The Hand that Feeds.

The Hand that Feeds.

I am honestly done with Behavioural Psychology/iatry. Alanna would say:

The shrinks! It is maddening. But what ever lingering guilt I might feel in glaring in to the Abyss is cleared away by the Abyss Her Self. I am merely weary and upset at the totali-

tarian anti-intellectualism and conventionality of these Self-Help Cult Gurus.

As usual, their definitions (in this instance, for manipulative be-

haviour) are SO banal and SO murky and opaque that one is led to suspect that they are All manipulators.

Authenticity.                      |Manipulation.

Artistry.                                                |Control.

Ambiguity.                          |Evasion.

Reality.                                 |Semblance.

Critical                                   |Word games. Diss-

Thinking.                              |trust. Idiomatic.

Moral                                    |Shaming. Victim-

Authority.                           |Blaming.

Optimysm.          >>           |->Cynicism.

Disappointment.->          |>>Confidence.

(The Dialectic does on and on…)

Really: It is no wonder, if mani-

pulation is so pre/-valent in the Debate Community, that a thing like Derridean De-construction could be termed ‘Abuse’. Yet not every Artist is a Confidence Artist. Not every Lover is a Seducer. Not every intro-

vert a Master Mind.

Alanna manipulated me for drugs. That is hard to admit. But I fore give her. It was my intent and consent.

What is harder to fore give is the Gothic accusation of my own mani-

pulative tendencies. Were I to say: At least I KNOW that my intent was good, or: At least *I* know ‘twas not *MY* fault, a ‘man’ like K. or Dentoni would re-

ply: But of course! A mani-

pulator NEVER admits to his own faults! And I would reply:

It is YOU that would manipulate ME to entertain so dim a world view!

For were it so that I could not trust my Own feeling to be genuine and sincere, then we could atomise ALL heroism to deception, and all internal feelings of a righteous conscience to Bad Faith.*

Manipulators will tend to treat others as though THEY were the manipulators. This is the essence of victim-blaming.

It is symptomatic in Awilda’s accusations of Sarah and Dewi.

It is symptomatic to Arthur’s whole ruse, and to Kresten’s entire Akt.

*This is called ‘poisoning one’s world-

view,’ and it is the hint that I have found a foot-

note foot-

hold in.

Yet such objectivity could not be Universal.

dm.A.  

I like deliberate ambiguity just for its own sake. That I am Heide-

ggerean does not render me a Nazi; that I am Nietzschean does not establish me to be krazy.

I like ending a para-graph just at the very korner of the page,

so that in trans-scribing it I can choose to treat both sides of the page as either ONE para-

graph or two. It is not that I disguise the ‘Truth’. I rather RESIST the very Notion of a Truth! It is in fact my HONESTY that leads me to be such a stickler for detail in trans-kryption.

The arguments for spotting a manipulator by behaviour are ridiculously manipulative:

1.       ‘Manipulator twist the Truth.’

What truth? Manipulators might just as easily demand the ‘Truth’ of you to gain the upper ad-

vantage whilst LYING.

2.       ‘Manipulators blame others.’

So do any self-respekting viktims.

Unless you mean to say that no one is EVER a victim. Now WHY should you want to attest to that?

May be they are YOUR victims!

Manipulators try to make their victims accept their own responsibility.

3.       ‘Manipulators are sarkastik’.

We do not need to be. We choose to be.

It is a matter of stylistic pre-

ference. A manipulative person Relies upon such emotions, but a genuine crusader (like Dr.

Whearty) uses it to not only salt his enemies’ wounds but to un-mask them.

4.       ‘Manipulators try to make their victims accept their own responsibility’.

My own words yes. But a case in point for both deliberately art full ambi-

guity and deceptive post-modern evasion.

Whose is ‘their own’? That of the assailant? In this case, I mean that of the ‘viktim’.

Hither/to I meant to say that the manipulator tries to burden the victim with the MANIPULATOR’S OWN guilt.

Yet not all guilt belongs to the assailant, who there in had been the manipulator. Some times it is the VIKTIM that must be held responsible. Not the defendant but the ever-so defensive Plaintiff is the mani-

pulator in what is called a case of Histrionic Personality.

Not all preaching, blaming, and holding others accountable is malevolent. Were we to presume it to beso, not only manipulators but all criminals would run amok.

So it is that just as the true victim must stand up for her self the Histrionic must be condemned.

Is this an easy situation? No.

But neither is the virtuous life.

To atomise all moral authority to relativism, suspect of mani-

pulation, as though all judge-

meant were immediately hypo-

Kritikal, is again to poisson

one’s world view.

5.       ‘Manipulators are elitists.’

The most dangerous ones I have met are in fakt the most egalitarian levelers.

‘Who are you to judge me?’* is the best defense against all finger-pointing. To say that requires an a posteriori warrant, such as ‘What have I done wrong?’ or

‘Have I done no right thing?’ The mani-pulator when confronted with this problem is reduced to re-

petition in the face of the fakts,

refusing to admit either to the innocence and virtues of the accused nor to provide any defense for one’s self out side of

*a priori leveling.

As I have demonstrated:

Manipulators can make all others look like manipulators. They can level indefinitely. Yet their

leveling is a lie, and Truth (in the sense of Honesty, even if Truth cannot be called Absolute)

will lay their indefinite leveling to the waste of the pathetik.

                                                                                                                dm.*A.A.*

ADDEND: All so: About Derrida. Per

                haps Whearty is suspicious be-

                cause he takes the murkiness of human motivation to be a start-

                ing point. I doubt that Ms. Watkins isso innocent. As for me: I am a genuine optymyst. Like de

Beauvoir. DM.

CONCLUSION.

Propriety does not an Ethic make.

Politeness is the breeding ground that manipulators feed on. Hence Trevor claimed Politeness and Morality/Ethics to be identikal and the same, and Thompson too rejected the notion that Ethics (public) and Morals (private) could be separated, reducing all to propriety by suggestion.

At least he covered the material.

                                                                dm.*A.A.*

After Thought. Just remembered.

6.       ‘Manipulators do not respect boundaries.’

Pat a lying man on the shoulder and you will notice your trust go down.

Get a seductive girl drunk and she might let slip more than she lets on.

Cathy Ames in EAST OF EDEN hated Steinbeck’s drug of choice for this very same reason. Are all mani-

pulators followers of Dionysus? No.

Are all Dyonesiacs manipulative.

No; they are too busy dansing.

And Appollo Knows that Many of his followers are deceptive and Haephestian.

So be it. One does not pick one’s fans. I guess.  dm.*A.A.*