[From Bill Powers (961201.0345 MST)]
I appreciate Tracy Harms’ picking up that quote from B:CP, but I think it
needs some explanation. My view on the “desire to control other people” is a
conclusion from a reasoned argument, not a moral homily. The argument goes
something like this:
In order to control another person, you can either apply overwhelming
physical force, or use some indirect means such as applying disturbances or
supplying misinformation or setting up contingencies. These methods can be
effective in the short run, but in the long run they’re impossible to carry
out as a matter of policy. The reason is simple: you can’t know the other
person’s entire structure of goals at all the levels. When you try to get
another person to behave in a way that suits your own goals, you’re almost
certain to induce errors into some of the other person’s control systems,
which the other person will try to correct. As soon as your attempt at
control (no matter what the means) produces such errors, you will experience
resistance from the other person. Then you have a choice to make: either
increase your efforts to control the other person, or change your goal so
you stop disturbing the other person’s perceptions in the critical way. If
you take the first route, there will be an escalating conflict, which brings
us back to overwhelming physical force. If you take the second route, you
have started a process of negotation (explicit or implicit), which is the
real solution. None of us minds being controlled if this leaves us free to
achieve any goals we please, without interference. But this means knowing
and respecting all the other person’s goals, or backing off at the first
sign of serious resistance, neither of which sounds exactly like controlling
the other person.
So what’s wrong with using overwhelming physical force? If it works for you,
nothing. Unfortunately, you are one person and there are close to 6 billion
other persons, and to apply overwhelming physical force to all of them is
impossible. Even in smaller groups, you find that there are severe
disadvantages to controlling others by force. If you try to control your
spouse this way, you may gain control of some variables, but you will lose
control of others, such as being loved or respected. And the local community
is likely to rise up against you, applying superior force and throwing you
in jail.
That’s just a brief mention of some of the high points of Chapter 17, and
there are no doubt other problems with controlling other people that I
didn’t think of.
So, does this mean acting like a doormat, or being a pacifist, or not
protecting those you love, without regard for circumstances? Obviously not.
If you’re attacked, you will defend yourself, or hurt or kill the other
person, or use any means of controlling the other person that you can think
of. If your child runs into traffic, you won’t negotiate; you’ll snatch the
child to safety regardless of the child’s wishes. This hardly needs
mentioning; as a control system, you will take whatever actions will keep
all your perceptions as near as possible to their respective goal-states.
But in the long run, you have to ask whether your actions are really
maintaining ALL your perceptions at their respective goal states. If you
take the need for force in some circumstances as the basis for a general
policy, you will get your way in some things (unless the other person is
stronger or smarter), but inevitably, because of how anyone, including
yourself, will react to being the recipient of physical force, you will find
your attempt to satisfy other goals actively opposed or simply impossible to
carry out. You can adapt to this situation by giving up goals, but this
restricts you and makes you less able to live a fully human life.
So what is a general policy that will work for everyone? Hugh Gibbons said
it best: respect for the will of others. This is, of course, mutual
respect, from which you benefit as much as your respect benefits others. It
is the recognition of the nature of human nature, as a self-contained
autonomous system governed by internal needs that go back to the first
stirrings in the primeval gunk. It’s knowing that when you push on another
control system, it’s going to push back just as you would push back. It’s
not being surprised when others push back.
Of course this policy works best in a community of people all of whom
understand it and its justifications in human nature. Someone who doesn’t
understand the same things, who still thinks that controlling other people
will provide net benefits, can cause real difficulties in such a community.
You can see that a criminal is an autonomous human being and at the same
time find his autonomy encroaching on your own in an unacceptable way. And
this can lead you to try to control this person, knowing that the outcome is
going to have many drawbacks but also knowing that if you don’t try, the
outcome will be even worse for you and others. The basic problem is that
such a person has no respect for the will of others, so the mutual respect
is lacking. The presence of such a person drags the whole community down to
a lower level of functioning, in which violence and coercion, if not
carefully managed, can spread and feed on itself.
I’m talking about a system concept here, a way of conceiving the whole human
community that would give each individual the maximum ability to control
whatever is desired to be controlled without generating more problems than
necessary because of other people doing the same thing. This concept doesn’t
guarantee the absence of conflicts or even violence, but it lets us
understand them and minimize them. At least we could avoid unnecessary
conflicts and unnecessary violence. We might even find that these things
are much less necessary than they seem.