One troubling psychological observation is that of Spite. In Sales Technique, they teach you two main strategies:
1.
Never to appear desperate to the prospective client,
and
2.
To be Persistent until you close the Deal.
Strategies of these sort do explain,
in part at least, why people hate on salesmen, most importantly because these
tactics work, and that which they reveal about the Human Race is actually pretty
scary.
While only a reported minority of
the population can exploit these tendencies in people without much fumbling or
moral scruple, an estimated majority of people exhibit these tendencies, to the
point that the observance of these tendencies becomes a norm, and overlooking
them becomes taboo. While this norm goes almost without question across various
societies worldwide, it offers explanations for how social custom, even in the
most unstable of societies, can reinforce a dominance hierarchy not of merit
but of manipulation.
The norm is “thou shalt not annoy”.
The tendency is Spite: the inclination we have to protect ourselves from
exploitation by being “annoyed” by those who seek our help. The evil is that we
presume that when we are annoyed it is the other’s fault and not our own.
Though evidence for this has
plagued me since my childhood, I resisted it, not out of ignorance but
generosity. In part: I wanted to believe that I’d be generous instead of
cynical whenever someone else should need my help. It’s how *I* wanted to be
treated, and I thought that setting that example would at least ENTITLE me to
that same sort of treatment. Finally, I knew that to be generous required being
optimistic. If I honestly believed that MOST people were spiteful, selfish,
self-entitled, greedy pigs, I’d have no chance of helping them nor being
helped, humbly, in turn.
That’s all fine and dandy from a
Moral Stature which professes how we OUGHT to Live, and I still think that that’s
the rightful answer to the problem. Be that as it may, it’s not the answer
EVERYBODY finds, and some of those who find another answer aid the problem in
itself. ETHICALLY, we SHOULDN’T treat our fellows, human and non-human, with
disdain and miserly dismissal. Those most desperate are often those whose needs
are greatest, and if given opportunity they’d flourish, whereas robbing them of
such an opportunity would make them fail.
This selfless giving has its
limits, clearly. In Better Call Saul, Chuck and Jimmy’s father is run
out of business through his oversight in the face of con artists. While
conscientious Chuck McGill adores his father’s goodness, younger brother Jimmy
sees things differently. Whether he simply got recessive genes, had been a
grifter in a previous life, or saw too many movies about tricksters, Jimmy sees
what his father refuses to believe: that guys come in with some invented story
and leave with a pack of cigarettes and change. In turn, Jimmy starts to pilfer
money from the register, and only Chuck appears to notice and believe.
Fans often blame Chuck for his
grave contempt towards his brother. Much later in life, Chuck’s constant denigration
of his brother’s tendencies results in Jimmy lashing out, developing the alter
ego of Saul Goodman, and becoming everything his brother feared and hated. Yet
who was to blame?
We could blame Jimmy’s father for
being naïve, but it’s not like his father doesn’t see the POSSIBILITY that those
who seek his aid are grifters. His retort is, “what if you are wrong?” Since no
one is all-powerful, we all depend, at one point or another, on the Good Samaritan
believing us. It’s only fair that we should treat those who are most in need with
kindness, even if it makes us easy targets for manipulators.
We don’t know exactly WHAT ran
Jimmy’s father out of business, and while this is fiction, it reflects how
often we don’t know in Actual Reality as well. People who simply hoard their
wealth and want no part within the progress of their fellows are by far more
parasitic than those who require help to meet their full potential, and denying
this only perpetuates the parasite. We do not know what cost the store more
money: random grifters or Jimmy himself, who ends up stealing from his father on
a common basis, using his own father’s goodness towards ill means. If Chuck is
right in blaming Jimmy for their parents’ fate, then, whatever his envy might
have been, he is right to treat his brother with the same disdain and cynicism.
Though Chuck never shows the kind of GENEROSITY his father had exhibited, it
remains JUST for Jimmy to suffer his brother’s disapproval in later life. Jimmy
pays the price for his OWN lack of generosity, and that’s because he’s driven
by the vice of Spite.
Spiteful people recognize the Spite
in Others all too well. If we are hardened to desperation, we won’t be fooled
by people whose desperation is either excessive or insincere. Yet this also
makes us arrogant and ruthless in the face of those who truly need us, for
which Benjamin Linus pays the price in Lost, with regards to his daughter.
Yet beyond the fact that con artists recognize other con artists at the expense
of recognizing those truly in need or sincere in their intentions, spiteful
people know how to manipulate the spite in others. Both Benjamin and Jimmy use
reserve psychology to bend people to their will like it’s the Force. Whereas
Obi-wan Kenobi could hypnotize weak minds into believing his every claim and
agreeing to his every whim, people like Jimmy and Ben can hypnotize people into
believing the OPPOSITE of what they say by annoying people to such an extent
that produces spiteful responses. They also specialize in that which
Christopher Nolan took ten years to write, direct, and to produce: Inception.
By making you believe that it’s your own idea, they appeal to your own
egocentric nature, which is why most of a story is subtextual.
There’s nothing wrong with subtext,
except when there is. It’s great that human beings don’t accept ALL that they
hear on faith and want to learn things for themselves. Yet it’s a problem when
we cannot trust each other without bias on our individual/tribal behalf. One
way or another, good people in need get stepped on by the actual liars. People
who have to live with less than they deserve and need are far more likely to
lose faith in any sort of Goodness, and the higher-minded that the good man is
the harder comes the impact of the fall.
Those who sell because they want
the money but don’t need it often do not care for those to whom they sell nor what
they sell. One would imagine that they’d be far more objective, needing less,
but why would anybody sell if needing less? People who sell but really do not
care whether or not you buy don’t think you NEED what they are selling; they’re
not desperate because they neither need your money NOR believe that you require
what they have to offer, OR if they believe you really need it, they don’t CARE
if you receive it. Yet these are the very salesmen who rise quickly in the
ranks of sales while dodging all the hatred and enjoying all the fruits.
Yet why IS that? Before we say “that’s
capital” and take our sides on Marx and Smith, let us consider why WE buy from
those who do not need us to and why WE get annoyed by those who seem to think
they do and who insist that WE need to agree.
We’re taught, precisely in the context
of our capitalist market, that nothing is free. There are no “common, public
goods”, but simply private goods. If I am selling, I am selling for myself and
not for you, though I am selling TO you or attempting to, and if you buy it’s
only fair that you should get your money’s worth. That’s what we’re taught, at
least.
Yet why would desperation play a
factor? If I’m desperate, you KNOW, or so you think, that my own needs are greater
than your own, or SO YOU THINK I THINK in seeking you to help me with my
problems by buying my product. Yet, on some level, you’re thinking, “No. MY
needs are greater, which is why I have no time for this.”
To the same extent as we sympathize,
we are reminded of our own problems, and we resent this intruder trying to
swindle us. CLEARLY he just wants his commission; why would HE be desperate to
help ME? *I* don’t need his saving me; I save myself and my own money. EITHER he
thinks that I cannot help MYSELF, OR he believes that HE is more entitled to my
money than I am, all because HIS needs are greater. CLEARLY, he can’t know this
for a fact, and though *I* don’t know it one way or another EITHER, I don’t owe
him any time in finding out, especially since he’s pretending that he doesn’t
need this Sale at all. While none of this is said aloud, it is precisely
BECAUSE it is not said aloud that we react to it, and even in denying it you
may be resisting what I’m offering to you herein.
Yet at the root of all of this is a
broken record in our modern thought: the cynical illusion that there are no
Common Goods. While the Good Samaritan will help us for free when we most need
him, the salesperson IMPOSES himself upon us for reasons that we can only imagine
to be self-interested and pretentious. We conclude that either we don’t need to
help him OR we do not need what he is selling OR, most often, both. We perceive
the look of desperation as the look of exploitation. We are taught to pity
parasites, so we equate the piteous WITH parasitic tendencies. Those who appear
most desperate to us we SPITE, precisely owing to our pride and self-importance.
We shut out the opportunity by calling those who offer it mere opportunists. Yet
do we have that right?
Traditionally: no, we don’t. We owe
our fellows our consideration because all of us receive some sort of help when
we most need it. We all wear the face of desperation, whether it’s at one time
or another, and we all beget the face of gratitude when we get what we need,
especially for free. The salesman who accosts us might be no worse than the
Good Samaritan; the only difference is: we do not THINK we need what he is
selling, YET. So: we pawn our needs off to the Good Samaritan instead, who will
help us for free.
Is there a way around this? Yes,
and that’s PERSISTENCE. On a surface level, we acknowledge that persistence
is only the other side of desperation. Yet why do salespeople PERSIST in
training new recruits “persistence” a strategy, when they acknowledge “desperation”,
even at its best-intentioned, to be ineffective? It’s because PERSISTENCE goes
beyond the moment. In the fleeting instant, we see someone desperate to take
what we require from us. We don’t know this person, nor should he know
us. There is no Common Good between us, YET, so how is he entitled to the sale?
Yet this feeling fades. We react to
desperation with desperation, but if we can be persuaded to look PAST it, the
longer we look away the more likely we are to go one of three ways: to get
tired, to change the conversation, or to agree. Persistence is desperation over
time, time during which initial hostilities cool, knowledge is gathered by both
parties about one another, and trust blossoms. If one tires of the sales pitch,
one may still reject it out of spite, but both parties have benefited in exchanging
knowledge about themselves. “Attention is,” truly, “the rarest and purest form
of generosity.”
[({R.G.)}]
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