Use of Control and Conformance

Bullying is the crudest form of personal control, but the most effective form of control is achieved by clever individuals persuading a number of physically imposing people to do the bullying. That happens at the level of criminal gangs and, more subtly, at the level of political movements.

What it relies on is that the large majority of people are, in most situations, basically after a quiet life. Someone determined to seek control can achieve it in one of two ways.

First, by persuading some potential rivals to back off and avoid the aggravation of competing. Second by persuading sympathisers to provide aggressive support – sometimes just by confrontational argument, but often backed up with the threat of violence.

In the face of aggressive support, many people keep well out of the way and the path to control is opened. Of course, problems arise when there is more than one competing control-seeker using aggressive supporters.

Use of Personal Experience

Control-seekers  promise potential allies/supporters rewards and a share of power. Carefully worded promises, suggest tangible future benefits for support. Later reality often fails to match the promises, but then the disappointment is dismissed as due to a misunderstanding of the promises.

Supporters of rivals are threatened with persecution or carefully selected activities and words of the rivals are quoted to suggest incompetence, negligence or hidden reprehensible motives. When exaggeration or distortion is proved, again it is blamed on a misunderstanding of words used.

The key to effective use of these tactics is to relate both promised benefits and dangers to factors in the past experience of the audience. For example, a rise in crime or medical errors is close enough to personal experience to be used to persuade many to blame those currently in control.

Use of Confidence and Grasp

Many people feel that their social environment is largely beyond their control and yet they accept confidently proposed approaches which sound plausible. For many, plausibility requires three things: simplicity, visible short term benefits and absence of provable long term weaknesses.

Control-seekers are very confident that, if only everyone would let them have their way, most areas of the social environment would be controllable. Their proposed methods of control usually rely on unconditional cooperation or coercion of everyone into applying them exactly as designed.

Control-seekers claim that their methods are simple and workable and that, when they don't work it is because of non-cooperation or sabotage. It is rarely their fault when things don't work and it is rarely correct for their methods to be compromised to include elements of rival approaches.

Always control-seekers rely on lack of confidence and lack of grasp of people they seek to control.

Use of Politics

Political activists are a special case of control-seekers. At the level of nations, religions and international organisations and alliances they are the most skilled manipulators of the control, confidence and personal experience factors discussed in the preceding paragraphs.

Political activists gain allies using a mix of flattery and promises of a share of power. They interfere in almost all areas where large social groups are involved – religions, cultures, law and order, the media and trade.

They are self-confident power-seekers. In many cases they are quite prepared to combine  distortion, exaggeration, provocation, destructiveness, subjection and suppression as tools for achieving and maintaining their goal – the exercise of power.

Their self-justification is based on either propagation of their genes (creating a dynasty) or the supremacy of honourable intentions (“the ends justify the means”).

Use of Religion

Updates and variations of interpretation of a religion's rules and debates and disputes over validity lead to religious organisational hierarchies. Wherever such hierarchies exist they become a target for people with other motives – usually people who believe that because they have laudable motives, anything goes in order to achieve their ends.

They align their preferences with message of the religion they seek to use – but they cherry-pick specific parts of the message to justify actions and behaviours they advocate. They cast rivals as heretics or blasphemers or agents of evil. They persuade sympathetic followers that their religion is under attack and so anything goes in its defence.

They do anything from establishing dynastic control over a nation to setting up a sub-sect which actively persecutes supporters of contrary views.

The recent history of the Balkans and Ireland in Europe and Iraq and Lebanon in the Middle East suggest that, using religious and cultural differences, political activists can manipulate otherwise reasonable people into performing or condoning local and international atrocities.

Use of Culture

Where racial or ethnic diversity exists it is quite common for political activists to cast themselves as cultural leaders as a means to gain power – ostensibly to remove or react against persecution or suppression of their chosen culture. Some members of any cultural group can be persuaded to support or at least condone persecution of anyone portrayed as a threat to their culture.

Persuasion is often aided by a history of external persecution or rivalry which makes the xenophobia easy to encourage, but often it is incited by political activists seeking a large committed force in support of a power battle with rivals who are currently stronger in areas where the population is predominantly from other cultures.

Use of Law and Order

Impartial law and order is available up to a point. That point comes you ask who are the legislators and controllers of the system. The answer is politicians. Independence and impartiality are meaningless if the framework within which they work is set by political activists and if the top  judicial and enforcement posts are filled from a small subset of society.

It makes little difference if there is some notional “balance” between the influence of a few main current political organisations. Those organisations, and thence their appointees, still load the system of law and order against genuine impartiality.

There are, of course, some circumstances where the legal process doesn't operate to preserve the status of a few political organisations currently vying for power. Those arise when elements of the police and armed forces execute a coup – but that doesn't lead to a newly independent and impartial force of law and order.

Use of Media

Under dictatorial regimes much of the media are just propaganda distributors. In non-dictatorial situations media control occurs in two ways: ownership and authorship/editorship.

Newspapers, commercial TV and radio are controlled by people or companies with a particular political bias. Owners appoint editors and reporters who mostly share with the same bias. Leading members of political parties generally keep clear of overt ownership.

Public service broadcasters are treated more subtly. Their finances are controlled by politicians so suggestions of bias can be used by political power holders to influence the level of condemnation they can apply to any political party or its actions.

The internet is an exception to traditional media controls. It grants political activists the chance to plan violence and sabotage in ways which are difficult to limit and punish. It also makes it difficult  to distinguish truthful exposure of malpractice from misinformation and libel.

Use of Commerce

The relationship between commerce and politicians is a two way street. Politicians want financial support, which can be most efficiently obtained by gaining a few large (therefore company or trade union) donors and the donors want favourable legislative treatment.

Commerce involves companies and unions. There is a corresponding split between the objectives of the political parties they support with donations. Typically companies support political parties which operate to minimise scope of industrial power of trade unions and trade unions support political parties which operate to limit the scope of labour controlling powers of companies.

Companies operate to maximise their market share, so they support research activities which are  useful in manipulating customer preferences, for example persuading customers that selected brands is highly desirable – or even to create a market where one did not previously exist.

Use of Research and Development

Scientific research and development is regularly influenced by politicians and large organisations – and frequently not for the best interests of the mass of people who pay for the research through taxes and purchase of goods.

It is no coincidence that military, biological and chemical products which advance the possibility of political groups subduing large populations or spreading their control to take over areas previously controlled by rival groups have advanced in sophistication and power beyond what is seen for products which merely advance general health or nutrition.

Added to that, research into mental states is funded by companies, as described earlier, and by politically motivated government institutions – not just for the purpose of controlling and reversing the mental illness, but also for the purpose of influencing attitudes to policies and information about  policies or events.

Use of Commitment and Ruthlessness

Political activists are very often highly committed and some are quite prepared to be ruthless in  treatment of opponents and exploitation of allies. A feature of the modern world is ruthless manipulation of people, persuading them to perform or condone violence and sabotage.

All it takes is some malpractice, attributable to supporters of rivals, with visible adverse physical or psychological impact on a culture or religion. Regardless of the truth of the accusations, they are used to whip up a frenzy of revulsion, intimidation and violence against rival supporters.

The sponsors of the trouble show little regard to the justice of the action – and where innocent victims suffer the justification is usually a claim that collateral damage is unavoidable – or even that the claim of damage is a lie or that it was caused by the rivals to discredit the sponsors.

Use of Objectivity and Dual Standards

People like to think of themselves as objective, but also can't hide from themselves the fact that they occasionally apply dual standards. Hence it is easy to convince them that the same applies ot others. This is a feature employed relentlessly by political activists to discredit their rivals.

They repeatedly claim that their opponents are hypocrites, claiming to be moral paragons and in fact indulging in things like self-interest and fiscal or moral corruption. They also claim that any electoral reform which allows new political groups access to power would open the door to permanent coalitions of parties almost guaranteed to apply dual standards as a norm.

Governing parties in democracies are frequently engulfed by accusations of scandal which gradually make them incapable of retaining power and, in spite of the resulting mistrust, the electorate are scared into rejecting electoral reform.

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