photo: Yaplakal.com
In our information age, many people are literally obsessed with media and shaping their image. Meanwhile, opinion leaders, masterminds and other citizens who carefully hide behind masks take advantage of our tendency to idealize and generalize ideas. Let's see how this happens in reality and how it should be done wisely, so as not to become a caliph for an hour, living according to the principle - what is bad is funny
Stereotypes simplify life, allow you not to waste analytical resources on processing seemingly (not really, but seemingly) typical tasks and operations, and automate and optimize most of your thinking. However, you have to pay for everything; in every gain there is a loss. Generalization of status is one of these distortions; it is human nature to idealize and transfer assessments from any area to neighboring ones.
The opinion of a person with a higher status initially seems significant and important, and only after getting to know the speaker better, understanding his limitations and limits of knowledge, do they begin to admit the possibility and necessity of revising assessments. After all, princesses also go to the toilet...
A complex world requires complex decisions; building power solely on coercion, reward and/or the force of law makes it unstable and vulnerable. Power always needs to be complemented by possession of information, expert opinion and the role of example/standard. The most famous and successful politicians of the past and present have followed this path. Well, if the first mechanisms are not available, i.e. You do not have the opportunity to use carrots, sticks and laws; image formation is your only way.
All modern opinion leaders, bloggers and experts can build their image solely on managing information about important topics and about themselves. Their field is power based on information, power of a standard and power of superiority in knowledge. And, yes, in our time the question of “to be or to seem” is almost always decided in favor of the latter.
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Man and society
The key issue in terms of power over minds (not to be confused with power over emotions and feelings) is the formation of an appropriate information flow, and we will talk about exactly the principles that it should comply with.
The main message of the article is to show the mechanism, and how to use it or, conversely, not fall under its influence is everyone’s business.
Information Management
I have repeatedly noticed: when in the summer you see a graceful, slender girl with long flowing hair walking in front from the back, then by default you complete her image with a beautiful face. Then you overtake her and... well, what can you do, the world is imperfect, you move on and the situation repeats itself. Incomplete information allows you to speculate and idealize.
Similarly: power over minds is complemented by the presence of distance, hiding significant details and allowing - based on respect for the subject and its authority in one of the areas - to come up with a beautiful image. Unfortunately, reality is almost always worse than the ideal, because even saints have critics during their lifetime, but there are very few truly saints.
In Anglo-Saxon countries and in Eastern societies, this issue has been resolved a long time ago - we can talk about the natural and recognized by the majority of the distance separating representatives of power from commoners, or, in other words, the distance of power. Representatives of the upper strata there are practically Teflon, little sticks to them. The Russian cultural canon is characterized by low power distance, i.e. the majority do not feel reverence when communicating with high-status people.
So it turns out that within the framework of Russian culture, it would be optimal to form this distance not through segregation, demonstration of disdain, boorish attitude, snobbery, etc., but through a correctly structured broadcast of information in order to receive a guaranteed response: “Yes, you can’t deceive me.” It’s hard, I’m happy to be deceived myself.” By the way, the result of precisely this perception and idealization in personal life is numerous divorces due to personal incompatibility.
I don’t even want to talk about the discrepancy between the preached ideas and personal behavior; it makes no sense to talk about the honor and purity of the uniform when those around you know about the offerings that are regularly accepted. But there are also simpler options for ruining an image - for example, disseminating information that is inappropriate outside a certain environment. This gives the “storyteller” the image of a “frivolous person” with whom one cannot deal, because “he cannot keep his mouth shut” is an extremely unpleasant personal characteristic. Most often, this is not really about divulging secrets, but about disseminating information to a wider audience than it should. Conventionally: all people of a certain circle know that a certain person is a money-lover, likes to drink, is stupid or ... and much more, in his circle this has long ceased to even be a topic for jokes. But conveying such information to a wide audience means losing face, first of all, for the speaker himself, and only then for his “victim.”
You must always clearly understand the boundaries of what is permissible and the correspondence between the story being told and the audience. The figure shows the levels of information, situations and audience within which distribution is considered normal.
Levels of permissibility of information dissemination
If you “dig up” information from a deeper level than the one where your listeners are, you violate your own image and lose the coveted elements of sacredness. Indeed, this is a kind of exhibitionism when the public is introduced to information that only friends or relatives should know. You begin to feel sorry for the storytellers: it’s clear that they want attention, but there is no valuable information, so they attract them with whatever they can.
Information technologies have provided access to broadcast channels to a huge number of people, so unprecedented divas and bloggers reveal details of their personal lives, arranging branches of shows “behind the glass” for subscribers.
General rules for disseminating information:
- Most of the information communicated should be appropriate to the level of the audience;
- insertions one level deeper are allowed, but not too often;
- inclusions on two levels should be extremely rare and as impersonal as possible;
- information from higher levels is inappropriate and disrupts social communication (try starting a conversation in official language with your family or friends, you will learn a lot about yourself in response).
Most of the normally perceived articles and speeches on the Internet are located at levels 6-7. Information from the 5th should be very dosed; it is better not to talk about work in the public space again. Questions about family and parents are generally unacceptable to bring to public attention. Unfortunately, not everyone understands these simple rules, and then they wonder why they are treated so strangely.
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Power and Society
Exposing internal conflicts to a wide audience is a mistake. For example, friends and relatives (level 3) may know about your family troubles (level 2), individual responses will jump to the 4th level, but don’t even think about telling your acquaintances or the general public about this.
The situation is similar with the regular attempts of great leaders to reach out to the people: in particular, when A.G. Lukashenko publicly and rudely scolds the heads of enterprises, this is bringing problems of the 5th level to the 7th - maybe someone likes it, but it offends me because of its unnaturalness.
Thus, let us remember that the understatement of one’s own image is an important tool of power over minds. Under conditions of the dominance of postmodern principles, something unpleasant happens - the content of information is completely replaced by an image (bloggers, experts, etc.). There is only one good thing: the post-industrial society is ending, which will present the trans-industrial to the world - “we’ll see.”
So, in many cultures, the sacralization and idealization of significant people is ensured by power distance, thereby facilitating the work of controlling the masses. In Russia the situation is more complicated - the power distance is very small, you need to more carefully manage information about yourself. The rules are very simple - the form and content of the story must correspond to the audience.
The desire for social dominance is largely biological in nature, and recognition of other people is one of its forms. If you have something new and interesting to tell a wide range of people about social, social, philosophical, religious and other problems close to you, go for it. If nothing you say is of interest to adequate people, your path is ... do you know Buzova? Yes, but not of my own free will.
And, yes, I think the division of information is correct, not in the sense that something needs to be hidden - no, there is simply no need to wash dirty linen in public and engage in a kind of exhibitionism.
Lectures from the Knowledge Society
People speaking in the public field are often not limited to television programs, books, articles, videos and online answers to questions; there is also a format of closed and semi-closed events - creative evenings, lectures, seminars, joint breakfasts, etc. In our country, the system of clubs is poorly developed, so the limited format of the number of “initiates” is most often determined by the paid nature of participation.
There are three main motivations for those involved in such events. Let's start analyzing the first one a little from afar.
I periodically go to concerts of hard rock and metal music. For those unfamiliar with this hobby, it may seem that the main goal is to enjoy the playing and vocals of the musicians. Yeah, now... Open the live recording from the concert and compare it with the studio sound. The purpose of attending a concert is to experience the “hits”, to recharge emotionally and be among those close in spirit and sympathies, to change the environment, to go back years, etc.
By the way, football is also much more interesting to watch on TV. The purpose of visiting the stadium is a joint vacation, a change of scenery, a feeling of emotional unity with tens of thousands of people who are on the same wavelength as you; it is not without reason that they say that even death is good for the world.
Now let’s be honest - many people go to author’s meetings not for information, but simply to “touch the great.” Is it correct? It seems to me no, since here we can see a request for the formation of charisma, and holding meetings with an emphasis on personal communication is a direct path to precisely this.
Let's move on to the second option of motivation - getting answers to specific questions. There are a number of problems here - not all other participants are interested in your questions, not all of them can be answered briefly and/or without first studying your situation, and not all speakers are ready to answer questions and not listen only to themselves.
If you look at this from the point of view of obtaining information, then it seems wrong to me to tell the same thing in the public field (6th and 7th levels) and at paid meetings. The options to get out of this situation are as follows:
- close some topics for articles and videos, first of all this is the practical part and advice (the main thing is to overcome laziness and do it);
- tell important but perishable operational analytics, the significance and importance of which is rapidly declining (not my topic);
- say more complex things (there is a sea of people willing to listen);
- tell inside information - information from deeper, personal levels (see the consequences in the previous part);
- repeat public speeches and not pay attention to it (consequences - loss of audience trust).
Well, what can I say, if the first option is still acceptable, although it requires effort, I don’t like the rest at all, and I consider most of them simply unacceptable.
The third motivation of the participants remains - to see people and show themselves, i.e. make social contacts. In principle, it is quite interesting as a secondary goal, but for this the number of participants should be small, and the event should be off-site and take several days.
Thus, to summarize: holding creative meetings, lectures, seminars, etc. often does not contain an informational component, but is more focused on social communication and forming contacts. Does this have a right to life? Yes, but then the format must be appropriate.
If we are talking about the priority of obtaining information - you need to highlight closed and interesting topics, make sure that participants receive exclusive material - then, of course, there can be a lot of them. Again, with an emphasis on social communication, we sharply limit the number of participants, we make the event outdoor and for several days (Karelia, Baikal, etc.). Combining the two approaches will not work well.
Why is there never enough power?
For the same reason, this desire cannot be satisfied. The internal “determinant of happiness and success” is an image, a product of their own neurotic imagination, and therefore there is no need to talk about any objectivity here. The “inner judge” is never enough and never enough.
Erich Fromm on the reasons for the insatiable desire for power
Thus, people obsessed with power become dependent on short flashes of a semblance of joy, which can only be obtained by throwing a competitor into the “abyss”, receiving a new “solid encouragement” from the society he leads. A power-hungry person only thinks that everyone depends on him. In fact, it is he himself who is extremely dependent on the mass of people he controls. Why?
Yes, because they may well find joy in simple existence without a “tyrant” and a “great ruler,” even if they have to pay for it with a little more fear and the burden of personal responsibility.
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Power and society
Well, if you need answers to specific questions, you need personal consultations or a limited number of participants with a preliminary list of questions from each, so that the speaker can weave most of the questions into the narration program.
Summary
The specificity of Russian culture is a low level of power distance, which requires those who want to be rulers of thoughts to be very careful about their language, not to bring confidential topics and questions to the attention of the general public, not to name specific names, i.e., simply put, not to talk too much . We are not talking about malicious concealment; you just need to clearly understand what conversations are appropriate, with whom and in what society.
For the majority of those who claim power over minds, it is much easier and more desirable for people to think up and attribute all sorts of positive things to them in their fantasies than to acquire these qualities in reality. Stop idealizing authoritative people; in everyday life they are exactly the same as the conventional Vasya from the next door.
Playing preference with friends at the dacha with wine and barbecue, we talk about work, football, women and remember our joint “exploits.” And, yes, I’m sure, meetings of V.V. Putin and his friends have exactly the same semantic content. This is typical male chauvinistic talk.
Paid seminars, creative evenings, breakfasts, etc. most often become a form of loss of sacredness for the speaker, since he tells insider, confidential information to a wider circle of people than he should. Several such events - and what you talked about will become the property of people in your or higher circles, which will immediately reduce the degree of trust. It won't be easy to clean up.
How do modern psychoanalysts explain the thirst for power?
Psychologist and modern philosopher, Viktor Mazin, in a recent interview offered his version of the explanation of this phenomenon. Below we present in abstract form those brief conclusions that Victor came to after many years of working as a practical psychologist, both with healthy people and with patients in a mental hospital.
Viktor Mazin, psychoanalyst, writer and famous philosopher of our time.
“I have been to psychiatric hospitals many times and I can say that such madness as in power does not happen in hospitals. "- writes Mazin. In his opinion, an unbridled thirst for power is not just one step away from mental pathology, but it is one.
“It’s a paranoid projection: I don’t know it’s my problem, so I know it’s all of you,” Victor explains. This is how he explains the passionate extermination by officials and politicians of a certain “minority”: national, sexual or class.
The root of such hatred lies in deeply buried intrapersonal conflicts and repressed emotions, in deep rejection and disgust towards a certain part of one’s own personality.
In other words, the force that can motivate a person to such selfless, frantic attempts to get his place in power and destroy the imaginary “enemy” comes mainly from hatred of a part of his own personality, personal failure, inability to experience the joy available to more harmoniously arranged people.
These people cannot be happy “from themselves,” from love for their loved ones or their favorite business, for the simple reason that they are not capable of the very feeling of love. It is supplanted and, in a sense, replaced by all-pervasive hatred and the desire to “prove!” at all costs to the internal “chief judge” that they are worth something, that they exist and that they are strong.
