Superior knowledge

5.

The indirect approach

6.

If at first you don’t succeed . . .

Don't just sit there — do something! Many people fail to fulfil their wishes, ideas and requirements because they are incapable of taking the first step at the right moment. The first step entails drawing other people’s attention to yourself — compelling them to notice and listen to you. The first step also entails a decision to stop being passive and become active — to take a risk, make a move instead of permanently waiting for something to happen. I know a large number of able and admirable individuals who ‘gave up’ at an early age. They are still humbly waiting for someone to come along and give them a chance, still hoping for the proverbial stroke of luck which will change their life for the better. They wait for promotion at work. They wait for their marital relations to improve. They wait in waiting-rooms until someone calls them or in restaurants until a waiter deigns to ask them what they want. They have a thousand-and-one marvellous excuses for this failure to take their destiny into their own hands. They say: ‘I do my best, but no one pays any attention to

me.’ Or: ‘I’d like to, but I don’t know how.’ They shelter behind an everlasting ‘but’ like a massive barricade which constantly inhibits them from taking the first step out of the anonymous masses who ‘only stand and wait’. A few years after the war, while I was still at school, the New York Herald Tribune sponsored a multi-national essay competition for 15- to 17-year olds. The prize awaiting the winner from each country was a one-month stay in New York. Everyone in our class would have welcomed a free trip to New York, naturally, but when it came to taking the first step and grabbing the chance, they all said: ‘Of course I’d like to, but I wouldn’t have a hope.’ Only one boy, whose name was Gerhard Andlinger, refused to give that fatal little ‘but’ house-room in his vocabulary. He produced the best essay out of 4000 German entries and travelled to the United States. There he met a rich and childless couple who later financed his studies at Princeton. Today, Gerhard Andlinger is a multi-millionaire and lives with his family in one of New York’s finest penthouse apartments. This anecdote provides a strikingly effective response to the question ‘How do I draw attention to myself?’ The answer is quite simple: by doing something, not waiting on the possibility that others will do something for you. Thus, the crux of the second manipulative rule is this: if you want other people to notice you, don’t just sit there — do something. It may be the step which changes your life for the better.

Next time you walk into a restaurant, think first Imagine yourself entering a restaurant. You pick an empty table and sit down. After you’ve sat there patiently for a while, the waiter puts in an appearance. You ask for a menu and he brings one. He hovers over you, pad and pencil in hand, discreetly implying that he’s in a hurry. This makes you nervous, so you tell him to come back later, when you’ve chosen. You finally decide on the goulash, which comes with dumplings. You don’t like dumplings. When the waiter reappears, you order goulash with rice instead of dumplings. He’s sorry, he says, but he can only serve what’s on the menu.

You don’t accept this. After you’ve voiced a certain amount of displeasure, he agrees to go to the kitchen and ask the chef. He bustles off, and again you sit there waiting, not even knowing if you’ll get the meal of your choice. Strictly speaking, you’ve now devoted the bulk of your time in the restaurant to waiting. You’re also annoyed because things aren’t going your way. But you’re going to be a lot more annoyed if the waiter — after another lengthy interval — returns with the information that goulash can only be served with dumplings, like it or lump it. You don’t even know if he conveyed your request to the chef at all — he may only be using the chef as an out because he can’t be bothered to make an exception for you. To be absolutely blunt, there’s no good reason why he should. Why not, you may ask — after all, you’re footing the bill. Why not? Because there’s something quite different involved — something which has very little to do with money. The reason, quite simply, is that you failed to capture the waiter’s attention at the right moment and get him on your side. Let us review the course of your exchange with the waiter in the light of the opponent-principle we met under the first rule of manipulation. In one corner: yourself. You enter the restaurant intending to eat what you want with as little fuss and delay as possible. In the other corner: your opponent the waiter. His aim is to make an arduous job as easy for himself as he can. He dislikes customers who pester him with special requests. Special requests take time and entail extra work, which is just what he wants to avoid. At heart, he couldn’t care less whether you enjoy your meal or not. What concerns him far more is the smooth and unbroken rhythm of his work. Consequently, he tries to impose that rhythm on you. This is a typical point of departure in the daily manipulation game. The question is now: which of you will succeed in imposing his pace on the other? Which opponent in the self-assertion contest will make the preliminary move that takes him one stage nearer his objective? There are two points to be borne in mind:

Timing. When should you influence the waiter in such a way as to predispose him to make an exception for you?

Method. What form should your influence take? It is noticeable in our hypothetical example that you did, in fact, assume a ‘waiting’ posture from the outset and maintained it until an unforeseeable problem arose. By that time your hand was void of any trump to play against the waiter. He, by contrast, was in a more favourable position. It mattered little to him if you were kept waiting a bit longer. Meanwhile, your annoyance increased to such a pitch that you were soon thinking less of your meal than of the waiter’s disobliging attitude. Let us re-examine the sequence of events and see when something might have changed its course. 1.

You enter the restaurant. Instead of sitting down, you promptly buttonhole the

waiter. Don’t hang around, walk straight up to him and ask for a good table. If he goes off in search of one, follow him. The cardinal rule is this: never linger, always keep on your opponent’s tail. He mustn’t escape until you’ve established an advantage. There are some expert manipulators whose procedure in this phase of the game is as follows: they get themselves shown to a table and start by rejecting it on principle. Having accompanied their refusal with a few remarks of a more or less critical nature, they accept the second or third alternative offered. Little ploys like these convey to an opponent that you’re choosy — that he’d better meet your requirements with speed and precision or you’ll give him no peace. 2.

The waiter brings the menu. Rather than allow him to drift off, you at once

engage him in conversation. Get him to suggest a dish you might like. Question him about the speciality of the house. It’s better to have him recite the menu from top to bottom than let him escape. Here again, considerable importance attaches to demonstrating your powers of discrimination by a refusal to accept the first dish the waiter recommends. 3.

You order rice. By this stage of the confrontation you should already have

impressed the waiter sufficiently for him not to brush your request aside. If he does so in spite of everything — if he still says he’ll have to consult the chef — don’t be bashful. Call after him: ‘That’s right, you do that, or I’ll go to the kitchen and talk to him myself.’ Believe me, the chef will go to any lengths to prevent you from invading his domain . . . Please don’t interpret these suggested courses of action as universally valid rules,

merely as hints on how to avoid being sentenced to a passive role. The single step from passive expectancy to positive action — one whose value cannot be overestimated — will abolish your dependence on other people and the vagaries of chance.

Six effective ways of capturing people's attention You will long ago have realized that our restaurant example and subsequent discussion were not designed solely to give you an easier time during your next visit to a place of public refreshment. Let us briefly recap on our basic aims: To be fully alert to the importance of taking the initiative instead of always leaving it to others: To familiarize ourselves with the idea that everyone from whom we expect to receive some benefit is an opponent in the game of mutual manipulation. To grasp that, like ourselves, others are intent on their interests and at pains to influence us in their favour. To realize, finally, how important it is to make a timely and decisive move which can later be exploited. Once we absorb these four points and act on them, they will help us in our dealings with everyone, not just waiters. Possible methods of making the ‘first move’ can be found in the pages that follow. 1.

DOING THE UNEXPECTED

Some years ago a friend and I were sitting in a rather seedy bar. The night was pretty far gone, like the drunk at the next table. All of a sudden he got up and lurched menacingly over to the unsuspecting pianist. It was the sort of situation more commonly found in Westerns than in real life. Abruptly, tension gripped the room. Everyone sensed that something was going to happen. Conversation dwindled to an expectant murmur. The drunk stationed himself beside the piano and defiantly slammed the lid shut. Then he brandished a threatening fist in the pianist’s face and bellowed: ‘You play that thing like a chimpanzee in boxing gloves!’ Quite obviously, the man wanted to vent his pent-up aggression on someone — anyone — under the influence of alcohol.

The pianist was a tall fair-haired youngster with broad shoulders. I felt certain he would jump up and pulverize his tormentor, who must have been at least a head shorter. But he didn’t. He stayed put, gave an indulgent smile, and said blandly: ‘So you think I play like a monkey. That’s your privilege. Who cares?’ Then he opened the lid again and tinkled away with a dreamy expression on his face. I wouldn’t have been averse to watching a full-blooded punch-up, I quite admit, but it certainly wouldn’t have left as vivid an impression as the outcome of this attempt to provoke one. The spectators roared with laughter — some of them actually applauded. Wholly at a loss to handle the situation, the pugnacious customer ended by ordering himself another Scotch at the bar. What had happened? The pianist did the contrary of what his opponent expected, so he utterly disconcerted him. We all meet analogous situations nearly every day, and we have all grown used to reacting in accordance with well-worn behaviour patterns. We greet — attack with counter-attack, accusation with self-justification, the presence of superiors, so called, with awe and respect, and defeat with dejection. In other words, we react like the majority of mankind. This is of immense advantage to all who aim to manipulate us for their own ends because they can gauge our ‘mass reaction’ in advance. As members of the mass, we are in no way distinguishable from our fellows. All the more reason, therefore, why we should attract attention by doing the unexpected or surprising thing. Some people seem to be bom with a sense of originality, a talent for quick repartee and surprise effects. Heads turn wherever they go. Anything they say or do gets across. Some of them make a mint of money out of their gifts. But what of the rest of us, who are not so original? Must we abandon all hope of attracting such attention from the outset? Not at all. We can follow a simple rule of thumb. Although it heads the present section, it cannot be repeated often enough. It runs: do the unexpected. For example: If someone criticizes you, don’t spring to your own defence at once. Instead, try:

‘Yes, you’ve got a point there. Why not give me a closer idea of how you came to that conclusion? I might learn something.’ If you yourself are dissatisfied with what someone else has done, don’t just say: ‘You’ve made a thorough hash of that — it won’t do at all.’ Try: ‘You’ve made the best of a bad job. There’s just one aspect which hasn’t quite come off.’ If you yourself have made a mistake, the last thing to do is gloss it over. Admit it quite frankly. If anything, exaggerate it until your opponent says, of his own accord: ‘Oh, come on, it’s not as bad as all that.’ Always remember: it isn’t your aim to ingratiate yourself or display the odd flourish of good manners. What matters is that, by performing a deliberate manipulative manoeuvre, you secure a base for further operations to your own advantage. For this you require the attention of the other party, your opponent in the manipulation game. You must impress him by behaving differently. 2.

DELIBERATE FLATTERY

Six methods of gaining attention are listed here. Of these, deliberate flattery is probably the easiest to use and the most apt to secure prompt results. Many people reject flattery on principle as something unworthy of them. They take the view that if they’re right, they’re right, so they don’t have to curry favour with anyone. ‘I’ve got my pride,’ they say. Everyone has a right to his pride, of course, just as everyone has a right to conduct a proud, dignified and futile vendetta with his fellow-men because they ‘just don’t understand’ him. It must, however, be said that flattery should in our case be construed as a deliberately applied manipulative technique, not a slavish form of courtesy. Its purpose is to secure a favourable attitude or bridgehead from which to pursue our ulterior goal. Advertising in the washing-powder sector provides a typical example of just how effective this technique can be. For many years, millions of women have succumbed to the suggestion that they are exemplary wives and mothers because they wash their families’ clothes with a particular whitener. By investing millions in advertising, manufacturers have succeeded in persuading their female customers that only those whose wash is exceptionally white can be accounted good housewives, though there is no obvious reason why their whites should be whiter than white.

The simple technique employed by these firms is nothing more nor less than flattery: ‘You’re a model housewife because your washing is exceptionally white.’ Advertising material very often contrasts a ‘good’ housewife with a1 bad or ‘ignorant’ one whose washing is grey and blotchy. But the efficacy of praise and flattery as forms of deliberate manipulation is by no means restricted to advertising alone. Strictly speaking, much of our present educational system reposes on a similar basis. In conjunction with bad marks and threats of punishment, praise and flattery serve to induce conformity and hard work. For instance, the teacher who commends a pupil for exceptionally good conduct binds the recipient of commendation to himself and his system of discipline. Praise makes the pupil feel superior to his fellows. ‘Old X is a good sort,’ he thinks. ‘He understands me and singles me out from the rest.’ From then on, he will try to live up to the praise he has received. The other side of the coin is that, by praising a certain pupil, the teacher has commended him to the rest as an example to be copied if they likewise yearn for praise and attention. We are all acquainted with the formula: ‘To Mr X in recognition of his loyal and devoted service . . .’ We see it in newspapers and on notice-boards, we hear it repeatedly at our places of work. Citations, prizes, awards, medals — all these amount to deliberate pieces of flattery for which we all seem to cherish an insatiable appetite. Why, then, shouldn’t we ourselves resort to this simple and proven method of getting our way? We may be certain of one thing: those who flatter us with praise and try to bend us to their will are quite as susceptible to flattery as ourselves. If you don’t believe me — if you’re convinced that flattery is the crudest and most threadbare way of exerting influence on someone — try it yourself sometime. A few suggestions: Tell someone, out of the blue and for no good reason, how well he’s looking today. Give a woman flowers when she’s least expecting them. Tell your boss he’s the greatest — imply that it’s a pleasure and privilege to work for him. Tell a surly desk-clerk how much you envy his luxuriant head of hair.

Gross flattery in every case, I grant you, but the honest answer would be that we fall for it ourselves, over and over again. All you are being asked to do is test the response of others to a given stimulus. You may acquire a few practical tips which will convey more about the nature of manipulation than all you have read so far. 3.

DELIBERATE PROVOCATION

First flattery, now provocation. Which is better, you may ask — which should I actually use? Answer: in each manipulative operation, choose the method appropriate to your opponent. You must play the keyboard of alternatives like a piano. You must make whatever music suits your own particular talents and temperament. You must adapt yourself to your opponent, the situation and your goal. The one thing you must not do, or not from now on, is wait for others to seize the initiative. Once again, let us list a few fundamental considerations which are vital to any understanding of the subject: You are pursuing a particular aim and want to convince others of its merits. To fulfil that aim, you must not rely on chance but take the initiative. You ask yourself: which opponents must I influence so that they help me to attain my goal? If there are several, concentrate on the one whose help you require to surmount the first hurdle on your road to success. Your first step is to capture his attention. You ask yourself: which method should I use? Your choice will depend on various factors. These are: 1.The identity of your opponent. 2. The circumstances of your confrontation. 3. Your personal status. This is the point at which you have to decide whether provocative antagonism is the correct way to capture your opponent’s attention. There are countless forms of provocation, from deliberate abuse to a simple ‘no’ when your opponent expects a ‘yes’. While flattery can be used to lull an opponent into a sense of security, deliberate provocation serves to shake his selfconfidence. For example:

Some married women feel a hundred per cent sure of their husbands. She behaves as if he is utterly at her mercy. She exploits the situation, too, by humiliating and taking advantage of him — you can surely think of some examples in your own circle of acquaintances. Unless the husband takes timely steps to regain equality of status, he will soon be left with no alternative but humble acceptance of his lot — or flight. I know of one case where the wife got her way on major issues for ten solid years, time and time again. Why? Because she either threatened her husband with divorce every few months or started packing her bags with the expressed intention of decamping and leaving him to cope with the children single-handed. The poor devil went through hell each time before he managed to talk her out of it. Until, one day, he did as follows. When she was packing her bags for the umpteenth time, deploying the full scope of her wifely talent for domestic drama, he just said quietly: ‘Darling, I’ve been thinking it over. Divorce really does seem to be the best way out for both of us.’ He then proceeded to help her pack. Six years have passed since then. The couple are still together and enjoying one of the happiest marriages I know of. Needless to say, there has been no more talk of divorce. This illustrates how provocation can be used to neutralize provocation, for there is no doubt that the wife’s behaviour was provocation shrewdly employed. She never had any real intention of suing for divorce or she would have done so long before. She merely wanted to unnerve her husband. Her sole object was to imply: ‘If you don’t give in, I’ll do something you won’t like.’ And what did he do? He pleaded with her, knuckled under, flattered her until she relented yet again — but not without the unspoken threat: ‘All right, I’ll stay, but only if you do as I want. Next time I’ll really go.’ As you see, this is also an instance of how deliberate provocation (by her) can triumph over flattery (by him), whereas provocation employed as a counter-measure (by him) will sometimes yield success. Of course, the crucial requirement in each case was a willingness to run risks. The husband didn’t know for certain whether his wife intended to divorce him or was only bluffing. Equally, she didn’t know when she made her first divorce threat whether or not he would jump at it. Only when he surrendered again and again did she begin to

feel sure of herself. This example does, at all events, show how deliberate provocation or counter-provocation can help one to prevail over a marriage partner and perpetuate or transform a one-sided relationship of long standing. It also illustrates the relatively minor difference between deliberate provocation and bluff. It is important to remember — and this is another point which cannot be stressed too often — that the kind of provocation we are discussing here has nothing to do with emotion and emotional aggression. Of course we sometimes abuse or insult someone merely to release pent-up aggression. Of course we relieve tension by shouting and banging the table. However, this perfectly legitimate form of mental hygiene is quite unconnected with the provocation referred to here, in which the emphasis must always repose on the qualifying adjective ‘deliberate’. At this point, you should pause for a few minutes to review your dealings with the people you encounter every day. Ask yourself which of these relationships may long ago have stuck in a rut to the advantage of the other party. Consider as you do so whether or not you yourself have encouraged the situation by allowing others to provoke you and by continually giving way out of fear. 4. SUPERIOR KNOWLEDGE Picture the following situation. Four sales representatives are eager to open an account with Mr B’s firm. Mr B is reputed to be a hard-headed businessman much feared for his caustic manner towards colleagues and subordinates. He has also been embittered by a recent divorce, his wife having run off with a younger man. To make matters worse, he lost his son in a road accident three months ago. The four salesmen, who are keen to land an order, have all made careful preparations for their interview with Mr B. Each has brought comprehensive sales material and is expert at putting it across. In addition, however, one of them has found out that Mr B is a fanatical admirer of the painter W, one of whose pictures adorns his office wall. This salesman has duly studied the life and works of W quite as thoroughly as the business proposition he aims to submit. After the conventional handshakes and mutual introductions, the salesman comments on the picture behind Mr B’s desk. He makes a few allusions to its value

and quotes a number of other works by the same painter which hang in various galleries and museums throughout the world. He also knows that W was celebrated for his use of a very special colour-mixing technique. To cut a long story short, the two men spend most of their interview discussing pictures rather than business. I hardly need tell you which of the four hopefuls clinched the deal. It only remains to add that this story is a true one and that the successful salesman now occupies a leading position in Mr B’s firm. Attracting attention by means of superior knowledge was in this case a mixture of the methods ‘deliberate flattery’ and ‘doing the unexpected’, though a rather ambitious version of each. This technique requires a certain amount of extraneous spadework, in other words, the compiling of information about one’s opponent. But then, what is so extraordinary about that? Before an astute advertising or publicity agent launches a campaign, he studies the potential customers whom he hopes to attract. Every manufacturer of a product researches the needs and, more especially, the buying habits of his customers before he proceeds to take advantage of them. Precisely the same applies, in both peace and war, to the military leaders who scrutinize their opponents for weaknesses which can be exploited in an emergency. As for us amateurs in the manipulation game, we too often tend to rely on chance and on the possibility that something effective will occur to us at the moment of confrontation. This leaves success, too, to chance. The superior knowledge method requires us to study an opponent and compile information in advance — if necessary, long before we confront him. Here are a few hints on the type of information that may be of use to us: 1.Age and date of birth. 2. Special likes and dislikes. 3. Personal and professional history. 4. Membership of clubs and associations. 5. Circle of friends. 6. Family. 5. THE INDIRECT APPROACH

So far, we have limited our discussions to methods of capturing people’s attention which generally require direct confrontation with an opponent. There are, however, cases where we want to approach someone not directly accessible to us. We may not even know the person. Assume, for the sake of argument, that a motor mechanic is dissatisfied with his job. He wants more money, better conditions and greater prospects of promotion. He has a clear idea of his requirements and the technical competence to hold down a more responsible job. Only one thing stands in the way of a change: he has no idea where to find an employer who is on the look-out for just his kind of mechanic. Since innumerable people are dissatisfied with their jobs, know precisely what they want to achieve but finally give up because they fail to bring themselves to the notice of their ideal employer, let us study the mechanic’s potential courses of action in some detail.

Phase 1: selecting one of many alternatives Over a period of some three weeks, our mechanic carefully studies the Situations Vacant columns to see if he can find one or more suitable openings. As soon as he finds an interesting prospect, he contacts the head of the firm or appropriate departmental chief and requests a personal interview. If nothing comes of this, he himself inserts an advertisement in the newspaper. It is important that he should not exceed his self-imposed term of three weeks. He must limit his waiting time rather than become inured to waiting and eventually, perhaps, give up. Far better to tell himself from the outset: ‘I’ll give it till then, but after that I’ll get cracking myself.’ He makes sure his advertisement goes in at the week-end, when people have time to study newspapers more thoroughly than on other days. He lists his main requirements clearly and concisely and gives a box number. His reason for wanting to change jobs: ‘Better pay and promotion prospects.’ He may also convey that he is currently in secure employment. From the replies that come in, he selects the ones that seem interesting and follows them up. If this method proves unsuccessful, he conducts a personal survey of the local service stations and haulage concerns. He digs out addresses, consults fellow-mechanics, leafs through the yellow pages. Then he writes letters to all the

firms that appeal to him. They might run thus: Dear Mr X, I am a motor mechanic with seven years’ experience. My special qualifications are . . . My present job does not offer the sort of prospects I think my qualifications deserve, which is why I am looking for a new and better position. The sort of wage I have in mind is ... If you are interested in discussing the matter without obligation, please write to me care of . . . (or give home address). I hope you will excuse this indirect approach, but I have not given notice and do not want to offend my present employer. The mechanic’s allusion to his present employer need not be altogether serious and may have largely tactical significance. A prospective employer is likely to be impressed by his wish to be fair to his predecessor. His mind will work as follows: ‘This chap does right by his present boss, so the odds are he’d do the same by me.’ On the other hand, of course, it may be that the mechanic is interested in letting his present boss know, by devious means, that he’s looking for a job with better pay and prospects. If the boss calls him in, he should not deny that he’s on the look-out for another job. He must put his case calmly and objectively, making it clear that he is determined to seize the right opportunity. It would not be the first time than an employer failed to improve the status of a trusted employee until faced with a genuine threat to quit. In the latter event, our mechanic will have attained his goal quite as effectively as if he had actually changed jobs: he has aroused his opponent’s attention and used it to his own advantage.

Phase 2: deciding how to capture someone’s attention at the first encounter Next, let us assume that our mechanic has selected one of his numerous self-made openings. A personal interview is arranged. He wonders how best to arouse prompt and favourable attention in his opponent, or potential employer, so as to provide himself with a good bridgehead. Let me here recapitulate briefly what Victor O. Schwab considered to be the five principal stages in the selling process: 1.

Get attention.

2.

Show people an advantage the product has.

3.

Prove it.

4.

Persuade people to grasp that advantage.

5.

Ask for action. Exactly the same principles hold good in our mechanic’s confrontation with his

opponent. They apply to us each and every day. They apply whenever we want to ‘sell’ something, be it a product or an opinion or even ourselves — in other words, whenever we seek to persuade someone to do something in our own interests. Our mechanic will therefore jot Schwab’s selling formula down on a sheet of paper and ask himself how best to proceed. Being mainly concerned with Point 1, or the arousal of attention, he will check which of the available methods he can use: Doing the unexpected. Deliberate flattery. Deliberate provocation. A further application of the indirect approach. For this, however, certain conditions must be fulfilled, e.g. that some friend or relative of the mechanic happens to be a school- friend, business associate, club-mate or acquaintance of his future boss. At the next opportunity, the contact will say: ‘By the way, I know a man who’s looking for a better job — a really first-class mechanic. Why not have a word with him before someone else snaps him up?’ ‘Who is he?’ asks the prospective employer. On hearing the name, he says ‘That’s right, he’s coming to see me tomorrow.’ There follows a brief conversation designed to kindle the interest which our mechanic will require in his forthcoming interview. To sum up, the indirect method entails simply that other people or the media — in our case, a newspaper — ‘buttonhole’ an opponent and capture his attention before we ourselves appear on the scene. 6. IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED ... As a very youthful press reporter I spent a few years working under an editor whose routine response to apologies for failure was: ‘Good tries mean nothing, my boy. It’s results that count.’ This exemplifies one of the reasons why so many people fail to capture attention and assert themselves. ‘I did try, but they misunderstood me’ is an excuse frequently employed by

innumerable people who fail to get ahead. They transfer the blame for their failure to others. Here are a few such utterances culled from my jottings over the years: A teacher: ‘I tried to keep order by reasoning with them, but it was hopeless. Now I crack down hard — it’s the only language they understand.’ A superior: ‘I told the man what to do five times over, and what happened? He went and did the opposite.’ An employee: ‘I know damn well I’m right, but he turned my proposal down.’ An unskilled labourer: ‘I’d sooner have been a jobbing gardener — it’s the job I was trained for — but I couldn’t raise the cash co branch out on my own.’ They all tried, but success wasn’t forthcoming so they gave up — each of them equipped with a very good pretext. I know plenty of people who have developed their excuses for failure into a fine art. In many cases, it is hard to escape the impression that their attempts are only a form of insurance against accusations of inertia. They genuinely persuade themselves that an abortive attempt — one from which they may learn nothing — deserves to be rated more highly than no attempt at all. What should we deduce from this? The answer is simple: 1. If you want to arouse attention, you must — whatever method you try — be prepared for the possibility of setbacks. 2. A setback does not mean total and irrevocable defeat. It merely teaches you that you have done something wrong and must try a different tack next time. 3. You must be clear in your own mind that there always is a next time. It is up to you, and you alone, whether you abandon an attempt or persevere in it. 4. It avails you absolutely nothing to flatter or do the unexpected, provoke an opponent or gather information about him in advance, if your efforts get you nowhere. Equally, it will avail you nothing if you try and excuse your lack of success by hurling this book into a corner because its recommendations haven’t helped. Your success will depend solely on what you yourself make of these hints. On what you make of them, mark you, not on your attempts to make the most of them. ‘Good tries mean nothing — it’s results that count.’ This dictum embodies so much worldly wisdom that you would do well to write it down on a piece of paper and put it in your wallet or handbag for periodic reference. My old editor didn’t coin it, by the way.

He was paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw. As one who left school at fourteen but became a famous writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, Shaw knew what he was talking about. But don’t imagine that he succeeded at the first attempt. He started out as a clerk and spent four years as a rent collector. Then he decided to live by the pen and wrote five long novels. These he sent to a variety of publishers in England and the United States, all of whom returned his manuscripts unaccepted. Was Shaw disheartened by these setbacks? Not at all. He became a theatre critic and began to write plays of his own, but these too failed to gain the success he needed in order to live as he wished on the proceeds of his writing. More than enough reason, many would say, to resume a commercial job whose regular salary would at least keep the wolf from the door. Shaw did not take the easy way out. He never gave up, never stopped trying. It was 21 years before he won real acclaim as a playwright. 21 years! You should remember this story whenever you glance at the slip of paper in your wallet: ‘Good tries mean nothing — it’s results that count.’ You should also remember it whenever you’re tempted to blame others because a single attempt to capture attention has not been crowned with success. Rule No. 3 You can sell a person anything, or almost anything. All you have to do is package it correctly. Ergo, packaging is more important than contents. The most effective kind of packaging is one that promises to satisfy a need or solve a problem which has some recognizable connection with the goods on offer. Experience shows that it is immaterial in most cases whether or not the promise is later fulfilled. What matters is that you succeed in saddling an opponent with responsibility for the actual solution of his problem. Finally, everything rests on the extent to which an opponent’s hopes of a solution to his problem can be reinforced by the promise inherent in the packaging.

Don't equate packaging with contents Thus the third rule of manipulation boils down to this:

Don’t just sell a man a suit. Sell him the fulfilment of his desire to look smart and win the admiration of his circle. The rule further states that it is immaterial whether people really admire the purchaser for his clothes-sense. It is enough if you talk him into hoping that they will. This, you may indignantly protest, is a crude confidence trick. By all means call it that if you wish, but bear in mind that it is also one of the commonest and most effective tricks to which you yourself succumb time and time again, in almost every sphere of life. You do so when you think a doctor offers the best prospect of curing you merely because he runs a surgery. You do so when you assume that a judge will help you to secure your rights merely because he sits on the bench. You do so when you vote for a political party merely because it guarantees solutions to problems you would like solved. You do so when you rely on a teacher to educate your child merely because he presides over a class-room. The fact is that the doctor is packaged ‘health’, the judge is labelled ‘justice’, the political party trades under the slogan ‘Your welfare is our concern’, and, last, the word ‘teacher’ automatically connotes the well established and stereotyped concept ‘education’. Far be it from me to belittle the achievements of every competent doctor, judge, politician and teacher, or to imply that they fail to give of their professional best, but isn’t there a very real difference between the actuality of their achievements and the promise inherent in their function? To put it another way: the package should not be equated with its contents. As individuals, we can hardly assess a doctor’s efficiency in respect of his entire practice, yet his very status prompts us to believe that he can cure our ills. In other words, where a decision to ‘buy’ is concerned, packaging is more important than contents. Even after a thousand failures, a doctor can still be deemed competent to cure disease. In the next section, I propose to supplement these rather theoretical remarks with a few examples which may serve to buttress the propositions advanced by Rule No. 3.

Why no angler baits his hook with cake Human beings never tire of persuading themselves that they are creatures endowed with reason, yet in many respects they behave like fish. It would never occur to a fisherman to dangle a piece of cake in the water to lure a trout merely because he himself likes cake. Instead, he baits his hook with a fly, sometimes a real one but more often, for simplicity’s sake, an artificial one. Being stupid, fish fail to spot the subterfuge. Whether or not you accept the fact, human beings are constantly getting caught in the same way — under different circumstances but to just the same effect. A few years ago, some sober-suited gentlemen called on the peasant inhabitants of a remote valley in the Tirolean Alps, driving a big American saloon. They were sales representatives for a firm of electrical manufacturers. They clinched sales wherever they went — for freezers, radios, television sets and a wide range of modem kitchen appliances. The peasants signed on the dotted line, delighted that they too were about to acquire the things which people elsewhere found so life-enhancing and labour-saving. All the articles were delivered in due course, but there was just one snag: the valley had no electricity and little prospect of getting it in the foreseeable future. Some of the injured parties refused to pay for their acquisitions, claiming that they had been misled, but it was no use. A court ruled that contracts legally entered into and duly signed by the purchaser must be fulfilled. Needless to say, none of these contracts mentioned the fact that goods so acquired were useless unless the purchaser had access to electricity. It made no ultimate difference, therefore, that the sober-suited gentlemen were arrant swindlers. Without being explicit on the subject, they had behaved as if they knew it would be only a matter of weeks before electricity made its long awaited appearance in the valley. Because they had been expecting this for years, the peasants were eager to believe it. None of them wasted a moment on misgivings, especially as the salesmen could assure them — truthfully — that their neighbours had already bought a number of appliances.

The respectable-looking invaders from the big city were, in fact, greeted less as salesmen than as harbingers of a better world who merited gratitude for having troubled to visit this remote valley at all in their altruistic endeavour to confer the blessings of the modem age. Do you think the same peasants would have placed any orders if a man had turned up on a motor-cycle and said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we all know it’ll be years before this valley gets electric power, but I’m stuck with an assortment of freezers, mixers and TV sets. Take them off my hands, otherwise my firm will go bust, my wife and children will starve and I’ll have to look for another job.’? They would all have laughed him to scorn, of course. Weeks later, patrons of the local inn would still have been cackling after Sunday morning service at reminiscences of the lunatic who had tried to sell them electrical appliances when the valley had no electricity. What really differentiated the sober-suited gentlemen from the man on the motor-cycle? They all offered the same things for sale under identical conditions. The sole difference lay in how they dressed their offer up — in other words, packaged it. The successful salesmen baited their line with a handsome and alluring artificial fly. The man on the motor-cycle used a bare hook. You may well have smiled somewhat smugly at the story of the peasants and told yourself it could never happen to you. Smile away, but rest assured: you aren’t immune. It happens to you again and again from the cradle to the grave, and do you know why? Because you want it to. Here is an example from my own store of experience. For years now, my wardrobe has housed a grey suit with a fine red stripe. It was based — or so the story ran, at least — on a model created by the American fashion designer John Weitz, reputedly one of the leaders in his field. The jacket of this suit is single-buttoned and the pockets are set at an angle. The lining is violet, and I also bought myself a special John Weitz tie and matching handkerchief in the same shade. Although I found the trouser-legs a bit narrow, I was assured at the time that this was the height of Transatlantic fashion. To sum up, it was a suit with one or two original features and a formidable price-tag — the latter justified solely because it was a John Weitz model. I can still remember commenting on the price to the shop assistant. ‘Damned expensive, isn’t it?’ He just grinned brazenly and said: ‘Ah well, sir, these designers

charge a lot for their names.’ I also paid handsomely for the elegant retailer’s name, which appears in gold lettering on a slip of silk sewn into the lining. I bought the suit despite myself. Actually, my decision had been clinched a few days earlier, when I read a newspaper article about the said Mr Weitz, who was over from the States to ‘present’ his collection, as the saying goes. Somewhere in the article was an allusion to the fact that his clothes were not of the cheapest — but then, they weren’t meant to be worn by all and sundry. Anyway, my John Weitz suit still hangs in the wardrobe, almost unworn. I soon discovered that the one-button jacket pulled hideously if I put my notebook in one breast pocket and my pipe in the other. What’s more, I was right about the trouser-legs: they really are too tight for me. The question remains: why did I buy the suit? To which the honest answer is: because I allowed myself to be dazzled like the Tirolean peasants who fell prey to the respectable gentlemen in the glossy saloon. In actual fact I didn’t need a new suit at all — certainly not one with a jacket which wouldn’t hold my pipe or notebook. I feel sure you’ll have little trouble in listing half a dozen similar examples from your own experience.

Nobody safeguards anotherfs interests at the expense of his own, so fend for yourself This book enjoins you to discard the passive role assigned to a member of the manipulated masses and become an active manipulator in your own right. Far from being mere pawns in the manipulative game of coexistence, we must profit by other people’s inability to fathom the ins and outs of manipulation. It has recently become fashionable to condemn professional manipulators in politics, advertising and the mass media, together with their methods, and represent the so-called ‘man in the street’ as a pitiful and defenceless victim of such techniques. Far less time has been devoted to discovering why the man in the street, or member of today’s ‘admass’, can be so extensively manipulated. Years ago, Ernesto Grassi defined four characteristics as typical of human beings in the mass: 1. Anonymity. Individual modes of behaviour crumble under the impact of passion, says Grassi, and are replaced by impulsive, instinctive reactions. 2. Emotionalism. Reason is replaced by emotion and instinct, hence the extreme suggestibility of the masses, whose actions are governed by emotion alone, not

reflection and discernment. 3. Diminished intelligence. According to Grassi, the intelligence of the mass sinks below that of the individuals who compose it. Anyone intent on securing mass approval will aim at the lower end of the intellectual scale and dispense with logical argument. Sharing an experience with others intensifies the excitement it arouses. Observation has repeatedly confirmed that human beings in the mass are gullible and will indiscriminately applaud a succession of speakers whose statements are diametrically opposed. 4. Diminished personal responsibility. To the extent that he relinquishes control over his own passions, the individual forfeits his sense of responsibility and can be induced to commit acts which he would never perform in public on his own. We have gradually developed into members of the mass, with all the characteristics which Grassi enumerates: Anonymity. Emotionalism. Diminished

intelligence. Diminished personal responsibility. Do you know why? Quite simply because no one alive has any interest in rearing us to become discriminating individualists. To put it even more brutally: From the moment we first draw breath, our parents want us to do as they think fit. It annoys them if we scream for hours, even if it gives us pleasure. No mother likes to be told that her child looks scrawny, so she overfeeds him willy-nilly. No teacher smiles on a pupil who points out his mistakes and demands to be taught something that doesn’t appear in the curriculum. No boss welcomes a subordinate who waltzes up and accuses him of incompetence. No bureaucracy suffers individualists gladly because its authority reposes on rules designed for universal application. No economy has any use for the discriminating individualist, only for the mass consumer who blindly follows the fashion prescribed for him. Caught up in the works of mass manipulation, we have become the type of person Grassi describes. There is no one to tell the individual what is good for him alone. No one is interested in summoning us to do what benefits us and harms him — and rightly so. It therefore rests with us — with each and every one of us — to safeguard our own

very personal interests. Why shouldn’t it be justifiable to do so by adopting the same approach and methods as others use on us? This is the point at which you should form conclusions about your future. FIRST CONCLUSION Unwrap the package and check the contents impartially to see what real value, if any, they hold for you. From most readers’ point of view, the significance of this third manipulative rule — packaging versus contents — will probably be far more defensive than offensive. Naturally, this does not apply to astute businessmen or other professional salesmen whose main preoccupation is to manipulate by means of externals. It should be emphasized that the rules of manipulation have not been set forth here as hints to professional manipulators on how to manipulate people still more subtly. They are, on the contrary, directed at those who have so far tended to be unwitting victims of manipulation, and are meant to provide them with clues and hints on how to recognize the process and make use of it themselves. For that reason, if my remarks on this third rule prompt the reader to bend a more critical and discerning eye on the outward trappings and associated promises which confront him daily in every sphere of existence, they may effect a considerable change in his life from now on. Ernesto Grassi declares that ‘emotionalism’, ‘diminished intelligence’ and ‘diminished personal responsibility’ are hall-marks of the modem masses. He thus makes an implicit reference to our indiscriminate belief in the promises which daily help to sell us ‘products’ of all kinds. Critical scrutiny, coupled with a knowledge of the methods employed to manipulate us, also encourages steps towards safeguarding our own interests. And that, as we have already observed under the second or ‘attention-capturing’ rule of manipulation, is essential to any transition from the passive wait-and- see status to that of the active manipulator. SECOND CONCLUSION Be clear about your own requirements and ensure that you yourself define the expectations associated with them. Most people succumb to packaging promises because they have no clear idea of their own needs. This gives their opponents a standing invitation to talk them into new requirements and fulfil the same — at a price.

Once you yourself have defined your own requirements — those you consider genuine and justified — you have a yardstick with which to measure all the propositions made you. Definition of your personal requirements is inseparable from your personal assessment of each individual need. Let me quote an example. An acquaintance of mine used to sell lingerie for a big national firm. In four years he became one of their star representatives, with a sales area covering roughly one million inhabitants. His record increases in turnover were regularly rewarded with valuable gifts and bonuses. Not long ago, he was approached by a small rival firm which offered him a higher salary and the chance to select his own range of products — something he had never been allowed to do before. On the other hand, it could not offer him the long-term job security which his existing firm of well-known manufacturers appeared to guarantee its representatives. When my friend told me, I offered to help him analyse the pros and cons in the light of his personal needs. We began by specifying the following prime essentials: 1. Enough of an income to enable him and his family to afford certain possessions. These included a small town house and a plot of land outside the city where he could garden at week-ends. 2. Good health, the maintenance of physical fitness and enough time for his favourite sport, football, which he played at club level, also for winter skiing trips from a hut in the mountains. 3. Security in old age. 4. Self-fulfilment through personal performance, which kept him happy in his job and prevented it from turning into a compulsory routine. 5.The preservation of his happy marriage as a tranquil haven to which he could always return, especially when his job presented an occasional problem or source of irritation. He naturally listed other requirements as well, but none that had any great bearing on the point at issue. All the above needs were more or less fulfilled by my friend’s existing job. He received a somewhat lower basic salary, true, but his long-term security was greater. It was far from certain that the new firm would capture a slice of the market. The next

few years would entail harder work, too, and that meant less time for sport and the plot of land in the country. My friend decided to take the new job notwithstanding, and for one reason only: the smaller firm promised more in the way of ‘self-fulfilment through personal performance’. He was to be allowed to select his own range of products, as we have said, and this materially affected his decision. I should point out that my friend’s decision was almost entirely based on a promise — one whose fulfilment could not in any way be verified at the time when it was given. To sum up: The new firm wanted my friend so as to boost its turnover in a certain area and simultaneously deprive the competition of its best representative. In his old firm, my friend’s only real deficiency was that he saw too few chances of self-fulfilment and was afraid that his job would develop into a wearisome grind. The last point was recognized by my friend’s prospective employer — his opponent in the manipulative game. He duly packaged his wishes in an offer (permission to select his own range) which promised to fulfil this need. By so doing, my friend’s prospective employer kindled his hopes of satisfying a hitherto unfulfilled requirement without having to prove that he would keep his promise. By the time he had to produce such proof, my friend would have become so identified with his new job that he himself would find excuses if the promise were not kept to the degree he had expected. The above example shows how important it is to know and assess our own requirements. This reduces the risk that our opponents in the manipulation game will turn our needs to their advantage. THIRD CONCLUSION Learn to package your interests in such a way that your opponent in the manipulation game will regard them as the fulfilment of a need. For this, three procedural phases are essential: 1. Study your opponent’s requirements. 2.Find out which of them is best suited to camouflage your interests. 3.Having discovered that he likes cake, bait your hook with cake even if you yourself prefer biscuits.

An application drawn from everyday life: The wife of a business associate had been complaining for weeks that she couldn’t get her ten-year-old daughter to eat fruit. Whatever arguments she thought up, nothing worked. The girl happened to be a great fan of some pop singer whose photos she cut from newspapers and pinned above her bed. Mum didn’t share the same enthusiasm — far from it — but one day her eye was caught by an outsize magazine picture of her daughter’s idol. It showed him at home, sitting with his child at a long table. In the foreground was a huge bowl containing the most glorious assortment of apples, bananas, oranges and grapes — all mouth-wateringly luscious to behold. Having cut the picture out and framed it neatly behind glass, my colleague’s wife hung it in her daughter’s room. For whatever reason — boundless admiration of her idol or delight that he had apparently found favour with her mother as well — the little girl raised no further objection to her daily vitamin intake. Her mother had never heard of the third rule of manipulation, merely applied it in a quite instinctive way. This may be because it is a natural method of influencing people. We have grown accustomed to presenting our wishes in such a self-centred manner that the wishes of the other party in a selling situation remain unheeded. However much we are preoccupied with personal interests when applying this manipulative rule, our success will depend on how far we are able to inspire the other party with a feeling that he himself has gained an advantage. And that is a price we should all be glad to pay. Rule No. 4 The more consistently and convincingly it is repeated, the more believable a statement becomes. Anyone who couples his statement with an allusion to its acceptance by other people will kindle the desire to conform to majority opinion. The relative truth or falsity of such an allusion is unimportant. The readiness of someone to accept a statement increases in accordance with the number of times it is repeated. Persistent repetition multiplies this effect.

What happens when someone hears the same message repeatedly instead of once Large numbers of people fail in their attempts at self-assertion because they concede defeat too soon. They home in on an objective and rush their opponent in the hope of overwhelming him at the first assault, only to be surprised by the mistrust or revulsion that greets them. At this stage, many feel a waning inclination to pursue their objective. They lose faith in their ability to attain it at all. They may make a few more half-hearted attempts, but when these fail likewise they abandon the struggle altogether. Sometimes they blame the setback on themselves. Far more often, they devise all manner of excuses to account for the fact that their endeavours have failed to produce the expected result. They fume and sulk at this blow to their self-assurance. And yet we are all given daily demonstrations of the vital part played by repetition in influencing people. Most of us succumb to this manipulative technique over and over again without adjusting our own behaviour to the enduring lessons it could teach us. None of the firms which market face creams, motor cars, washing powders, toothpaste or razor blades would dream of introducing a new product by means of a single press advertisement or television spot. These people think in annual programmes. They use terms such as ‘launch’ and ‘reminder’ campaigns. They attack their opponent, the potential consumer, on a broad front which ranges from press, television and radio advertising to posters and point-of-sale material. They bang out their message until no one can ignore it. Anyone who fails to see or hear it today must be sure of noticing it tomorrow or the day after. And suddenly, hundreds of thousands or millions of people are familiar with a product, star or slogan whose existence was unknown to them six months ago. Once advertising has managed to familiarize people with something, it is not long before they absorb the message, believe in the promise and obey the summons to buy, buy and buy again. This being precisely how products and people, programmes and ideologies are sold, why shouldn’t we all make use of such a fruitful method when trying to defeat our everyday opponents in the manipulation game?

A couple of years ago I bumped into an old school-friend. Conversation soon turned to an event which had taken his entire circle of acquaintances by surprise nearly two decades earlier. He had astonished us all, me included, by marrying one of the prettiest and most interesting girls around, although the majority of her numerous admirers were blessed with better looks, broader shoulders and brighter prospects. ‘What made her settle on you?’ I asked him. He gave the same pensive smile I remembered from the old days. ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘I was convinced I was the right man for her and I kept telling her so for eighteen solid months.’ It should be mentioned that at the time when my friend launched his campaign, the popular young object of his affections was temporarily engaged to someone else. She spent six of the eighteen months abroad. Later, she broke a leg skiing and spent another two months in hospital with a bad compound fracture. But, wherever she was and whoever happened to be pursuing her, my school-friend ran her to earth and repeated his simple, straightforward message: ‘The only man for you is me .. .’ He didn’t always use the same words, of course. Sometimes he said it with flowers, sometimes with presents, letters or an inscribed book, but all his moves were directed to the same end. Although the girl took no immediate notice of him, as she subsequently admitted, and later came to regard him as ‘slightly nuts’, her final conclusion was that she’d never find a better husband. There seems little doubt what would have happened if my friend had abandoned his endeavours after two or three attempts. The girl might have noticed him by that time — she might even, to use her own words, have thought him ‘nuts’ — but the idea of marriage would have struck her as absolutely insane. What prompted her to marry him in the end? Let us try to analyse the change that occurred in the girl during her exposure to my friend’s dogged manipulative campaign, from the first time he caught her eye to her acceptance of his proposal.

Phase 1 She registers him as one of the numerous young men who are making some attempt to capture her attention.

Phase 2 He strikes her as ‘slightly nuts’. This implies that she has formed a judgement

about him — not an over-favourable one, but still. . .

Phase 3 She goes abroad. He does not lose interest in her like most of his rivals. On the contrary, he takes the trouble to obtain her address and write regularly. After some initial reluctance, she replies without really knowing why. For the first time, he has succeeded in coaxing her out of a passive attitude towards him and persuaded her to take an active interest in his person and the contents of his letters.

Phase 4 A brisk correspondence develops. He uses it to focus her attention on himself and becomes a sort of permanent link with home — one on which she gradually comes to rely. Sometimes, when he intentionally delays replying, she writes on her own initiative and expresses concern that something may have happened to him. By dint of little tricks like these, he discreetly but regularly tests the progress of her growing attachment to him. She is now at the stage where contact with him has become necessary to her, if only at a distance.

Phase 5 Strangely enough, their relationship cools a little when she returns home. My friend cannot account for this at first. Not until later, when the couple have been safely married for some time, does she confess that it was a sort of final bid to escape. It had suddenly dawned on her that she was committed to a relationship which had developed without her guidance or supervision. This wounded her feminine vanity and self-assurance.

Phase 6 She goes on a skiing holiday with someone else — undoubtedly an act of defiance. Her male companion is very put out by her accident and departs as soon as his own vacation ends. By contrast, my friend recovers swiftly from his initial disappointment at the turn of events. He sends the girl flowers and visits her several times in hospital. It is in hospital, too, that she first gives serious consideration to the possibility that her suitor might make an ideal husband. Or, to use the prosaic phraseology of Victor O. Schwab: my friend had stimulated

the girl’s desire to avail herself of a proven advantage. The casual observer may find this story rather mawkish, I admit. In actual fact, it impressively substantiates the claim advanced under our fourth manipulative rule: ‘The readiness of someone to accept a statement increases in accordance with the number of times it is repeated. Persistent repetition multiplies this effect.’

How your own self-confidence increases as you systematically demolish your opponent’s We must bear in mind that our entire life is an incessant alternation between the active and passive states, between confidence and uncertainty, attack and defence, victory and defeat. We are always verring between these opposite poles. Sometimes we prevail, sometimes we fail. We shall never be exclusively successful, just as few of us suffer an unbroken string of defeats. So our life is a constant alternation between success and failure. It is up to us whether we spend the bulk of our time on the winning or losing side. We cannot escape this automatic mechanism, nor should we expect to. On the contrary, we must accept the fact that failure is as much an ingredient of life as success. But we should go one stage further and make the following resolution: ‘Being unable to preclude all possibility of failure, I shall make the best of every setback.’ This is a most important decision, because setbacks can work in two different ways: 1.

If I look on every reverse I suffer as something final, my

self-confidence diminishes. I say to myself: ‘I can’t do it, so there’s no point in trying again.’ Before long, I reach the stage where I don’t even try to achieve many objectives because I’m convinced of my incapacity in advance: ‘It’s bound to go wrong, so why bother at all?’ In other words, the more often I regard a setback as final and the more often I repeat the process, the more my self-confidence suffers. My sense of insecurity grows. 2.

If, on the other hand, I regard every setback as one of a

series of attempts which must be undertaken before my objective can be attained, I shall tell myself: ‘All right, so it didn’t come off. Now let’s think what went wrong. Armed with my findings, I shall tackle the problem again — but more efficiently next time. And again and again until I crack it.’ The crucial difference between these two responses to failure shows up in their effect on my attitude and future course of action. In case 1, repeated setbacks produce a growing lack of confidence which blunts my initiative and prompts me to lower my sights. In case 2, steadfast adherence to the attitude ‘If I don’t make it the first time I’ll try again and again, each time with improved resources’ will at least ensure that my selfconfidence remains intact. Since it may be assumed that repeated attempts will bear fruit, there is a high degree of probability that limited successes will nourish my self-confidence and spur me to further efforts. Being primarily concerned here with the principle of repetition and its benefits, let us summarize what we have learnt so far. Each renewed attempt to approach a set destination increases the likelihood of success, which is linked with greater self-confidence. Assurance and uncertainty are the two contrary states which affect our use of the repetition principle. We must launch and execute our manipulative operation from a base of self-assurance, using confident repetition to shake an opponent by degrees so that our message acquires more and more certainty in his eyes. We must persevere until he regards the certainty inherent in our message as a benefit of which he would like to avail himself. This is precisely what happened in the case of my school-friend. It is also what advertising demonstrates day after day, on whatever social plane and with whatever message it accosts us. In conclusion, here are another two instances which show just how effective the repetition principle can be. One of them was an ephemeral item of gossip in the town where it occurred and the other appeared in the press.

Example 1 Four supporters of a leading football club — we shall call them A, B, C and D — went to watch their team play an away match abroad. After the game, which ended in

victory for the visitors, they celebrated rather riotously in a restaurant. After several hours of steady drinking, one of them had a bright idea. Why not round off the evening with a little female company? Having transferred their custom to a small bar, they found a lady who could provide just the companionship they were looking for. The quartet went back to her apartment, where they all availed themselves of her services to a greater or lesser extent. The lady’s scale of charges was reasonable, and that seemed to be that. A few days after they got back, Mr A phoned his friend Mr B and imparted some distressing news: ‘Hey, remember our little stag party the other night? I think I’ve caught a dose. B, a fun-loving soul with a taste for practical jokes, gave A to understand that he entertained similar misgivings about his own state of health. As soon as A had rung off, B phoned the other two participants in the nocturnal escapade. It was agreed, purely for a laugh, that they would confess to the same symptoms too. Now that his suspicions had been confirmed three times over, A was in no further doubt that he ought to seek medical advice. Going to a doctor, he reeled off the symptoms of a minor venereal disease and said that he must be suffering from it because his friends had the same suspicious signs. The doctor duly treated him without laboratory confirmation. As a matter of routine, he asked A whether he had indulged in sexual intercourse since his trip abroad. A truthfully informed him that he had — with his wife and the maidservant. Both ladies were summoned to the doctor’s surgery, and A had no choice but to tell his wife, not only about his experience abroad but also about his affair with the maidservant. As a result of these revelations, his wife divorced him. She did so under a total or at least partial misconception, because the doctor could find no trace of infection in her or the maid for the very simple reason that they were quite as healthy as the husband and his three cronies. Presumably, A would never have landed himself in such an unpleasant predicament if B and his other two chums had truthfully assured him that they had noticed no symptoms and persuaded him that his fears were groundless. In this case, the principle of repetition took effect in an obvious way: the more often A’s fears were confirmed, the stronger grew his dire conviction and the weaker

his powers of discernment. Profoundly influenced by repetitions of the same message, he trotted out his vague and non-specific symptoms so cogently that even the doctor took his condition for granted.

Example 2 Franz G., a lorry-driver, ran over a man on a pedestrian crossing. The man died in hospital shortly afterwards without regaining consciousness. The police arrived at the scene of the accident, made inquiries and prepared a report. Two witnesses gave it as their opinion that the driver was going too fast and must have been drunk. Although there was no factual evidence to support these conjectures, they were leaked to the press. Next day, three different newspaper reports alluded to the probability that Franz G. had been drunk and travelling at excessive speed when he struck the man on the pedestrian crossing. They added that his driver’s licence had been provisionally withdrawn for that reason. As soon as these reports appeared in the press, Franz G. was given the sack. His workmates abused and reviled him for his conduct. His protestations of innocence fell on deaf ears — even his neighbours cold-shouldered him. Unable to stand it any longer, he hanged himself in a wood on the outskirts of town. It did Franz G. no good when his driver’s licence was restored a week later because inquiries had elicited that he was not only sober but could not, on the basis of skid-marks, have been travelling too fast. Furthermore, post mortem examination of the pedestrian had disclosed the presence of enough alcohol in his system to make it likely that he had occasioned his own death. The lorry-driver might still be alive if three newspapers had not simultaneously published an erroneous report. Repetition from several sources at once, reinforced by the widespread notion ‘I read it in the newspaper, so it must be true’, almost entirely insulated the recipients of the message from a critical scrutiny of its contents. In the case of my school-friend, we followed the workings of the repetition principle from the active manipulator’s standpoint. The other two examples illustrate its effect on those who passively submit to manipulation. All three instances confirm that repetition of a statement enhances the ostensible truth of its contents, intensifies the effect of its message and reinforces its manipulative impact.

Three methods often used in the manipulative repetition of a message 1.

STEREOTYPED REITERATION

My school-friend’s technique, which was to beam his beloved the identical message for months on end, may be defined as ‘stereotyped reiteration’. Its effectiveness stems solely from the dogged persistence of those who employ it. The sooner an opponent recognizes some advantage in it, the sooner the stereotyped reiteration of a formula will yield results. For instance, when a man repeatedly assures a plain woman she’s beautiful, her own urge to believe him will soon prompt her to do so. Reinforcement and variation of the formula becomes necessary when, as in our example, the recipient of a message greets it with initial mistrust or indifference. It is important to select the timing of each repetition with care. As everyone will know from personal experience, we attach little value to another’s offer of help if it comes at a moment when no help is needed. If he makes the same offer when the whole world seems to be against us, we will ‘never forget’ it. 2.

QUANTITATIVE MULTIPLICATION

The more often people confirm a message or item of information, the more credible it becomes. Ten witnesses who say the same thing will be more readily believed than one. Above a certain number of multipliers, people actually dispense with objective proof altogether, as we saw in the case of the lorry-driver, Franz G. If someone can claim the approval of a ‘majority’, he tends to eliminate critical consideration from the outset. It should again be emphasized that general allusions to quantitative reinforcement such as ‘Everyone says so’, or ‘Most people are in favour’, or ‘Hardly anyone objected’ exercise a potent effect. An even stronger impact is, of course, produced by impressive references to number, which may be replaced by percentages when appropriate. For instance, if five out of ten people approve a thing while the remaining five evince no interest, the experienced manipulator does not limit himself to saying: ‘Five were for it.’ He says: ‘Fifty per cent of all those present voted in favour.’ On the other hand, if 2100 out of 4200 people voted in favour, the figure sounds so imposingly large that it can be quoted as it stands.

3.

QUALITATIVE REINFORCEMENT

In the case of lorry-driver Franz G., the report of a road accident, which presumably came from a police officer, was qualitatively reinforced by three newspapers which reproduced it without checking its accuracy. Qualitatively, because there is a general inclination to believe something seen ‘in black and white’. Indeed, large numbers of people tend to accept press conjectures as matters of established fact. Remembering that Rule No. 1 listed the media as one of our six main opponents in the daily manipulation game, we may take this example as a warning against uncritical acceptance of the printed word. Since the media themselves — i.e. television, radio and books, as well as newspapers — already enjoy greater credence than, say, information transmitted by an acquaintance, they make a perfect platform for the qualitative reinforcement of messages. This happens, for example, when a newspaper or magazine reports:

‘The

celebrated American scientist Professor Anthony Wyler has established, after years spent testing and observing its effects on 4000 patients, that the Pill can cause cancer in women with low blood pressure.’ Reinforcement of this message is conveyed by the following factors: It is there in print. The views of any professor, let alone a ‘celebrated American scientist’, are bound to carry exceptional weight with most recipients of such information. Credibility is further buttressed by a reference to Wyler’s having based his conclusions on ‘years spent testing and observing’ women — ‘4000’ of them, no less. Qualitative reinforcement by the printed word and by someone who possesses an unusual degree of credibility is here coupled with the quantitative reinforcement of number. It is only natural that advertising men, politicians and countless other skilled ‘salesmen’ should exploit the principle of repetition for their own purposes. Generally speaking, they favour the methods we have christened ‘quantitative multiplication’ and ‘qualitative reinforcement’. Listening to my car radio a few weeks ago, I repeatedly heard a commercial in which the well-known racing driver Jackie Stewart stressed the merits of a particular make of car which had — with the benefit of his advice — scored triumphs in a number of gruelling races. To a certain class of sports-conscious road users, Jackie

Stewart’s repeated commendation must have seemed an exceptionally credible reinforcement of the message. There is a particular fondness for corroborating statements by citing groups of experts who enjoy special esteem with the general public. This esteem depends primarily on the fact that their achievements and pronouncements are a closed book to the layman. As long as they are plausibly presented, we cherish a natural reverence for things we fail to understand. Imagine, for example, that we are lectured on the workings of a computer by a layman devoid of awe-inspiring status: we shall be far less inclined to give him credence than someone who is introduced to us as an eminent computer technician, even though the latter’s remarks may be far less intelligible. Again, we may tend to distrust a politician who quotes statistical evidence of his own successes. We are far more likely to believe him if — on the same television screen — he submits the identical figures but adds that they are the fruit of lengthy investigation by a committee of noted experts —and this despite the obvious fact that he would hardly quote findings detrimental to himself. We daily encounter less spectacular examples in every sphere of existence. When someone at work comes round with a subscription list for Mr X’s leaving present, we’re almost bound to ask: ‘How much are the others giving?’ Whatever the others are giving will seem an acceptable amount to us as well. When an anonymous voice on television declares ‘One million housewives are already using our flavouring cubes — that proves they’re good!’, the message is bound to carry weight even if nobody ever produces evidence of such an assertion. Every technique quoted here can in future be employed by you — for your benefit.

Forgiving an opponent's mistakes may be generous, but many people are experts at turning them to their own advantage A very widespread method of exploiting the repetition principle is to harp on some blunder, weakness or uncertainty. This simultaneously impairs an opponent’s selfconfidence and reinforces the manipulator’s position. In many instances, the correct application of this method can ultimately create a strongly dependent

relationship. A classic example of this is often found in the family domain. Here, many wives skilfully take advantage of their husbands’ mistakes or weaknesses to attain their own ends. My wife told me recently of a case involving a married couple of our acquaintance. The husband had failed to come home after concluding a successful business deal. Instead, he and his partner had whooped it up in a bar till the small hours. Nothing but champagne was drunk, so the bill was a steep one. When he did stagger home, the husband actually confessed to his wife that it amounted to half his commission on the order. Commenting on the affair next day, his wife told mine: ‘I wasn’t particularly bothered, but I gave him absolute hell. At least I’ll be able to rub his nose in it for the next few months. That way I can squeeze a bit more housekeeping out of him.’ Another variant of this method is still more subtle. It shrewdly combines flattery with disparagement. The formula runs as follows: ‘Considering how good you are at your job and how hard you work, they ought to give you a rise or promote you. Do something about it — then we’ll be able to lash out a bit more.’ The first few times a wife says this to her husband, he may feel flattered. Innocently, he expatiates on his work and unrewarded talents and basks in her spurious admiration. But next time, having skilfully steered conversation round to the dish-washer acquired by a neighbour, his wife develops her message: ‘Mrs N says it leaves her much freer to look after the children. If only you brought more money home we could afford a dish-washer too, but you let the firm walk all over you. Look at Mr N — he works much shorter hours than you do but he earns a lot more.’ The husband won’t like swallowing this reproach. For the sake of peace, he’ll promise to take action. He may know perfectly well, even at this stage, that he won’t do anything because it would be useless. On the other hand, he may take on a spare-time job to bring in more money and earn his wife’s commendation. Sooner or later, however, there comes a stage when she starts to reproach him again for devoting too little time to her and the children. The game begins afresh, still

with her on the attack and him on the defensive. Little by little — as the message is constantly reiterated — he comes to the conclusion that he’s a deadbeat who fails to provide for his family as well as other men do. By this time, however, his wife has long ago seized the reins and can assert herself virtually at will. As for him, he acquiesces — merely in order to demonstrate his masculine magnanimity from time to time. We need not be surprised by the number of marriages in which wives quite openly manipulate their husbands to their own advantage. The simple fact is that husbands tend to lay themselves open to attack by their wives. I know women who are still needling their menfolk for extra-marital affairs they had ten or a dozen years ago. This is a pretty crude method but it works, as many a reader may know to his cost. I should like at this juncture to point out that use of the above-mentioned technique — flattery plus disparagement — is far from confined to shrewd wives intent on their own interests. Two of the fields in which it finds most frequent application are advertising and politics. Advertising flatters the consumer in his capacity as a prospective customer. On the other hand, it does everything possible to render him dependent on the need which a given product undertakes to fulfil. This is precisely what happens when a toothpaste commercial presents us with the drastic and reiterated spectacle of teeth falling out. Watching it, we sense the unspoken threat: ‘It’ll happen to you too, if you don’t use Brand Z!’ In politics, parliamentary representatives flatter us at intervals to extract our votes when the next election comes. I sometimes catch myself waiting at an intersection late at night and wondering: ‘Why do I bother to wait till the lights go green when there isn’t another car in sight?’ Such are the unceasing messages of the powers-that-be. Their implication is: ‘We’ll tell you when you can cross because you’re too dumb to judge for yourself.’ Continuous repetition of this insidious formula — ‘Don’t think. You don’t understand. We’ll do it for you. Just leave it to us. We know better.’ — is further reinforced by threats of punishment. It gradually manoeuvres us into a state of manipulative dependence similar to that which afflicts the hen-pecked husband. The use of this method by government differs from advertising in two important respects:

The individual can combat advertising’s endeavours to manipulate him by discriminating, adopting an active approach to life and studying his opponent’s methods. He retains wide scope for free decision-making and can use it as his personal judgement and sense of responsibility decree. Manipulation by government imposes far tighter restrictions on the individual’s freedom of decision. Here, the manipulation game is played on unequal terms. Shrouded in the anonymous cloak of higher authority, coercion by threat of punishment becomes part of a legal armoury which leaves little room for personal initiative. Rule No. 5 Most people’s actions are determined less by rational deliberation than by emotional attitudes — by momentary surges of feeling like rage and joy or emotionally coloured value- concepts such as integrity, manliness, honour and courage, all of which are susceptible to manipulative stimuli. Anyone who knows how to take advantage of such given factors in the manipulation game will very probably be able to determine his opponent’s reactions in advance. Anyone who can critically stand aloof from his emotions will make it hard for an opponent to exploit them to his detriment.

Recognize the power of emotion and your approach to many aspects of life will be transformed overnight However shrewd, intelligent, sophisticated and emancipated you consider yourself, review the course of your life to date and be honest: isn’t everything you do ultimately determined by emotional rather than rational considerations? When ambitious people make millions and do great things, part of the credit naturally belongs to their personal ability. Whether or not they admit it, however, the motive power that propels them is an emotion which few of them can properly explain. They may say ‘I like success’, or ‘I enjoy wielding power’, or ‘Money makes me happy’. Quite frequently, we meet people who have risen to dizzy heights out of sheer

cussedness. Some time or other, someone scornfully told them: ‘You’ll never make the grade — you’re far too dumb.’ Wounded vanity has imbued these people with a drive and perseverance whose sole motivation is a wish to ‘show them’. It is not surprising, in view of this, that small men and ugly women often develop more ambition and a greater thirst for power than their brothers and sisters. They want to show the whole world that the runt of the litter or ugly duckling which everyone used to elbow aside has ‘made it’ after all. Have you ever considered what a crucial part emotion plays in something as seemingly prosaic as the purchase of a car? You will, of course, begin by working out how much you want to spend and what the car will cost per month or year in terms of petrol and maintenance. This is a wholly rational basis for your decision, but you will have devoted far less time and thought to the question: ‘Do I really need it?’ I recently met a young man who proudly informed me that, in addition to his battered Volkswagen, he had now acquired a second-hand Jaguar. Asked what had prompted him to do so, he grinned broadly and replied: ‘Well, there’s quite a difference between a Jag and a clapped-out Beetle when it comes to driving a girl home.’ ‘Typical!’ you may say, or ‘Youngsters have too much money these days’, or ‘The boy must be crazy’. If you consider it crazy to cherish a quite irrational desire to count for something in other people’s eyes, you’re perfectly right. But rest assured that millions of other people buy or select their cars for just the same crazy or unthinking reasons. Or do you think it rational for millions of tormented holiday-makers to clog the roads every summer and spend hours inhaling the exhaust fumes of the cars in front? Or for you yourself to stare covetously at some gleaming monster stationary beside you at the traffic lights — with bigger tyres, flashier body-work, more chromium, style, elegance and horsepower than your own modest vehicle? ‘My dream car,’ you sigh, although you must know perfectly well that it can’t go any faster than yours in a traffic jam. Do you realize how different your world and mine would look if we consistently acquired everything on the principle: ‘Buy nothing you don’t genuinely need’? My study wouldn’t now contain a handsome portable TV, for a start, because I should presumably have realized that the set in our living- room is quite sufficient for the whole family.

This is just one example that occurs to me as I write these lines. If you’d like to examine the question in more detail, get a pencil and paper and draw up a list, item by item, of all that occurs to you in the next ten minutes in response to the question: ‘What have I bought in the past year that wasn’t an absolute must?’ You can use the right-hand margin to jot down what your inessentials cost you. If you conduct this little investigation, you’ll soon notice that it’s far from easy to classify certain purchases under the alternative headings ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’. You may find yourself saying: ‘Oh well, I simply had to have it.’ Or, as many people say when justifying the purchase of a car: ‘A person’s incomplete without one.’ Likewise: ‘A car makes you more independent. Are these really apt and cogent reasons for buying? ‘I simply had to have it’ may be cogent enough from your point of view. The one thing it isn’t, is rational — not if rationality is contrasted with the emotional urge to buy. I have been writing about purchases and financial expenditure the whole time. These, of course, are only one major aspect of daily life, but one which clearly reveals the influence exerted on us by emotion. We always like to appear the great and rational creatures we allegedly are, but the truth is that our emotions rule us to the extent indicated by Ernesto Grassi in his previously quoted account of the characteristics of man in the mass: ‘Reason is replaced by emotion and instinct, hence the extreme suggestibility of the masses, whose actions are governed by emotion alone, not reflection and discernment.’ Millions of people react almost identically and with predictable certainty to specific manipulative signals when their emotions are engaged, but only if the authors of such signals have mastered the controls which enable emotion to be used as a spur to action. How else can it happen that somewhere, someone decrees: ‘From now on, bare thighs are all the rage’ — and next day half the world’s young women are walking around in hot-pants? Or that a singer comes out with a song which awakens the yearnings that slumber in all of us, and in no time his record is spinning on myriad turntables? The same emotional rules apply to drug addiction and heroism and other

totally irrational things for which some people are even ready to stake their lives. Am I implying that emotions should be abolished — that we should either suppress or refrain from acting in accordance with them? Far from it. That would be not only impracticable but frightful, nor is it the object of these remarks. My sole aim is to demonstrate the extent to which emotions rule us and, what is far more important, the extent to which they can be used to influence us. In the days when I worked as a copywriter in an advertising agency, the wall of our office was adorned with a huge notice: ‘One appeal to the emotions is worth a hundred sophisticated arguments.’ Whoever devised the formula, one thing is certain: people have known of it from time immemorial and used it to manipulate their fellow-men with the utmost success. At the risk of repeating myself, here once more is what Professor Grassi goes on to say: ‘Anyone intent on securing mass approval will aim at the lower end of the intellectual scale and dispense with logical argument. Observation has repeatedly confirmed that human beings in the mass are gullible and will indiscriminately applaud a succession of speakers whose statements are diametrically opposed.’ You can, of course, join in the popular refrain: ‘Manipulators outl Manipulators out. You can condemn manipulation and feel sorry for its victims. Self-pity is yet another emotion to which masses of people surrender in exculpation of their own failure to resist the manipulators. Very well, but what good is self-pity in the hard school of everyday life?

Why it’s no accident that we rate courage good and cowardice bad, not vice versa Emotional manipulation, to which we are constantly exposed, derives first and foremost from our dependence on a large number of emotionally coloured value-concepts which affect our decisions and entire life. These concepts include: honour, loyalty, courage, justice,obedience, order, discipline honesty, manliness — and countless others. We have learnt to live with them, pay heed to and comply with them. Although these criteria serve as universal guides to action, each of us has his own quite personal relationship with them. Honesty means far more to one person than another. There may be various reasons for this. One of them could be that honesty is more

convenient than dishonesty. For instance, if a businessman pays his taxes down to the last penny, he can claim to be honest and — to put it no higher — pride himself on a clear conscience. Above all, though, he need not bother to devise ways, devious and otherwise, of running rings round the tax inspector. He is also spared the fear of getting caught. Other men will make any sacrifice in order to appear courageous or virile. Nothing surpasses the thrill of triumph that runs through them when they overtake another car on the motorway, persuade their latest conquest to go to bed with them or treat their cronies in the pub on pay-day. For many men, settling an argument with their knuckles is enough. All these things impart a sense of virility. Women consider it ultra-feminine to preside over a clean and tidy home, especially if visitors are expected, for one thing is indispensable to the relish derived from virility, femininity, loyalty or honour: their appreciation by others. To most people, these various concepts and the endeavour to live up to them represent an ingrained need. They pride themselves on them, draw attention to them whenever possible, sometimes stake their lives on them. We are all acquainted with familiar and oft-recurring sentiments such as these: ‘My word is my bond.’ ‘It was a tempting offer, but I turned it down out of loyalty to the firm.’ ‘I do my duty, even when it conflicts with my personal views.’ ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ ‘My country right or wrong.’ ‘Discipline must be maintained at all costs.’ ‘Law and order are the basis of good government.’ ‘Better a clean loser than a dirty winner.’ These and many other criteria are dinned into us throughout our lives from childhood onwards, so they can’t be wrong. They are, so to speak, beyond dispute, Children must be ‘brought up to be honest’, ‘Order must prevail’ at work and school, ‘Respect and obedience’ are due to teachers, parents and superiors. Assessment of our personal conduct is decisively governed by these standards and influences. Is their existence fortuitous? Of course not. We are all interested in their existence because we profit by it.

Emotionally coloured value-concepts offer the greatest possible scope for mutual manipulation. The person who can submit his emotions to critical scrutiny will be less at their mercy than one whose decisions are predominantly influenced by the emotions to which he is subject. It goes without saying that a knowledge of the links between emotions and behaviour patterns and their controllability is a basic prerequisite of their successful exploitation in others. This knowledge, it should be emphasized, can only be acquired and put to practical use by someone with a wide-ranging ability to free himself from dependence on traditional standards and see them for what they really are: instruments of manipulation. After all, there is no obvious reason why manipulative methods which rulers and sages have used for thousands of years should not be grasped by the individual and employed for his own practical benefit. Military leaders of every age would, for example, have found it extremely difficult to wage war if they had failed to convince their officers and men that courage is one of the supreme male virtues. They do not hesitate to foster and enforce this indispensable sentiment, even today, by the requisite means: with the varied and subtle flattery provided by orders and decorations of sundry grades, promotion for the meritorious and public honours for the heroic; with threats of punishment for cowardice, the list of deterrents ranging from social ostracism to death. The carrot-and-stick method of influencing people confronts us with infinite variety in nearly every walk of life, spurring us on to fresh efforts and sacrifices. It is an element in the manipulative game played by parent and child, teacher and pupil, Church and church-goer, State and citizen, superior and subordinate, salesman and customer. Most of our thoughts and actions have their being in a world ruled by the emotions to which we are subject. This is a largely specious world in which rational cognition for ever conflicts with emotional dependence. On the other hand, it is easier to accept prescribed behaviour patterns than take the trouble to establish and observe special standards tailored to our own requirements. Years ago, when I was crime-reporting for a daily paper, a multi-murderer named Bergmann tried to rob a post office messenger. He was put to flight and ran off down

the street with a loaded gun in his hand. A young lad saw him coming and barred the way. Bergmann shouted ‘Get out of the way, or I’ll shoot!’ but the youngster was so keen to demonstrate his courage that he didn’t stop to weigh the odds. Bergmann’s bullet felled the young man in a flash, inflicting such grave injuries that today, twenty years later, he is still half-paralysed and confined to a wheel-chair. The papers were full of his praises at the time, but nothing can alter the fact that he failed to settle for a moment’s cowardice — and stay healthy. We all behave like this, day after day, whenever we aspire to be honest, up-to-the-minute, well-disciplined or manly.

How to control our dependence on emotion and prevent others from doing the same One thing should be stated at the outset: if we lived in a world where emotions were manifested with perfect sincerity, it would be futile to discuss their control, but no such utopia exists. When men or women say ‘I love you’, it is far from certain that they don’t mean ‘I want to go to bed with you’ or ‘Marry me, then I’ll be provided for’. When a politician says ‘Vote for me — my programme is the only one for you’, we may rest assured that this statement stands proxy for others, among them: ‘Vote for me — I want to wield power and acquire personal prestige.’ When someone tries to sell us a car because it suits our requirements to a tee, we can bet that his prime concern is the commission he’ll earn. The world of specious appeals to emotion is such a labyrinth that we can scarcely find our bearings in it. By ‘we’ I mean all of us, even those who have carved out a place in the ranks of the professional manipulators. Some years back, a politician called me in to advise him on a vastly expensive project. As soon as we had settled down in his office I opened my briefcase and prepared to submit my recommendations with the aid of research notes and statistics. He brushed them aside. The first question he asked — one which appeared to interest him above all else — was: ‘There was a picture of me in the papers last week, showing me kissing X (a girl singer). What do you think — will people hold it against me?’

You see? Whoever and whatever we are, and however smart and superior we think ourselves, we’re far from immune to dependence on emotional ties, some of them trivial to the point of absurdity. We have almost ceased to purchase what we genuinely need. More and more often, we buy to satisfy emotional requirements. The people we buy from realize this perfectly well. They foster such requirements and cater to them. They ‘put us on our mettle’, kindle our urge to impress, guarantee to satisfy our unfulfilled desires. To arouse and sustain these desires is the object of their unceasing endeavours. They exploit our efforts to: shine in the eyes of others, attain our ambitions, and behave in accordance with universal criteria. Such is the variegated manipulative arena in which each of us seeks his share at the expense of the rest. Some are more successful than others. One individual obtains a greater measure of satisfaction while another goes away empty- handed and becomes more and more ensnared in the frustration that springs from unfulfilled desires. His belief in manipulative promises grows as he stops trying to set standards of his own and use them to assess these promises. At the same time, his dependence on behaviour patterns increases. The question arises: how can we control our dependence so that others don’t take advantage of it? I should like here to recount the story of a married couple named Gerda and Hans G. Both came from solid middle-class homes. Even today, I find it hard to escape the impression that they didn’t marry one another by choice but were deliberately thrown together and prodded into marriage by their parents. On the superficial level, they seemed an excellent match. Both were good-looking and well educated, and both merited any number of conventional epithets such as friendly, industrious, sociable and pleasant. After two years of marriage, it became apparent that none of these qualities sufficed to create a happy and enduring relationship. They quarrelled more and more often and would probably have split up if it hadn’t been for their parents. Hans and Gerda were regular visitors to our house, so my wife and I had a ringside view of their marital developments

from the outset, the more so because both of them showed a growing inclination to discuss their problems with us as matters came to a head. I should mention in advance that they had, by mutual agreement, parcelled out their married life into clear-cut spheres of responsibility which each of them guarded jealously. Gerda strove to be what most people would call a model housewife. Although she worked as a part-time secretary, she never neglected her home. She also tried, as she often stressed in our conversations together, to be a ‘loving wife’ to her husband. For his part, Hans regarded it as his principal function to pull his weight at work, furnish the necessities of life and manage their finances so that everything was provided for. The only feature missing from the marriage was a child. That, too, had been built into their plans but was scheduled for a time when they could ‘afford’ it. So far from being mine, the phrases ‘pull one’s weight at work’ or ‘furnish the necessities of life’ figured prominently in the young people’s verbal repertoire. Clearly, they were a typical ‘model couple’. As I sometimes said to my wife, one could vividly picture the sort of parents who had inculcated these behaviour patterns into them from childhood onwards. It did not require great powers of discernment to foresee that Hans and Gerda would be unable, in the long run, to live up to the parts they were playing. There was an unbridgeable gulf between the behaviour imposed on them by their charade and the way they would really have liked to act. The result was a gradual unmasking process which slowly but surely disclosed that behind the roles they were playing lurked two perfectly ordinary young people who were far from as nice and friendly, manly, womanly and exemplary, as they believed they ought to be. I shall never forget the evening at our house when they let their hair down and debated whether it wouldn’t be better to get a divorce, parents or no parents. There was plenty of the mutual bitterness and recrimination which attends such crises in any marriage. Being familiar with these problems from personal experi ence, my wife and I proposed a game which I christened ‘Squelch the Cliche’. The rules were as follows: First, both players had to admit their inability to sustain the marital roles which they had originally meant to play.

Next, as a neutral referee, I would cue each of them in turn with some quality or characteristic which the player would have to debunk, substantiating its rejection in respect of his or her own person. The couple consented to play, adding that they had nothing more to lose in any case. Two further rules were agreed: first, a total ban on self-justification, and, second, that each player should be given a chance to supplement the other’s remarks. Of course, they both had some initial difficulty in debunking things which they had always thought of as the cardinal rules of their married life. They found it easier when they remembered that it was only a game in which blasphemies of this kind were allowed. Later, however, they gradually forgot about the game and — egged on by me — whipped themselves into a ferocious analysis of their existing marital set-up. The whole thing reached a climax when I said to Gerda: ‘You always want to treat your husband like a loving wife. What’s more, you feel happy and privileged to keep house for him.’ This tapped the full flood of bitterness that had been stored up inside her for two long years. I can’t recall her exact words, but she shouted rather than spoke them with the tears streaming down her cheeks. Their gist was as follows: ‘No, no, no! I’m sick of being the perfect little housekeeper. I want to live — just

live, not act the model wife day after day.’ Apparently, she detested the whole performance which they both staged for the benefit of their parents and neighbours, just to give an impression of marital bliss. She also complained about the monotony of their sex-life, which had long been unsatisfactory. If two people wanted to make love, she said, they ought to do so and be damned. Not just at week-ends but — if they felt like it — before getting up in the morning. Her husband’s eternal plea — ‘Not now, darling, we’ll be late for work’ — was utterly ridiculous. The game lasted nearly four hours. I need only add that its outcome was the reconciliation we expected. The young couple had voiced sentiments which they had never dared put into words for fear of spoiling an act which had been drummed into them and which both accepted as a fact of life. Suddenly, they had been encouraged to reject their roles and expose what lay behind them. Having done so, they felt — to quote their own words — ‘like completely new people who had dared to break out of a

cage’. To stress the principal conclusion to be drawn from this anecdote: a change occurred because the two young people rejected their ingrained behaviour patterns. They discarded their ‘one doesn’t say that’ approach and came out with things whose importance they had long recognized but steadfastly suppressed. They ‘broke out of their cage’ and stopped paying lip service to cliches. This decision is essential if we are to escape our behaviour patterns and submit them to better control in future. Let us reinforce our findings with a further example. You are driving along the street when a policeman stops you and claims that you have violated some traffic ordinance or other. Your ingrained, emotional attitude automatically signals: ‘Show respect for authority. He represents the law, so he must be right on principle. I am “the accused”.’ In fact, the policeman will behave precisely as you expect. He will don the mantle of authority and dig in behind some regulation or other. He will promptly cast himself as the accuser and you as the accused. If he succeeds because you accept the customary allocation of roles, your subsequent exchange will follow the usual course. It is immaterial if he refrains from punishing you because he happens to be in a good mood and tempers justice with mercy, or if he remains adamant and gets out his notebook. In this version of the manipulative encounter between you and the policeman, you accept the prescribed assignment of roles as a matter of course. It is idle to stress that this ‘casting’ is one of the carefully designed manipulative instruments with which any government and its public servants operate. If authority is to function as officialdom intends, however, you must acknowledge, fear and respect it on principle. Now let us act out the other possible version of your encounter with the policeman. He stops you and tries to assert his superior status as a person in authority. You counter this manipulative gambit with an attitude which deviates from the normal behaviour pattern: you reject the policeman’s authority and ignore his attempts to entrench himself behind some regulation or other. By so doing, you create a preliminary situation which enables you to confront him on equal terms in the manipulative game that follows.

You proceed in three stages:

Stage 1 You do not behave like an accused person treating a symbol of authority with the respect it takes for granted. This enables you to launch your operation actively, uninhibited by a defensive attitude. For his part, your opponent in the manipulation game is confronted by an untoward situation which does not fit into his expected scheme of things. Becoming unsure of himself, he tries to blind you with science — in this case, quotes some anonymous by-law in the hope of spiking your guns.

Stage 2 You remain on the offensive. You try to repudiate the authority of this by-law just as you decline to be cowed by officialdom. You strive to demonstrate the futility of the quoted regulation by advancing a series of vague but forceful arguments: for instance, that many regulations are issued by people devoid of practical knowledge and have long ago been rendered obsolete by the explosion in traffic density. You may also insert a semi-rhetorical question or two, e.g. ‘Anyway, do you know when this regulation came out?’ If he doesn’t, pursue your advantage by conveying that you know perfectly well it was decades ago. Without going into the actual date, of which you are naturally as ignorant as your opponent, you commiserate with him on having to shoulder the consequences of something so utterly pointless.

Stage 3 After these preparatory manoeuvres, whose object is to unsettle your opponent, you launch your actual counterattack by doing just what he originally meant to do to you: you nail him with one of the emotional clichds on which you believe him to be dependent. You can, for instance, put him on his mettle by pointing out that he has the power to suspend traffic regulations temporarily at his own sage discretion — that the decision rests ultimately with him. After all, you imply, he doesn’t look the sort of man who would cravenly hide behind a regulation when he knew it had lost all its validity. Finally, you can ask him to submit a recommendation that the rule be changed. This, as I have said, is a purely hypothetical behaviour model based on the lessons so far taught us by the fifth rule of manipulation. I can, however, confirm from my own experience that there is nothing to prevent the procedure from being successfully

employed in the form I have described. Success will depend largely on your correct appraisal of an opponent. The truth is, of course, that the policeman always starts with an advantage. If he responds to none of your manipulative manoeuvres and clings stubbornly to the letter of the law, final victory must be his. But this is not the essential point. What matters is to protect ourselves against manipulation by questioning or repudiating established emotional cliche's. Since we regard manipulation as a game played in the Field of human relations, we deliberately take active steps to seize any chance of victory where defeat can be avoided — for, as we already know, every success reinforces our self-confidence while every failure detracts from it. We have now learnt from two examples, one an authentic marital crisis and the other a hypothetical encounter with someone in authority, that rejection of inbred emotional clichds can help us to control our dependence on them. The same naturally applies to all the other cliche's which govern our behaviour. A husband who lets his wife know from the outset that he isn’t a paragon of ‘manliness’ — that he’s an ordinary mortal with all kinds of failings and weaknesses which she’ll have to make the best of — takes the wind out of her sails. He can face her appeals to ‘be a man’ and do this or that with serene self-assurance. She will not succeed in implanting a sense of guilt to be exploited whenever it suits her. A salesman who tries to sell you something on the grounds that it’s the latest product to hit the market will at once be prevented from exploiting your urge to outshine your friends and neighbours if you tell him: ‘I don’t want the latest product. What I want is something which suits my personal requirements.’ Finally, nothing so effectively disarms an opponent in the daily manipulation game as tactical acquiescence. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘don’t be scared.’ Sample reply: ‘I

am scared, believe it or not — scared stiff!’ A few practical tips on how to profit from the emotional dependence of others Reading the above words, you may well have a momentary urge to think what my grandfather always used to say: ‘Never monkey around with other people’s emotions,

my boy, it isn’t done.’ Perhaps he was right — he certainly thought he was. On the other hand, he was a country inn-keeper, and in that capacity he was only too happy to sell tankard after tankard to young farm-hands eager to demonstrate their manhood in terms of beer-intake ... Have you ever handled the funeral arrangements for a late lamented friend or relative? It’s quite amazing, the devout commiseration with which people extract money from you. The process persists to the very graveside itself, where someone stands with a bucket of earth in one hand and a shovel in the other — not that this prevents him from making the unmistakeable gesture which has you involuntarily groping in your pocket. Mind you, he’d never dream of giving a complacent grin —

that would deeply wound the sensibilities of the bereaved ... According to a statistical survey, nearly 2.2 million marriages were contracted in the United States during 1971. The industry set up to cater for these proud occasions did 7 billion dollars’ worth of business. The happy couples spent $197 million on rings, $200 million went on wedding presents and $250 million on flowers. In this context, a news magazine made the following statement: ‘In the case of most weddings — as of most funerals — those involved are so unsure of their own taste that they employ advisers who persuade them to spend far more than they can afford.’ We may conclude from these examples that ‘reverence’ is another of the behavioural norms from which a lot of money can be made — as long as those who spend it neglect to keep a judicious eye on their outgoings. We, however, are at liberty to scrutinize the ways in which our opponents’ emotional dependence can be exploited in the manipulation game. Here, first, is an interesting pointer from the 4th century B.C. It comes with the compliments of Sun Tse, a veteran Chinese general and author of The Thirteen Rules of Warfare, probably the world’s earliest military treatise. Point seven of the first rule reads as follows: ‘War is a method of deception. Make it appear to the enemy that you cannot do a thing when you can. Feign an inability to exploit something when you possess that ability. Lead him on by means of some simulated advantage, throw him into confusion and then strike. If he is strong, evade him. If you have enraged him, bewilder him. Pretend to yield and he will become over-confident. If he has fresh forces at his disposal, wear him down . . .’ If a successful military leader like Sun Tse owed many a victory to such

realizations, why shouldn’t they help us to prevail over others? As, for instance, when he talks about a ‘method of deception’. . . The following two courses of action hold out an exceptional prospect of success and are suitable for use by you.

Course 1. Simulated modesty. When confronted by an opponent whose initial position is equal or superior to your own, make his vanity your first target. Don’t, for instance, show him all you have up your sleeve — that will only prompt him to exert his own relative strength. Instead of referring to your own assets, emphatically deny them. ‘Listen,’ you say, ‘I know I’m only a layman compared with you . . .’ Or: ‘If I had your status and ability, I’d find it easier . ..’ This will impart a warm glow of superiority, with the following results: 1.He underrates you and overrates himself. 2.He strives to impress on you, purely for courtesy’s sake and in gratitude'for your flattery, that he isn’t as wonderful as all that. Generously, he betrays a few of his own weak points. 3. Still out of sheer politeness, he proceeds to explain why you’re far more capable than you think. In response to your cue — ‘How do you mean, capable?’, or words to that effect — he enumerates some of the talents he thinks you possess. These three points have in themselves provided you with an extremely favourable basis for further manipulative moves, and all because you suppressed your own vanity and tickled his.

Course 2. Attack as the best method of defence. This is another way of wresting an advantage from an opponent of equal or superior strength, but it does presuppose an ability to display great self-confidence, even — or especially — if you don’t possess it. Here, you exploit your opponent’s faith in authority, it being wholly immaterial whether or not you possess the slightest vestige. All that matters is your ability to simulate it. It is a very real fact that people are judged, not on their actual merits, but on how far they are capable of posing as authorities. Depending on circumstances, there are two ways of applying the above method: 1. You simulate a higher grade of authority than the one to which your opponent

assigns himself. To take a military example, if a civilian barks at a corporal on the barrack square, the corporal will instinctively assume that the stranger outranks him. His uncertainty will immediately evaporate if this assumption proves unfounded, however, so the loud-mouthed civilian must take care never to disclose his exact status and rely on his manner to perpetuate the corporal’s uncertainty. 2. You address your opponent on a subject of which he is entirely ignorant and never get involved in one he knows something about. You persevere in this technique until certain that you’ve extracted the last ounce of awe and admiration. Then, with luck, he’ll feel honoured to be of service to a person of your intellectual brilliance. Just in case you dismiss these hints as a product of pure theory, let me quote from my own experience. In 1958, the Henry Kissinger who has since risen to prominence as special adviser to Richard Nixon and U.S. Secretary of State was still Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University. For some years, he managed to raise enough money to invite two dozen interested parties to swap ideas at his summer seminars. At that time I was local news editor of a daily paper. My knowledge of English was good because I had once spent two years as an interpreter. By chance, I came across a book entitled Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. Although I probably read a total of 30 pages — my patience wouldn’t extend any further — one or two statements which the author made in the course of those 30 pages struck me as erroneous. I duly sat down and wrote a paper designed to refute the author’s propositions. Then I mailed it to him. His name was Henry A. Kissinger. I am bound to admit that my knowledge of the role of nuclear weapons in foreign policy was no greater than that of the average interested newspaper-reader. Be that as it may, Kissinger found my comments knowledgeable and noteworthy enough to send me a letter in which he conceded that my criticisms merited discussion. He also enclosed an invitation to his 1959 Harvard seminar. And so I was privileged to spend nearly three months in the company of such exalted persons as the late Eleanor Roosevelt, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Henry Kissinger himself, Kennedy adviser Professor Latham, and sundry others. All expenses paid, of course. Why did I earn this privilege? Just because I succeeded — albeit unintentionally — in impressing someone as proficient in his specialized field as Henry Kissinger to

such an extent that he took me for an expert instead of a complete layman. Rule No. 6 All our decisions and actions are partly and in some way governed by fear. Fear is a crucial factor in every educative process, at whatever level of human coexistence it occurs. The following three fears wield a large measure of influence over our behaviour and thus provide openings in any manipulative encounter: 1. Fear of losing an acquisition. 2. Fear of uncertainty. 3. Fear of reality. Because human decisions are subject to the influence of fear, those who realize this strive to intimidate their opponents in the manipulation game. They try to sustain and, where necessary, aggravate their fear so as to exploit it in their own interests. One largely effective method of escaping such manipulation is to rationalize the fear involved.

Many heroes are motivated by fear of disgrace Let me preface my remarks on the sixth rule of manipulation with a few statements drawn from elsewhere: ‘In all ages, everything changes. Manners, customs, speech, views on life, even morals — all change. But fear is the same. Only fear is the same.’ ‘Modem civilized man . .. speaks of impotence and frigidity when the sex-instinct is suppressed by fear, of indigestion when apprehensiveness kills his appetite, and of insomnia when fright keeps him awake at night.’ ‘Even today, when non-sexual honour evokes heroism, it is psychologically pertinent to enquire whether the real motive is not the fear of disgrace.’ ‘If anxiety could be controlled by biological or social means, fundamental alterations in the organization of our civilization would ensue and the probability of individual happiness would be considerably enhanced . . . Anxiety is the most pervasive psychological phenomenon of our time ...’

In his book The Psychology of Anxiety (Staples, 1968), which is dedicated to his mother, ‘who never made me any more anxious than she had to’, the American psychologist Eugene E. Levitt makes the following points: ‘ The utility of fear as a survival mechanism decreases as intelligence increases. The need for emotion as a quick trigger for behaviour is inversely related to reasoning ability. In the pinnacle of phylogeny — in the maximum in cerebral efficiency, man — fear has lost most of its survival value and has become instead the most serious problem of his existence.’ ‘Man no longer urgently needs fear as a protective device, but its strength, its ability to motivate behaviour, is no less in us than in unreasoning organisms. This has been perennially recognized by human society, which uses fear in shaping the behaviour of its members, especially the young.’ ‘The trouble is that we do not yet know how to use fear without producing distortion and malignancy. Anxiety is a sort of cunning, malicious golem which seems to serve us well, at least for a time, but eventually turns and threatens to destroy its creators.’ The following pages will deal in greater detail with this ‘malicious golem’ — this phenomenon whose utility ‘decreases as intelligence increases’ and ‘threatens to destroy’ us — though less philosophically than the experts from whom the foregoing statements derive. We shall concentrate on the practical aspects of fear, notably its use as an instrument in the daily game of manipulation.

Three common forms of fear which make us peculiarly susceptible to manipulation I once tried, a few years back, to draw up a list of the fears which I myself knew from personal experience and had observed in other people in the course of time. I innocently thought when I started out that a single sheet of paper would be enough. Since then the list has swollen to eleven pages and 345 items. I now realize that, even given another 20 years, I am unlikely to complete something which is so regularly being augmented by the fruits of observation. Many items seem quite absurd, but I list them just the same. I can’t recall what prompted me to embark on this venture, but I now realize what a profound insight it has given me into my own behaviour and — of course — that of

other people. Above all, it has continually revealed the profound and remarkable way in which fear helps to govern decisions of a trivial everyday nature. I don’t propose to reproduce my entire list here. Much of it would seem quite unintelligible because the accompanying circumstances are known to me alone, so the following few items are intended merely as an inducement to get to know yourself a little better. Fear of bad breath. This encourages me to clean my teeth twice as carefully in the morning as I do before going to bed, although it would be far more sensible to concentrate on the pre-bed brushing and prevent remnants of food from decaying overnight. Fear of doing someone an injustice, although I long ago realized that the concept of ‘justice’ is a nebulous cliche for which no universal standards exist. Fear of making myself a laughing-stock. An utterly ridiculous fear, because I can hardly prevent others from deriding what I myself find deadly serious. Fear that a car will run my little boy over while he’s playing outside. The only way of banishing this anxiety would be to keep him locked up, but that would be just as irrational as my constant dread that a car will run him down. I should add that, by keeping such a list over the years, I have largely succeeded in neutralizing many of my anxieties. I often recognize the futility of a fear as soon as I put it in writing and submit it to a little thought. All that astonishes me is that I have suffered from it for so long without ever trying to analyse it. Let us now turn to three widespread fears which render us particularly vulnerable to manipulation by our opponents. 1. FEAR OF LOSING AN ACQUISITION Do you know how dope-pushers contrive to make their customers addicted and dependent? They use a method which numerous wives practise on their husbands, officers on their men, party leaders on their lieutenants and lieutenants on the rank and file. They enforce dependence as doctors do on patients, trade unions on their members, churches on their flocks, industry on the consumer and employers on employees. This is not, of course, to say that all who use this technique are successful, but try it they do, wittingly or unwittingly, surreptitiously or straightforwardly. Its object is to create a dependent status and gain control, render an opponent docile by giving him

something he will not want to part with. This, then, is the first stage of the method: giving someone something he will not want to be deprived of. The second stage, having given him something, is to habituate him to it so thoroughly that he will be prepared to make supreme sacrifices rather than give it up — or, to put it another way, sacrifice a great deal in order to keep it. Once he has attained this degree of dependence on a thing, whatever its nature, the third and crucial stage arrives. This takes the form of a message: ‘Unless you do as I ask, I shall regretfully be compelled to take back what I gave you — the thing that now means such a lot to you.’ If we examine this way of making someone dependent and ripe for a manipulative manoeuvre, we find its main feature to be the arousal of a fear that he may lose what he has acquired and grown used to. Though polished, refined and adorned with a variety of urbane embellishments, this principle is operative in nearly every walk of life. What is more, we all take advantage of it, using any resources that happen to be at our disposal. The ageing millionaires so often featured by our tabloids and illustrated magazines, bosomy starlets in tow, employ the manifold temptations of their wealth to show off, for their own and the public’s benefit, a last vestige of what they deem to be virility. The starlets, having acquired a taste for what is offered them, find it hard to give up. For fear of losing it, they make sacrifices which soon exceed their ability to limit them. Far less sensationally and unexposed to public curiosity, the very same thing occurs in countless offices and humdrum places of employment. ‘My job may not be very exciting, but it does provide me with security. After X number of years I’ll be getting such-and-such a salary and so-and-so many weeks’ vacation. The firm pays holiday money and takes care of my insurance stamps, and there’s a guaranteed pension waiting at the end of the line. Why should I chuck all that up?’ Are you familiar with these arguments? Of course you are. For fear of losing what they have acquired, millions of people toil in joyless occupations. They acquiesce in a way of life which they have long ceased to control. ‘Who’s to blame?’ you may ask, but does blame really enter into it when everyone, whoever and whatever he is, strives to preserve his own interests by exploiting the

anxieties of others? Actually, the system only functions on a give-and-take basis. A doctor tries to cure you. If he at least mitigates your discomfort, you’ll come back for more. He gives you hope of ultimate recovery. This earns him the wherewithal to maintain a standard of living which he would be reluctant to give up. In the final analysis, we all win at this game. Some are more successful than others, according to how skilfully they take advantage of their opponents’ fear of losing something already acquired. 2. FEAR OF UNCERTAINTY I should like here to acquaint you with a phenomenon described by Dr A.T.W. Simeons, the noted expert on psychosomatic disorders and tropical diseases, in his book Man’s Presumptuous Brain (Longmans, 1960). ‘Working in the midst of an epidemic outbreak of cholera one cannot help noticing the strange fact that the healthy adolescent, the busy mother and the wage-earning father are more often stricken than the very young children and the old and decrepit. ‘Cholera is caused by swallowing a microbe called a vibrio, and it is known that the cholera vibrio is highly sensitive to acids. The acid that is always present in the normal human stomach is sufficiently strong to kill the cholera vibrio almost instantly. ‘How then does the vibrio overcome this acid barrier which separates it from the small intestines where, in the alkaline contents, it can thrive and start its murderous activity?’ Dr Simeons claims that its prospects of doing so are virtually nil unless the normal flow of acid in the stomach is shut off. Only then can the vibrio reach its destination, the small intestines. But the one thing which inhibits the flow of acid in the stomach is fear and panic. The doctor concludes: ‘So it may come about that those most terrified of death are just the ones the cholera kills, whereas those too young to understand the danger and those to whom life seems hardly worth living and who fatalistically tend the sick and dying around them, may survive unscathed because the secretion of their gastric juice is not emotionally inhibited.’ Fear may thus play an important role in the selection of victims. Simeons therefore thinks it permissible to state that the psychosomatic mechanisms, as he calls them, wield importance even in cholera. In other words, a sense of fear inhibits the body’s

defensive reaction. And here we can perceive that, at a time when it is already operative and causing physical changes, this fear relates to something wholly indefinite. For the moment, its sole source is our imagination. We are visualizing the possible consequences of a hypothetical occurrence. We are enlisting precedents and picturing the unpleasant phenomena that may occur. The more we surrender to our imaginative faculty, the greater our fear and the more lasting its effects on our behaviour. Note, too, that this type of fear can spring from nothing, without any direct bearing on ourselves. Someone tells us: ‘X just died at the age of 43. He didn’t leave his wife a bean — just debts. Now the unfortunate woman’s all on her own with three children to raise. What’s going to become of the poor things?’ God, you think, only 43 ... It could happen to me, and how well have / provided for my children? If someone shrewdly picked that moment to urge us to take out an insurance policy, we should probably give the matter serious thought. The person who told us the story and gave us the advice might coincidentally be an-insurance agent. Whole skyscrapers have been financed by people’s fear of an uncertain future. ‘God forbid anything happens to me,’ we say, touching wood, ‘but you never can tell.’ And, although we genuinely know nothing about the future, we salve our consciences by insuring ourselves and our families — financially, at least. Women anoint their skin with cream to prevent wrinkles. Wrinkles are ageing, and for some peculiar reason women don’t want to look old — not even as old as they are. They react to the wholly nebulous idea that someone may find them old and that this will redound to their detriment. Mind you, they don’t even know whether this detriment will materialise: it is altogether vague. Impelled by the same fear of uncertainty, we often do things which seem senseless to the impartial observer. On the other hand, a mental attitude of this kind can often lead, in the long term, to precisely the situation which haunted us for no good reason in the first place. I know of one case in which a woman married a man eight years her junior. They were ideally happy at first, and remained so until the wife suddenly got the idea that her husband might one day leave her for a younger rival. Although there were no grounds for it whatsoever, the idea obsessed her. She became suspicious and started to dog her husband’s footsteps. She turned up

unexpectedly when he was out with friends, and his friends — who could hardly fail to notice — becan to tease him. There was friction at home. Friction led to rows and rows to the inevitable outcome: divorce. How did it all happen? Let us review the separate phases once more: 1. All of a sudden, fear was bom. Engendered by nothing, utterly nebulous and without foundation, it was nonetheless there. 2. The wife came more and more to identify herself with this fear. Her uncertainty bred ideas which assumed a factual appearance. 3. The more she yielded to these ideas, the harder she strove to find evidence to support them. Needless to say, anyone can produce such evidence given the will to find and put the required construction on it. 4. Having once attained a certain pitch of intensity, the fear which had invaded her mind and proliferated there left no more room for rational reflection. By now, even counterevidence was construed as proof of guilt. 5. Finally, fear brought about the reality which the wife had been dreading. This sort of development occurs only because fear is allowed to spread unchecked in the manner described. Although its source was indefinite in the foregoing case, the primary fear-impulse need not be fortuitous. It can be administered with deliberate intent. Moreover, it can be systematically developed by repetition until, at long last, the victim is offered a solution to his fear which holds out the prospect of release. 3. FEAR OF REALITY Life represents an unending discrepancy between our aspirations and the reality which obstructs their fulfilment. Our well-being depends largely upon the attitude we adopt towards this permanent shortfall. We can face reality and strive to make the best of it. We can sidestep it because we fear our inability to cope. Every successful attempt to wrest part of our aspirations from reality gives a fillip to our self-confidence. Every avoidance of such an attempt reinforces our fear of renewed failure next time. What determines whether we adopt the first attitude or the second? It depends largely on our general approach to life. At the risk of boring you with a twice-told tale … Time: late at night. Place: a municipal park. Two drunks are slumped on a bench

with a bottle between them. One says to the other, with a dejected glance at their dwindling supply of liquor: ‘It’s terrible, we’ve only been here a couple of minutes and the bottle’s half-empty.’ His companion, who has been-gazing blithely at the stars, just shrugs. ‘What are you beefing about? We’ve been at it quite a while and the bottle’s still half-full. I call that great!’ They continue to swig in turn while the first drunk persists in his lamentations, all pleasure vitiated by his fear of the moment when the bottle runs dry. By that time his own spirits are at an equally low ebb, simply because he cannot come to terms with an immutable reality. Most of our encounters with life’s realities are coloured by a natural fear of our inability to cope with them. This tempts us to dodge such confrontations and eliminate fear as well. One way of freeing ourselves from fear is to dodge the reality we dread, the other consists in mastering it. Let us examine these alternatives more closely.

Flight. Instead of surmounting it, we gain temporary deliverance from the fear that preys on our mind. We suppress our anxiety and, with it, our original intent — suppress it and thrust it into a comer of our subconscious. There it lives on, shrouded in whatever mental distraction we have chosen as an aid to temporary oblivion. So our aspiration continues to exist and will sometime renew its demand for fulfilment. Our fear will revive too —probably in greater strength than on the first occasion. This is understandable. Once having shirked a problem instead of tackling it, we shall — as we know — find our self-confidence weaker at the second attempt.

Mastery. Our decision to tackle a problem and face reality signals a phase during wliich fear continues to mount until the problem is resolved. Throughout this period, we persist in asking ourselves: ‘Will I succeed?’ and simultaneously dread our inability to do so. To combat this fear, we naturally employ all kinds of tricks. For instance, self-persuasion: ‘Go on, of course you’ll make it.’ It is this state of tension between design and fulfilment which inspires us with fear — the fear that prompts so many people to choose the easier alternative of flight rather than expose themselves to the dread sense that reality will prove too much for them. Experience shows, again and again, that people expend far more ingenuity on dodging their fear of failure than on mastering it. They are eagerly abetted in these

endeavours by other people, who offer them an endless succession of ‘outs’ in the furtherance of their own interests. To illustrate these manipulative processes more graphically, here are a few examples from real life. It would not be surprising if many of them struck you as familiar. The married woman who discusses problems with her mother rather than her husband. By so doing, she obtains sympathy and approval. This briefly helps to banish her fear of thrashing things out with her husband, although a frank discussion with him would naturally be far more to the point. The married man who takes a mistress in search of what he thinks he cannot find at home. Actually, he is running away from domestic reality for fear of his inability to cope with it. What happens in most cases is that he soon finds himself confronted by the same choice in his love-nest as at home: to flee reality or tackle his problems. Not unnaturally, he once more favours the alternative of flight. The simplest escape route leads back to his wife. He may seem chastened and remorseful, but this is only because two defeats have gravely undermined his self-confidence. Dodging the solution of a difficult problem by magnifying the importance of an easier one — a popular method as commonly used in high-level politics as it is in everyday life by each and every one of us. Governments incapable of solving their major domestic problems will often distract attention from them by provoking an international crisis. This they blame on the government of another country, which they represent to their own people as a bogyman. Popular indignation is thus diverted from the real problem to another. Careful study of the newspaper, any day of the week, will provide evidence of this method. If you yourself are always blaming other people for your failures, it may indicate that — at least in this specialized field — you possess qualities highly prized in the upper echelons of politics ... And now some instances of how other people manipulate us by giving us a chance to discard our fears, if only for a while. The celebrated principle ‘divide and rule’ is a variant of the manipulative use of fear. If the boss favours A as opposed to B, B wonders anxiously: ‘Has he got something against me?’ or ‘Isn’t he satisfied with my work any longer?’ Impelled by fear, he strives to win the boss’s approval. This increase in performance suits the

boss perfectly. Next time he favours B to reward him and allay his fears. Now it is A’s turn to dread the boss’s disfavour and step up his efforts. Meanwhile, B is happy, but not for long. The boss soon shatters his complacency by smiling on a once more — and so on. In other words, the boss creates an advantageous dependent relationship by feeding the fears of one or other of his subordinates and offering him a way to temporary salvation. Needless to say, the multitudinous stimuli emitted by the billion-dollar entertainments industry are similarly directed towards releasing human tension and neutralizing aggression in a more or less innocuous way. On the debit side, these stimuli represent a permanent temptation to flee reality. The phenomenon known as sensationalism is an excellent means of reducing our own fear of reality because it highlights the misfortunes of others. Detailed reports inform us that somewhere, someone else is an extremist or has ruined his life. Smugly, we can say to ourselves: ‘What are my petty problems compared to his?’ Failure in others helps us to mitigate our own anxiety. Fear of harsh everyday reality — fear of the inability to fulfil our aspirations — turns many of us into permanent fugitives. Countless hands are extended in readiness to help us forget that fear, but only at a price — be it merely that we help our helper to suppress some anxiety of his own.

Three crucial steps towards overcoming any fear and preventing its exploitation by others Reports of air disasters come thick and fast at times. We learn of them via press and television. The screen treats us to pictures of wreckage — sometimes even to an exhaustive and harrowing view of charred bodies being borne away on stretchers. The camera roams over the scene of a crash, picking out mangled suitcases or an ownerless shoe or doll. Whenever my wife drives me to the airport during one of these periods, she regularly and solicitously remarks: ‘Maybe you ought to have gone by train after all’. Later, as I sit there on board waiting to take off, I am sometimes assailed by an uneasy feeling that the worst may happen. Remembering the pictures on television, I wonder what it would be like if the plane caught fire and I failed to extricate myself in time. Let me now define, quite clearly, the three crucial stages in our method of

overcoming fear: 1. We ask ourselves what we are really afraid of and why. 2. Having identified the root cause of our fear, we define the worst that can happen if our direst fears come true. 3. We take a firm decision on whether or not we are prepared to run such a risk. If we are, we concentrate all our efforts on averting disaster. Whenever I pose and answer these questions as I sit there uneasily in the plane, I come to the following conclusion: the probability that something will happen to me exists but is minimal. It is just as likely that I shall have a car crash or get a brick on my head while walking down the street or be carried off by a heart attack. In all these cases, I can only try to avert disaster with the resources at my disposal. If it strikes notwithstanding, I must bow to the inevitable. Thus, mastery of fear by this method comprises two main elements. First, we cease to accept domination by a vague and ill-defined malaise. Instead, we ask a few routine questions and answer them, clearly and dispassionately. Secondly, we make up our minds what course to adopt in the circumstances because it seems to offer the best possible solution. All that manifestly defies our ability to foresee or influence it, we make the best of. Although we run the risk of its happening, we take that risk for granted. Experience almost invariably shows that problems are far easier to surmount than we originally fear, but it is always better to tackle them somehow than allow fear of them to plunge us into a lengthy spell of uncertainty. I ought to add that the above method becomes even more effective if we commit its three component stages to paper and jot down the relevant answers as well. And so, if you happen to be burdened with a problem whose solution you have been shirking for some time, now is the moment to tackle it.

Some ideas on how to benefit by your opponents' fear in the manipulation game The simple three-stage method just described will often safeguard you against the risk that others may exploit your fear of resolving a problem — but only, of course, if you make it a daily practice. Its effect is to spark off a kind of inward debate which confers outward assurance, and this will undoubtedly benefit your attitude towards

other people. You may prefer to rest content with this advantage and have your own private reasons for rejecting the exploitation of fear in others. This is a wholly justifiable, wholly personal decision, but we should never forget that we ourselves are ceaselessly exposed to such aggressive endeavours by other people who intimidate us without scruple — and this in almost every one of the fields we discussed at the beginning of the chapter. In principle, the method which exploits fear is as simple as that which masters it. Once again, three stages can be distinguished.

Stage 1 Assess your opponent and discover his weak points.

Stage 2 Plausibly hint at or indicate a danger which could threaten him and to which he himself has no answer. This danger may be real but can equally be nebulous.

Stage 3 Offer him a solution to his genuine or apparent danger — one which will banish his fear and embody the advantage you seek. However theoretical this itemized list may seem, I would remind those who cannot see any immediate point in it that a precisely similar method has been tried on us all — a thousand times and to great effect — since childhood. When a mother issues her children with the threat ‘No television till you’ve finished your homework’, she implants the fear that they won’t be allowed to watch their favourite programme unless they first do as she asks. When people approach some bastion of officialdom, their attitude is often coloured by a fear that their request may for some reason be denied or, at best, deferred. They wait with due patience and bow to every demand imposed on them. If they don’t, fear tells them, the civil servant will raise objections, complicate the issue or ‘lose’ their file. Realizing this, the civil servant takes advantage of the suppliants’ anxiety. However, he can use this manipulative advantage only against passive victims who are his inferiors in the relevant field. A more self-assured member of the public will himself employ manipulative methods against the civil servant. He may, inter alia, exploit the latter’s fear by enlising the aid of a superior whose disfavour could, under certain circumstances, do

him harm. This ‘indirect approach’ naturally entails a certain amount of preparatory spadework of the kind described under Rule No. 2. The manipulative use of fear has an infinite number of facets. These are dependent on the ingenuity of those who actively play the game, but the above-mentioned principle applies in every case. Rule No. 7 The decision-making process and its outcome are essentially governed by the following four factors: 1. The decision-maker’s general attitude. 2. His knowledge of the matter to be decided. 3. The persons who directly or indirectly influence him. 4.

His state of mind at the time of decision.

Anyone capable of fundamentally influencing at least one such element in the decision of an opponent in the manipulation game, correctly and at the proper moment, can turn that decision to his own advantage. The only requirements are an accurate appraisal of his opponent and a knowledge of the factors which have conduced to his decision. The object in influencing any decision is to restrict an opponent’s power of judgement as far as possible and focus his attention on the benefits of a given solution.

Make up your own mind or someone will do it for you ‘Whatever we do and are, whether we’re happy or unhappy, whether every day of our life is fulfilled or not, everything depends on our capacity to take the right decisions.’ This maxim — somewhat paraphrased — comes from a man named George B. Warner. Is he a millionaire, a scientist, a statesman? Nothing of the sort. He owns a boat at Long Beach, California, and goes to sea several times a week with parties of amateur fishermen. I first met George at six one morning, when some friends invited me to go

barracuda-fishing. Not being an enthusiastic angler myself, I lingered at the small bar from which George dispenses tea, beer and other forms of liquid refreshment to his passengers. He was stubble-chinned and tousle-headed, wore jeans and a faded singlet. ‘What’s your poison?’ he asked. ‘What do you have?’ I replied. He stared at me in surprise. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘if you don’t know what to buy, I’m not selling.’ I didn’t catch any barracuda that day, but I absorbed a lot of George B. Warner’s worldly wisdom. ‘Know something?’ he told me. ‘I’m so goddam happy, I can say to myself every night: Buddy, even if you don’t wake up tomorrow morning, you’ve lived your life the way you wanted. I know what I want to do and I do it — that’s the secret. If I walk into a bar which doesn’t sell the beer I like, I walk out and find one that does. Folks I don’t want to meet, I don’t meet. I haven’t worn a suit or tie in thirty years. Why? Because suits and ties give me the creeps.’ Obviously George’s entire happiness depends on his never allowing anyone else to dictate his actions or decide what makes his life worth living. However hard I try, I can’t think of a single friend or acquaintance who falls into the same category. So what is it that distinguishes most people from this Californian boat-owner? First and foremost, they don’t know what they want out of life. They generally allow other people to relieve them of their decisions, and other people are understandably intent on their own interests. Let me repeat the crucial sentence yet again: ‘Whatever we do and are, whether we’re happy or unhappy, whether every day of our life is fulfilled or not, everything depends on our capacity to take the right decisions.’ We spare no effort to learn accountancy or foreign languages, play the piano or simply knot a tie. Schools, courses and text-books can teach us any number of things, but where do we learn how to take the right decisions — above all, the small and seemingly unimportant decisions of everyday life? Most people reach decisions with an eye to the here and now. They don’t trouble to see them in full perspective. They make approval or rejection dependent on their mood of the moment or on a solitary and often secondary factor. An hour later they

are ready to take a diametrically opposite view, just because some hitherto unheeded detail has gained importance in their eyes. Quite a few individuals make it their general practice to shirk decisions or as far as possible defer them. When decisions have to be taken, they obey those impulses which happen to be strongest at the time. I know plenty of quite highly placed people who have a reputation for always acting on the last piece of advice they receive. The main reason for indecision may be a fear of making mistakes. In such cases, complete inertia or a feeble compromise can often seem the simplest way of coping with reality. Another important element, however, is ignorance of the factors that operate in decision-making. Knowledge of these factors equips the player of the daily manipulation game with a trump card of inestimable value. It enables him to take decisions and mould those of other people — in each case to his own advantage. The following pages will tell you more about the principal factors involved in any decision and — of course — any attempt to influence the decision-making process in others.

The two extreme types of decisionmaker and how they can be influenced The actual making of a decision takes only a split second, but when somebody says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ this is the product of interaction between the decision-maker and the impulses which motivate his decision. During the post-war years I shared a bed-sitter with another young man. Still under twenty, we were at last earning enough to invest in the natty suits, sports coats and shoes of our long-cherished dreams. Together we toured the department stores and men’s shops. I had spent the closing years of the war at a cadet school where I never wore anything but threadbare uniforms which I had to sponge, press and dam myself. When the war ended I went to school in my father’s cast-offs. This had left me with a fierce hankering for something flashy and fashionable, so I acted on it. My room-mate had a harder time choosing. At heart, he liked the same clothes as I did. He tried them on too, but his face clouded every time. ‘If I go home looking like this,’ he said, ‘My father’ll have a fit.’ Accordingly, most of his choices were a

compromise. He bought things which appealed to him very little but would not offend his father, with whom he spent one week-end in four. Fundamentally, this procedure is typical of all our decisions: 1. On the one hand, there are our own personal and individual ideas of what we want. 2. On the other, there is our desire — more pronounced in some than others — to conform with and defer to those around us. There is also a feeling of anxiety: ‘What will this or that person think if I do this or that?’ Thus, most of our decisions are a compromise between 1 and 2. All that differentiates them is the decision-maker’s degree of uncertainty. The smaller it is, the more often he will tend to do what he really wants to do. The greater it is, the more powerfully his decisions will be affected by outside influences, whether real or imaginary and born of fear. For that reason, anyone who plans to influence an opponent’s decision in the manipulation game must first assess him in the following terms: A.

Does he know exactly what he wants and is he resolute enough to base a

decision on his personal wishes? B.

Is he the sort who doesn’t know, or doesn’t know exactly, what he wants?

Faced with a manipulative summons to decide between two courses, Type A will measure and assess it in relation to his own aims, standards and concrete ideas. If someone says ‘Come on, let’s go to the cinema’ because he doesn’t fancy going alone, Type A’s first step will be to check whether he really wants to go. He may have planned to spend the time reading. In that case he will decide against going to the cinema and closet himself with a book instead. An opponent who wants to win him over will have to ‘package’ his suggestion more attractively in order to create an incentive stronger than the prospect of a quiet read. Type B is uncertain from the outset. He likewise intends to read a book, but doubt sets in as soon as the summons to decide is voiced. He will deliberate, hovering between the two alternatives, and a slight reinforcement of the original suggestion will be enough to steer his decision along the required lines. Type B has no precise conception of what he wants. In default of any definite long-term idea of what to do with himself and his life, he tends to obey those impulses

which seem temporarily more attractive. This is far from implying that he can be talked into any old course of action, because he may come down just as heavily on either side of the fence. His intentions are permanently in doubt. In the case of Type A, who has a firm idea of what he wants and the will to achieve it with little reference to others, an opponent must adapt his decision-making stimulus to given conditions. With Type B, on the other hand, it is desirable to begin by focusing his desires on something which suits the opponent’s book. To pursue our example, it may be that B has been meaning to go to the cinema for months but has always found an excuse not to go. The fact that his desires are focused on a visit to the cinema does not ensure that he will end up there. If he goes home in the meantime, his doubts may triumph over his resolve or someone else may make a counter-suggestion which momentarily appeals to him more. The crucial thing in influencing decisions, therefore, is to leave an opponent no alternative. He must be given no chance to change his mind. Smart salesmen have devised all kinds of tricks to cement a decision, e.g. urgent appeals such as: ‘This is a special one-day offer. If you don’t buy now, it’ll cost you more tomorrow.’ or: ‘That’s my last one — better grab the opportunity!’ — and many others. Type A belongs to a class of people who know perfectly well that they prefer veal cutlets to steak. Anyone who still wants to sell them a steak will have to beat it flat and coat it with breadcrumbs. The Type Bs of this world can never decide what to eat in a restaurant and leave it to the waiter instead. They are sometimes elected chairmen of boards and committees because they can be relied on to back proposals sponsored by a powerful clique of members. Many of them become heads of government for the same reason. Finally, they make ideal husbands for women who know their own minds. This classification into Types A and B is incomplete, of course, because it only covers the two extremities of the decision-making scale. Between them lies a whole gamut of variations — types who incline towards one extreme or the other. For instance, many people who should be classified as Type B may ultimately allow a waiter to decide what they eat in a restaurant, but they will act is if they knew all along what they wanted and have taken the decision themselves. Once he has fathomed an adversary’s basic attitude, a skilled exponent of the

manipulation game heeds and exploits such variations. The next few pages introduce some of them in greater detail.

Anyone who aims to influence a decision has a vested interest in supplying partial information only At a seminar for so-called ‘middle management* executives which I attended a few years ago, a lecturer made the following remarkable pronouncement: ‘Our knowledge of the object of a decision has a crucial bearing on its result.’ In most cases, his listeners’ reaction was a sarcastic grin, and many of them gave vent to muttered remarks such as ‘You don’t say!’ or ‘Congratulations, I wish I’d thought of that.’ I found their response particularly interesting because most of the executives invited to this course came from firms where numerous miscalculations had been made in recent months — faulty decisions which senior management attributed to inadequate briefing. Whatever our job, we are less concerned with decisionmaking problems than with something far more obviously important: our own personal province, our own private happiness and ‘whether every day of our life is fulfilled or not’, as George B. Warner put it. It is amazing what scant importance most people attach to an exhaustive knowledge of the object of their decisions. One fundamental reason is that hardly anyone who prompts us to a decision in his own interests sees any percentage in supplying us with full information. He is utterly against giving us the time and opportunity to assemble arguments which run counter to his own. When my elder boy gets bad marks at school, he always contrives to leave the chit on my desk just before going to bed. I then have to sign it without getting a chance to question him in detail. Ask your local travel agent for a brochure on some Italian sea-side resort and you’ll find it crammed with dreamy photographs. Superb villas in the background and a beach sparsely dotted with bathers, all smiling happily as they splash around or loll in the sun . . . Does anyone bother to inform you that your holiday home backs on to a bar which stays open till three in the morning? I myself worked on an advertising campaign for a soft-drinks firm. We used

posters, full-page ads and colourful TV commercials to illustrate what went into its products. We devised slogans such as ‘X contains the choicest Californian orange-juice’ and threw in key-words like ‘pure fruit’ and ‘natural goodness’. Later on, when I chanced to visit a Californian fruit-processing plant which supplies soft-drinks firms throughout the world, my illusions were dispelled. First-grade oranges, I learned, were naturally sold as whole fruit. The syrup used in the manufacture of orange squash comes from third-grade produce. Chemical substances have to be added too, of course, to enhance its appearance and keeping qualities. Finally, we all know a host of people, men and women alike, who complain about their marriage partners. ‘If I’d known that beforehand, I’d never have married him/her ...’ To repeat: who can seriously be interested in enumerating the disadvantages of something when he wants to induce a decision beneficial to himself? Even in our seemingly trivial everyday decisions, we ourselves are governed by a desire to clinch them as quickly and painlessly as possible. Like most people, we are content with a glossy exterior and a few persuasive allusions to ‘outstanding quality’. We don’t take the time to hunt for alternatives and weigh them before reaching a decision.

Take refuge on the summit of Mount Everest: your decisions will still be influenced by others One thing should be clearly recognized: we may reach decisions which more or less accord with our wishes, but we shall never entirely escape the direct, far less indirect, influence of other people. Here they are, then, the pursuers who dog our every step: 1.

People interested in deriving some direct personal benefit from our decisions.

2.

People who, by steering our decisions towards a certain goal, derive some

indirect benefit. 3.

People to whom we in some way look for guidance on decision-making.

4.

People to whom we feel bound to pay heed when taking decisions.

They don’t all breathe down our necks at the same time, of course, but one or another of them is almost always present — just as my room-mate’s father was when

he bought himself a suit. Whenever I drive the family down to our country cottage, the road takes us past three white wooden crosses which someone has erected on a long blind curve. This ‘someone’ is present every time I pass them. My imagination tells me that three people died there. They may have been pedestrians, or passengers in a car which collided with another car — or a tree. Involuntarily, I make inferences about my own mode of driving and think of my children sitting in the back. This naturally affects the speed at which I take the next few bends. Who can tell if our lives haven’t already been saved by this ‘someone’ and the indirect influence he wields over my decisions? Let us re-examine the question of decisions to buy. Mr and Mrs X visit Y’s, a furniture store, to purchase a rug for their newly decorated living-room. Y’s was chosen because, while passing the window recently, Mr X saw a rug on display which roughly accorded with his ideas. Thus, much of the credit for Mr and Mrs X’s visit belongs to the window-dresser. The sales assistant produces the said rug for inspection. At the same time, he inquires the colour of Mrs X’s curtains and covers. This introduces a new angle — one to which the couple have so far attached little importance. In other words, the assistant will also share in any subsequent decision to purchase. It should, of course, be noted that the store’s owner or buyer is likewise involved in any such decision. It was he who selected the range. Had he not sent the manufacturers an order for the rug which caught Mr X’s eye in the window, the couple might well have gone elsewhere. Mr and Mrs X have different ideas on the subject of which rug to choose. He devotes more thought to pattern, size and colour. She prides herself on being a judge of quality and acts as chancellor of the family exchequer. Finally, because housework is her personal province, she examines the rug for ease of cleaning. In arriving at a final choice, therefore, each partner will take account of the other’s requirements. Privately, too, each speculates on the reaction of visitors — above all, no doubt, ‘the woman next door’ — when they first set eyes on the refurbished living-room. It only remains to be said that the basic idea for the living-room’s decor came from an illustrated magazine specializing in interior design. Mrs X occasionally buys it, so her ideas on decor and, thus, on the type of rug she wants, have been moulded by a

number of visual impressions gleaned from its pages.

Why we often want to reverse a decision just taken So far, we have seen that decisions are substantially influenced by the following three factors: 1.

Membership of one decision-making category or the other. The first knows

exactly what it wants whereas the second is uncertain of its wishes and, thus, easier to influence. 2.

The ability to gather information about alternatives before reaching a decision,

bearing in mind that anyone who tries to influence us will restrict his information to what is predominantly beneficial to him. 3.

The direct or indirect influences to which we are all subject and with which we

knowingly or unknowingly compromise, time and time again. Having examined the above three elements in a decision, let us now consider a fourth: the ability of a decision-maker to review the advantages and disadvantages of his decision at the last moment, before he finally casts his vote. Either he yields, if not to all the influences at work on him, at least to a few which carry special weight, thereby allowing them to — as it were — take the decision out of his hands; or he again succeeds in dissociating himself from these influences, in weighing them up and gauging what the results of his decision will be. Not long ago I read in the newspaper of a case where a policeman stopped a car-driver for some trivial offence. He originally meant to deliver a warning. Instead, anxious to assert his authority and incapable of any psychologically more effective approach, he opened the proceedings with a clumsy question, to wit: ‘Have you any idea why I’m stopping you?’ His phrasing stung the driver into an angry retort: ‘No, you bloody fool, and I couldn’t care less.’ Now it was the policeman’s turn to take offence. He tried to get his own back by demanding the driver’s identification papers. The courts never got to the bottom of what happened next. The driver alleged that the policeman tried to haul him out of his car by main force. The policeman

counter-charged that the driver had physically assaulted him. The case developed into a minor legal sensation. First hearing, appeal, second hearing, third hearing — an immense expenditure of time and public money . . . Let us revert to the incident itself. The whole affair stemmed from two decisions: 1. That of the policeman, who did not stop to consider what form of words would best achieve his object, namely, to prompt the driver to obey the rules in future. The policeman was manifestly more concerned to demonstrate his personal authority than issue an effective warning. 2. That of the driver, who wanted to demonstrate his resentment. He was as guilty as the policeman of failing to make a last-minute assessment of the results of his outburst. He should momentarily have stood aloof from his emotional state and reflected as follows: The policeman merely wants confirmation of his authority. If I insult him, his determination will be reinforced. I shall rule out any chance of bringing our exchange to a successful conclusion. If I confirm his authority and satisfy his need for recognition, I shall have a greater chance of preserving my own interests. It is probable that the driver regretted the whole affair before a couple of weeks were out, but by then he couldn’t retract. In the end he lost his case and, with it, the satisfaction of being proved right. Not so the policeman, who ultimately and circuitously obtained the personal recognition which he had wanted from the outset. We are all confronted, almost daily, by similar or analogous problems of decision-making in which a single word can often produce results never intended by us. Why? Because we didn’t take the last-minute, split-second opportunity to reflect: ‘If I act as present circumstances incline me to, what may happen?’

The decision-making process and how it can be influenced in others to our own advantage In the final analysis, anyone who sets about influencing another’s decision for his own benefit is merely seeking to blackmail him a little — or impose on him, or exploit him. Even when someone says: ‘I’d like you to take the job on, but it’s up to you’, his phraseology is a subtle blend of extortion and hypocrisy. The speaker naturally wants his opponent to decide on acceptance. He also

wants to create the impression that he can decide for himself. For purely altruistic reasons? Of course not. We all identify far more strongly with a course of action on which we ourselves have decided, however flimsy our reasons for doing so. Besides, this primes the manipulator with an argument for future use: ‘I left it up to you, but you expressly decided in favour.’ The same trick has inveigled many people into tackling problems whose solution demands that they move mountains for the manipulator’s benefit, purely out of pride and ambition — purely because they are anxious to ‘live up to’ or ‘stand by’ a decision once taken. Others, again, are overtaxed, and their prestige and self-confidence sustain a blow from which it takes them long to recover. It can without exaggeration be said that every attempt to influence another’s decision has the following three basic aims: To restrict his power of judgement. To focus his thoughts on partial information. To give him no time to seek alternatives. It is precisely this principle which underlies the decisionmaking challenges that assail us day after day. We have all seen television commercials which highlight the unique, outstanding and unrivalled qualities of a certain deodorant. Do they ever include a reference to the product’s detrimental effects on human tissue? It would be a gross overstatement to claim that all such manipulative manoeuvres are performed with infinite subtlety. Some of them are so crude that we can only stand amazed that we and millions of other people so repeatedly fall for them. A short time ago, my wife and I heard a radio commercial extolling the very latest detergent to be marketed by a major firm. It stressed that now, at long last, artificial fabrics could genuinely be rid of every kind of stain — ‘rings and all’. I couldn’t help wondering aloud what the countless other detergents manufactured by this firm and its competitors had done hitherto, if not extract dirt — rings and all. My wife’s only response was a preoccupied nod. I couldn’t banish the suspicion that she was memorizing the new product’s name rather than be outdone in her housewifely endeavours by a million other women. After all, women have for years been taught by detergent manufacturers — and not by them alone — that a good housewife never flags in her determination to produce the cleanest washing in the

world. Our next step must be to examine the train of events which leads to a decision. But first, stop reading and devote a few seconds to the foregoing sentence. Does anything strike you? I wrote: ‘Our next step . . .’ That, of course, was pure hypocrisy. It is my next step and I propose to take it, but to flatter you and involve you in my intention I used an age-old literary subterfuge: the first person plural. In the same way, ‘we’ are said to ‘want’ countless things in life about which we know absolutely nothing and for which we often cherish no real desire whatever. Keep your ears and eyes open from now on, and you will be astonished at the number of times people make public pronouncements such as: ‘We Germans are vitally interested in solving a problem of such worldwide importance . . .’ ‘We all want a cleaner city and are prepared, each and every one of us, to make sacrifices in the interests of . . .’ ‘We workers are sick and tired of being exploited by speculators who ...’ ‘We dentists are primarily concerned with finding ^ solution which will guarantee our patients a ...’ Please don’t think I concocted these examples myself. They all come from newspapers and publications which landed on my desk this very morning. I can assure you that I’m no dentist and never have been. Equally, I feel quite confident that the dentists designated as ‘we’ include a large number who, before worrying about their patients, are ‘primarily concerned’ to find a solution which will guarantee themselves a higher future income. Nor should we — to repeat the said verbal convention — take their self-interest amiss. We too behave at times as if another’s welfare means more to us than our own. But to revert to our examination of the decision-making process and the possibilities of influencing it. Let us revive the example in which we aim to persuade an opponent in the manipulation game to accompany us to the cinema.

Our prospective benefit: either we simply don’t want to go alone, or we have some long-term designs on our opponent and are merely using a visit to the cinema as a means of getting him to ourselves. Our true intention may be to join him in a glass of beer or cup of coffee after the show, then prod him into the decision we really have in

mind. The visit to the cinema is only a simple instance chosen at random. If you have designs on a member of the opposite sex, you may of course issue an immediate theatre or dinner invitation — always bearing in mind how much you’re willing and able to invest! At all events, the step that has to precede all else in this: assess your opponent

and gauge your manipulative manoeuvre accordingly. Phase 1 This consists in arousing your opponent’s interest in what you want him to do. Many people might say, straight out: ‘Come to the cinema with me — it’s no fun going alone.’ That would mean leaving the decision to chance or the mood of the moment. At this stage, the opponent who has been planning to go home and read a book will still be too intent on his original purpose. ‘You’re in a hurry — anything on tonight?’ If you ask this question and are informed that your opponent plans to get home and read a text-book for professional reasons, this is an opening in itself. You now resort to the second method quoted under Rule No. 2, or deliberate flattery. Promptly, you evince a keen interest in your opponent’s work, likewise his book. You also interpolate a few admiring remarks, but not a word about your own wishes — not yet. Let him do the talking. He will feel flattered and appreciated. By allowing him to talk about himself, you are creating a congenial atmosphere. You don’t launch the second phase of your manoeuvre until this condition is fulfilled.

Phase 2 It is now time to sell your proposition, but not — of course — by saying: ‘Come to the cinema with me — it’s no fun going alone.’ Instead, you apply Rule No.3, which enjoins you to package your own interests in such a way that your opponent mistakes them for his own. There are two prerequisites here: A.

You must already know whether your opponent will respond better to an

emotional than a rational appeal or vice versa. This knowledge should have been acquired in Phase 1, while he was talking about himself at your instigation. B.

You need some information about the film you plan to see. This knowledge

need not be comprehensive — far from it. All you require, in fact, is the single pointer

which ultimately kindles your opponent’s desire to see the film. You don’t commit yourself, either. Instead, you try to couch the proposal in such a way that your opponent has to accept it and defend his own acceptance. It should be added that this is the hardest part of the process and one which calls for a certain measure of flexibility. Here are just a few possible gambits: ‘Working as hard as you do (in a job related to the subject of the book), you can’t have much time for relaxation. Surely you realize how bad it is never to unwind?’ You may then insert a few remarks about coronaries or allude to a friend who was obsessed with his career and is now in hospital. Added to that, he missed out on a lot of life’s other interests — like the occasional good film. If the film you want to see isn’t exactly ‘good’ but a straightforward piece of blood-and-thunder, you point out how much contrast contributes to the relaxation essential in any job. You say: ‘I’ve been grappling with an absolute swine of a problem at the office (or wherever) but I’m getting nowhere. That’s why I thought I’d do something completely different. I’m off to see a film I’ve heard a lot about. I doubt if it’s as good as everyone says, but anything for a change.’ Your opponent may now say: ‘Ah, yes, I’ve heard some pretty glowing reports of it myself.’ You nudge him into telling you what people have said. After that, all you need say is: ‘Well, why don’t we both go and see it — you’ve really whetted my appetite.’ It may equally be that he falls for the cinema-going idea by telling you that he’s heard about another film which is also said to be terrific. You encourage him to talk about that one too, then reach a compromise. After all, your sole object was to avoid going on your own. If the other film’s good, why not see it? If your opponent hasn’t heard anything about the film you plan to see, you must find a foundation to build on — the star, perhaps. Or, in the case of a comedy film and an opponent who enjoys a good laugh, you may say: ‘Some friends of mine said it had them in stitches.’ (Qualitative and/or quantitative reinforcement.) Whatever emotional or rational arguments you employ, you must always check how much nearer to your objective they have brought you. This will enable you to conclude whether your opponent is a Type A or Type B decisionmaker. Type A you need only slap on the back, saying: ‘Right, let’s do something about your relaxation problem — you need it, believe me.’ Type B may need another powerful prod. I know some expert manipulators who have such a complete mastery of this

phase that they pursue it to the stage where a ‘reverse effect’ sets in. One of them, a bachelor, uses this technique successfully on women of all ages. Even when his female opponents have hardly spared him a glance before — an added attraction from his angle — he reputedly has the knack of working on them until they seduce him, not vice versa. This, of course, entails years of practice and many early failures. As in every other field of endeavour or branch of sport, the main requirement is a refusal to give up.

Phase 3 If Phase 2 has been successfully completed, no further effort is needed. However, you should not entirely relax your vigilance until you and your opponent are ensconced in your cinema seats. Whether or not you take further measures after Phase 2 depends on whether the ‘last-minute, split-second opportunity’ has passed and your opponent’s decision is as good as taken. If he agrees to accompany you to the cinema but the opportunity for withdrawal still exists, you can introduce a last potent argument which leaves him with no alternative, e.g. ‘This is the last showing.’ Even if your statement is false, it won’t fail in its effect. You can always excuse yourself afterwards by saying that you made a mistake, but in most cases this self-justification won’t be necessary. I would add that the above example of how to influence the decision-making process should not by any means be taken as a universal norm. As you already know, everyone has to make up his own mind what method to employ and how to vary his application of the manipulative rules in accordance with given factors, his own circumstances and those of his opponent. My only object in the foregoing pages has been to illustrate by means of a straightforward example how many alternatives lie open to anyone acquainted with the rules of manipulation. You yourself will have to decide whether or when, in the course of your manipulative campaign, the ‘deliberate flattery’ mentioned in Phase 2 may be more effectively replaced by another method — ‘deliberate provocation’, for instance, or ‘doing the unexpected’. What matters is that you should know these methods, grasp their possible applications and practise them regularly. My account of the manipulative rules has concentrated largely on everyday situations, some of which may strike you as trivial in the extreme. This is deliberate policy on my part. Why?

Because life’s major decisions should not be regarded as exceptional and unique phenomena. Whether and how we tackle them depends to a large extent on how we have dealt with the multitude of small and seemingly unimportant decisions that precede them. Anyone who shirks minor decisions because he is unacquainted with the factors that govern them will very probably shirk major decisions in the same way. The contrary applies to those who have discerned the factors governing minor and apparently unimportant decisions and learnt not to leave them to chance. This equips them to tackle major decisions more effectively. Anyone can acquire the expertise which will help him with major problems by testing the rules of manipulation in a trivial everyday context. The instructive failures naturally associated with any trial phase matter less in small things than big. Rule No. 8 Speech is the prime manipulative instrument. The deliberate and purposeful use of that instrument is essential to any effective wielding of influence over others. The deliberate use of speech entails an ability to say the right thing — or sit back and listen — at the right moment. The purposeful use of speech entails saying, not what we think or feel in any given situation, but what is most likely to further our aims. The person who seeks to influence and convince someone by verbal means will have a better prospect of success if he regards his opponent, and not himself, as the focal object of the manipulation game.

Why few words often achieve more than many Some years ago I was sitting in a dentist’s waiting-room, my only fellow-patient a frail old lady who was reading a book and scarcely glanced at me. When the receptionist called her name she laid the book aside and made laborious efforts to rise from her arm-chair. I jumped up and went to lend a hand, murmuring some conventional phrase or other, but she was on her feet before I reached her chair, so I had no chance to help.

When I walked into his surgery half an hour later, the dentist shook hands warmly like an old friend. His first words were; ‘I’ve been curious to make your acquaintance. The lady who just left spent the whole time talking about you. She said you were the soul of courtesy, and courteous men are few and far between these days.’ And so on and so forth. One trivial gesture and a few indistinctly mumbled words had so stimulated the old lady’s imagination that she labelled me a rare and welcome phenomenon — and this although we had- never met before and knew nothing about one another. By this I mean that there is no invariable need to spend hours painting our life and achievements in glowing colours in order to gain someone’s favour. A few words, a couple of phrases or an unmistakable gesture will often do the trick. If you ask me whether these words or phrases should refer to ourselves and our merits, I can only assure you that the contrary applies: talk about your opponent, make him your focal point, display an interest in him. Whoever your opponent in a manipulative operation may be, you can take one thing for granted from the outset: nothing will please him better than to hear you talk about and take an interest in him. Try this simple experiment for yourself. Buttonhole a friend or acquaintance just back from holiday and utter the magic words: ‘Well, how did it go?’ Listen attentively to his account, interpolating the occasional ‘No, really?’, or encourage him to describe some incident in greater detail. You’ll see: when your friend nods or pats you on the shoulder before moving on, he’ll do so brimming with goodwill. And if, just before he goes, you quickly broach the favour you have been meaning to ask him all the time, you will find him far more amenable than if you had spent an hour expatiating on yourself and your problems and harping on how badly you need his help. The really surprising thing is that so few people deliberately make use of this simple but effective method of influencing others. Many of my own friends seem to believe that the longer they talk at someone the more they’ll get out of him. This does work sometimes, of course, but only if an opponent happens to be receptive anyway. Note the phrase ‘happens to be’. Our objective is not to leave success to chance but to proceed with deliberate intent, employing a method which will ‘very probably’ achieve our purpose.

Advertising demonstrates, time and time again, the major results that can be obtained with a few words or a vivid picture. German readers will remember the slogan Mach mal Pause, trink Coca-Cola (Take a break, drink Coca-Cola — English counterpart: ‘The pause that refreshes .. .’) which was on everyone’s lips after the last war. Do you know what made it so effective? It was less the injunction to ‘drink Coca-Cola’ than the invitation to ‘take a break’. To post-war Germans whose sole preoccupation was the building of a new life by hard work, it conveyed a sense that someone cared about them. At a time when work was uppermost in every mind, someone suddenly suggested: ‘Knock off for a couple of minutes. Treat yourself to a breather — you’ve earned it.’ Almost in passing, the recipient of this solicitous message was additionally advised to refresh himself with a bottle of Coca-Cola. This is a typical instance of how deliberately and purposefully advertising caters to the desires of those it seeks to influence. It also exemplifies how those desires can be kindled with a mere handful of words. We repeatedly notice that people who talk a great deal about something (usually themselves) have no real idea of what they want to say. They devote half an hour to something which could have been expressed in a few short sentences. Why is this so? Surely because we use speech only in part as a means of conveying information. The rest of what we utter serves to conceal or disguise things which we don’t wish others to see in their true light. One of our teachers at school, I remember, used to preface his questions on homework by asking: ‘Did you learn what I set you?’ He very seldom received a straight answer. Usually, the pupil in the hot seat would embark on a long-winded explanation full of ‘wells’ and ‘buts’. The master never accepted such prevarications. He went on digging until he got a categorical response. Even when it was ‘no’, he seemed satisfied. ‘Very well,’ he’d say, ‘at least we know where we stand.’ Doesn’t the same apply, only too often, to us all? We talk around a thing because we have no clear conception of what we want to say. We embark on speech before determining the purpose of our remarks and the effect we aim to produce. How can we hope to convince someone of something unless we have thrashed out our own ideas on the subject? But there is a third and equally crucial factor governing the effect of the spoken word: a listener’s readiness to follow the thread of our remarks. Nobody’s patience is

unlimited, and we should realize that. There are times when any partner in a dialogue is prepared to listen with alacrity, but his attention soon wanes, giving way to restlessness and thoughts of other things. He continues to listen, perhaps, but only ‘with half an ear’. This makes it necessary, when playing our manipulative game, to observe the following important rules: Before embarking on a conversation, we must define the object of the exercise. If we ourselves are convinced of the merits of our proposal because we have weighed it beforehand, we shall be in a position to submit it forcefully and without any long-winded preamble. An opponent’s attention is not inexhaustible. We must therefore seize on the moment when he is prepared to absorb our message in concentrated form. An opponent’s attention and his favourable attitude towards us are at their greatest when he himself occupies the forefront of the conversation; in other words, when we are talking about him or have encouraged him to talk about himself.

The art of thinking on one level and speaking on another Years ago I was seated at table next to the late Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of the former U.S. President. I asked her in the course of conversation what she regarded as the most important attribute a politician should possess. To my surprise, she answered: ‘Young man, the prime essential for any politician is to master the art of thinking on one level and speaking on another.’ I remember being rather shocked by this dictum, and not without reason. After all, it clearly portrayed duplicity as a virtue and paid homage to hypocrisy. Was it really desirable, I asked myself, to disregard concepts such as honesty, candour and truthfulness? I have long since grasped the profound accuracy of the old lady’s statement. Human coexistence would naturally present far fewer problems if we all observed such principles to the letter, but the fact is that we don’t. Too many ingrained weaknesses prevent us from doing so — notably the one that renders us almost unreceptive to honesty, candour and truthfulness! Of course, we sometimes meet people who proudly boast that they ‘say what they

think’. Do they really, or isn’t this just the impression they hope to make on others? If they genuinely act on such a principle, we are often struck by the scant effect they have on other people. In the last analysis, we all — without exception — live our lives in a permanent discrepancy between what we think and want, on the one hand, and what we can say on the other. We differ from each other only in the degree to which we surmount that gulf. The extent of our success depends first and foremost on a single ability: the ability to call a ‘supervisory halt’ on the road between thinking and the articulation of our thoughts. This is the point at which we transfer our remarks to a plane which differs from the level on which they were conceived. Let me use a mundane example to illustrate the nature of these different levels. Assume that a husband comes home one evening. Ilis wife puts some soup on the table. After the first spoonful, he realizes that there’s something wrong with it. Furiously, he thinks to himself: ‘Here I’ve been, slaving away for hours on end, and she serves me up with a bowl of something that tastes like dish-water.’ In his understandable annoyance, he promptly says what he thinks. The results are predictable. His wife takes umbrage, but not so much because she has ruined the soup — a fact which she might well have been ready to concede. All that prompts her to leap to her own defence and hurl abuse is her husband’s choice of words. They eliminate any prospect of bringing the exchange to a conclusion satisfactory to both parties, at least in the immediate future. It is obvious in this instance that the husband’s remark was intended as an outlet for irritation. However understandable it may have been, what did it achieve? All it did was poison relations between him and his wife for hours or even days to come. The creative ‘supervisory halt’ I mentioned earlier would have saved him all this unpleasantness. He would have thought, furiously: ‘This soup tastes like dish-water’, but before uttering the sentiment aloud he would have paused and reflected: ‘What’s the use of saying so? Will it improve the taste of the soup? Of course not, so all I can do is make sure I get something better for supper tomorrow.’ This pause for reflection would have restrained him from voicing his thoughts unexamined. He would further have reflected: ‘How can I express myself without provoking an immediate defensive response — put it so that she herself feels impelled to take more

trouble with her cooking from now on?’ He would surely have come up with some flattering remark in which to package his message effectively. “All well and good,’ you may say, ‘but things look different in the hurly-burly of everyday life.’ This is true only if you allow your mood of the moment to determine how you react to a problem. Your deliberate aim must be to instal a monitoring mechanism between thought and speech which will function automatically, as it were, regardless of your current state of mind. If Eleanor Roosevelt’s politicians can learn to think and speak on different levels, why shouldn’t you manage it too? The procedure is really quite straightforward. Let us summarize it once more. When faced with a situation in which you think it better to convince your opponent methodically than leave the outcome of your exchange to chance, you should preface speech by asking yourself two simple questions and answering them. They are: 1. What do I hope to achieve by what I say? 2. What must I say to achieve it? Try this method a few times. After your first few successes, you’ll find it fun to carry on.

You can tell anyone anything — without exception. It all depends how you do it Most people cling to the belief that there are some thing which simply can’t be said. They realize that they should be said but are incapable of jumping the hurdle of their inhibitions. Their thoughts revolve around a problem for days or even years on end, always tinged with the hope that it will sometime, somehow, resolve itself automatically. This is one of the reasons why so many people encapsulate themselves, discontented with their lot in life, misunderstood by others and permanently bogged down in a morass of unsolved problems. The ability to influence people means more than their manipulation for our own benefit. It is a self-liberating process. The attainment of a set objective signifies that we have freed ourselves for other tasks, but this process is always prefaced by communication with another. Any manipulative manoeuvre entails that such a dialogue be launched and steered to a predetermined destination.

For that reason, no one who persists in the belief that some things ‘can’t be said’ will ever be capable of influencing other people to his own advantage. ‘The function of speech,’ the Austrian dramatist Ferdinand Raimund once declared, ‘is to transform unreal reality into contentment.’ We are witnesses and victims of this transformation every day of our lives. What is to prevent us from exploiting it for our own benefit by using the instrument of speech? A friend of mine runs a business employing about twenty workers and office staff. One of the latter — an accountant — had been a permanent source of trouble. However hard he tried, my friend could never get on with the man. The only way of solving the problem, once and for all, was to sack him. My friend chewed on this decision for a whole year but couldn’t bring himself to raise the matter. A thousand and one things held him back. How would the man react? He wasn’t getting any younger, and he had a family to support. Might he take his case to a labour tribunal? Finally, when the situation had become intolerable, my friend sent for the accountant. He meant to convey his intention as tactfully as possible, but what happened? After the first few sentences, the man broke in to say how relieved he was. He had long ago realized that he was in the wrong job. All that had prevented him from giving notice was consideration for his immediate boss, whom he liked and respected. This is an exceptional case, no doubt, but it does clearly illustrate how two people might have spared themselves a whole year’s mental stress if one of them, at least, had overcome his qualms sufficiently to speak out. What, then, dissuades us from engaging in a conversation which may bring us nearer our goal? Actually, there is only one reason: fear of the unknown. We don’t know how our opponent will react. We are scared of defeat or ridicule. Having no idea what course the exchange should take, we dodge it altogether. All these uncertainties stem from the erroneous assumption that we must go to an opponent and say ‘I want you do to this or that’ — and that he will refuse. We see ourselves as the protagonist in a dialogue which can have only two possible results, victory or defeat, and the latter prospect unnerves us. The picture changes entirely if we regard dialogue as a manipulative game in which our chances of defeat are nil from the outset. Even if we fail to gain the success

we desire, this remains hidden from our opponent. We thus have no need to dread defeat, and the constraints of fear melt away. We achieve this situation by manoeuvring our opponent into the principal role rather than assuming it ourselves. This idea may strike you as rather unusual at first sight, so here are six tips whose usefulness you can gauge in practice, any time: 1. Open the proceedings with a tribute to one of your opponent's assets or merits. This will at once place him in the forefront of the conversation. Ask him how his wife and children are. Admire his taste in ties or stress some achievement in which you can be pretty certain he takes a special pride. 2. Having created a favourable atmosphere, develop it, but make sure that your opponent remains the central topic of conversation. If he starts by momentarily wondering ‘What’s he after?’, this suspicion must be dispelled. 3. The most effective way of heightening a favourable atmosphere is to ask a question which interests your opponent and has some marginal connection with the topic that interests you. From what he says, it should be possible to find an opening which enables you to focus discussion on the subject proper. 4. Use the opening to introduce your manipulative message. Whatever you do, don't say: ‘I’d like you to . ..' or ‘You ought to . ..’ or ‘In my opinion, the best thing would be . . .’ However eager you are to get your request fulfilled, present it in a way which suggests that your attitude is entirely neutral. You mustn't commit yourself to the idea so much as persuade your opponent to support it. You simply state the bare essentials and conclude with a question, e.g. ‘What do you think?1 5. If your opponent makes a negative response, list a few advantages that might accrue to him. Don’t omit to mention a few disadvantages too, but none important enough to nullify the advantages. After that, coax your opponent into weighing the pros and cons for himself by asking questions and putting suggestions. 6. If his negative attitude persists, terminate the conversation. Leave the matter open. Say ‘Let’s discuss it another time’ or ‘Think it over’. You now know his viewpoint and the reasons for his opposition. Make a tactical withdrawal. Check on what you did wrong and could have done better. Limber up for the next bout. As you know, nobody should bank on succeeding first time. If you commit these six tips to memory or jot them down in a notebook with the aim of trying them out at the next opportunity, don’t forget their underlying purpose. What

matters is to banish your fear that there are some things you can’t discuss with anyone, any time. You can, but only if you rule out the possibility of defeat by putting your opponent in the forefront of discussion, not yourself.

Four effective ways of using speech to your own advantage This chapter opened with the sentence: ‘Speech is the prime manipulative instrument.’ Most people fail to realize what a host of ways there are of employing speech as a means of persuasion. They generally choose a single method of gaining their objective: the frontal attack. They say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or ‘Do it!’ or ‘I’m right, and that’s all there is to it!’ If they fail to achieve the success they hope for, they pin the blame on their opponent or assert their authority, if not their personality, by coercion. This is another method, of course, but it is very limited and cannot guarantee long-term success. Everything so far said about speech as a manipulative instrument is supplemented by knowledge of Rule No. 3, which dealt with ‘packaging’. How you verbally package a proposal will ultimately determine the extent to which you convince an opponent of its merits. In other words: however good, reasonable and advantageous your proposal, only your presentation of it can ensure that others regard and treat it as such. Your own belief in it is important, but your opponent’s attitude will always be decisive. This underscores the necessity for the method described in the foregoing section: make your opponent the focus of a manipulative exchange, not yourself. Even if we do no more than accept the importance of submitting a proposal as it deserves, this in itself will take us a stage further in our practical everyday endeavours. Much of what we do and say is an attempt to present ourselves to others as something better than we believe ourselves to be. We may not be particularly up-to-the-minute, but we wear suits, ties or beards whose function is to convey that we are. We also adopt phrases and attitudes designed to reinforce the impression we seek to create. The questions which constantly preoccupy us are: How plausible do I sound? Am I convincing enough? Does the other person believe what I’m telling him? Is he taking me seriously? Does he accept me? In short: Am I using the instrument of speech well enough to convince other people of what I wish to impress on them?

It all depends on how far we make use of the numerous techniques available to us. Four of them merit special consideration. 1. BETTER TEN AFFIRMATIVES THAN A SINGLE NEGATIVE Whenever we cannot agree to something, there is a temptation to pass judgement with a straightforward ‘no’. From our own angle, this clinches the matter. We have dissociated ourselves from it and needn’t bother any longer, but what of the person who hoped to win us over and gain our approval? He will retire feeling that we have worsted him. Although he may not take offence, it is more likely that he will feel piqued and resentful. Sooner or later, when we want to convince him of something, he will greet our attempts with a flat refusal. It won’t occur to him to analyse our proposal objectively. Instead, he will reject it on principle. ‘Aha,’ he thinks, ‘now it’s my turn. Here’s a dose of your own medicine.’ Frequent personal experience has made us all familiar with this process — reason enough to learn some lessons from it. For years now, I myself have tried whenever possible to follow the advice of a friend who once told me: ‘There’s something brusque and final about the little word “no”. It causes an abrupt severance of contact between you and the other person. The word “yes” is a link. It maintains contact with the other person even if your opinions temporarily differ, so dress up your “no” in a “yes”. It’s better to say “Yes, you’re absolutely right, but.. .” or “Yes, that sounds great, but maybe we ought to ...” ’ 2. COAX YOUR OPPONENT OUT OF HIS RESERVE Sometimes, the situation is such that we want someone to tell us something which he is utterly unwilling to divulge — either that, or we just can’t get him to talk spontaneously. Journalists often find themselves in this predicament when assigned to interview people who are reluctant to voice what they know. Here, adroit interviewers employ a proven method from the card-player’s repertoire: they bluff. They act as if they know something prejudicial to their opponent. They make veiled innuendoes such as ‘It’s said that you . . .’ or ‘You have a reputation for . . .’ and end by asking: ‘Is that right?’ Note that these hints may be entirely factitious: they have only to point the direction in which conversation is to be steered. An opponent suddenly sees himself thrown on the defensive. In the interest of selfjustification, he sheds his reserve.

3. WORK ON YOUR OPPONENT’S IMAGINATION SO THAT HE CAN PICTURE THE OBJECT OF YOUR PROPOSAL There’s an old adman’s maxim which runs: ‘One good picture’s worth a hundred words.’ The same principle applies to verbal illustrations. Your opponent must be given a graphic idea of what you’re trying to impress on him. A newspaper can devote pages of print to an incident, but their impact on us will be far exceeded by a 60-second film report on television. Although we naturally don’t have such resources at our disposal in conversation, this should not deter us from using other means to stimulate an opponent’s imagination. I shall never forget a courtroom scene I witnessed many years ago. The accused was charged with causing a fatal road accident. When the judge made his routine request for an account of what had taken place, certain ambiguities arose. Then the accused stepped up to the bench. After groping in his pockets for a moment, he produced a matchbox and some coins. ‘Imagine that the matchbox is my car,’ he said. ‘These three coins are the pedestrians who were standing on the kerb.’ He arranged them in the manner described, then asked defence counsel to lend him his lighter. This became a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction. Before the judge could object, the desk in front of him had been transformed into the scene of the accident and the accused was pushing the coins, matchbox, lighter and several other objects to and fro in an attempt to illustrate the sequence of events. The whole thing became so real that counsel for the defence and prosecution rose and approached the bench too. They asked a variety of questions and ended by joining in the game. In short, the use of a few simple aids had enabled the accused to bring the court under his spell. You should never hesitate to employ such ways of graphically reinforcing the power of words. 4. CONFUSE YOUR OPPONENT BY TURNING MINOR DETAILS INTO A MAJOR ISSUE The ability to impose your tactics on others is of great importance in the manipulative game of mutual persuasion. If your opponent has gained an advantage by producing arguments so strong as to be almost irrefutable, he will be lulled into a sense of security because he knows perfectly well that you cannot rebut them with arguments of equal merit.

There is a simple way of extricating yourself from this awkward predicament: instead of reacting to the crux of his remarks, you pick on one aspect which offers a line of attack. You introduce your response with some such preamble as ‘Your point of view sounds highly attractive, I must confess, especially when you put it like that. I’m really impressed, believe me. However, I’d like to draw your attention to one minor flaw. It may seem trivial at first sight, but you know how little things mount up .. Your opponent will wait tensely to hear what you have to say. His thoughts are suddenly focused on something he has failed to take into account — something which distracts him from the main issue. It is now up to you to expand and magnify your ‘minor flaw’ until it wholly eclipses your opponent’s main argument as the focus of conversation. Naturally, the four examples quoted above represent only a tiny fraction of the possible ways in which people can be decisively influenced by a proper wielding of speech as a manipulative instrument. It is no mere chance that the eighth and last rule of manipulation deals with the deliberate and purposeful use of speech. Only the exploitation of all available resources determines how effectively the rules of human persuasion can be applied in practice. We must recognize that success is ultimately the product of a correct interaction between two things: knowledge of the factors governing the manipulative game in which we are permanently involved, on the one hand, and, on the other, the effective articulation of that knowledge.

Postscript As I said at the outset, this book was not written to be skimmed through and then discarded for good. To gain any lasting benefit, you must refer to it repeatedly for suggestions on how to handle your opponents in the daily manipulation game. What is more, you must abandon the erroneous idea that we ‘men in the street’ should for ever regard ourselves as the helpless victims of trained manipulators. What largely makes us such is fear of our supposed inability to prevail over others. This book is designed to encourage successful self-fulfilment with the aid of manipulative rules.

It would be unrealistic to expect anyone to absorb the foregoing rules of human persuasion and incorporate them, completely and without delay, in the repertoire of his everyday dealings with other people. Nor is this necessary. Rather, everyone can adopt those suggestions and findings which accord with his temperament and talents. The full exploitation of only one such talent can result in successes which will change his life for the better, and profoundly so. This book lays no claim to scientific method. It is the product of personal experience and general knowledge derived from my contacts with other human beings — from my never-ending ‘conflict’ with them. Finally, I should like to thank all who have made this dialogue possible and continue to do so, not least my wife and children. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my long-time partner Dr Sepp Gasser, whose exhaustive studies and research have made a substantial contribution to the writing of this book.