Stop Hating On Manipulation
A lot of the people I talk to nowadays scoff at “inauthentic” behaviour. Being “non-manipulative”—authentic—is, it seems, the code they live by. That sounds great! But in practice, their authenticity often seems to be a thin wrapper over what in legal circles is known as being a dick.
A lot of these are people I respect, so I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit nowadays. But I still don’t understand their argument, or the broader knee-jerk hatred of the word "manipulation".
Manipulation as a word
Socially, manipulation is a taboo word—heavy with ominous undertones, reserved to accuse those beyond hope. I personally don’t care for semantic debates—call it whatever you want. But the concept of manipulation—tuning your behavior to reflect the circumstances—is an important one.
Semantically speaking, everything you do is manipulative—it manipulates (literally, to change) the way someone thinks of you, or acts towards you. If you’re being yourself, people are reacting to you; if you’re trying to be Hitler, people are reacting to you; if you act holier-than-thou, people are still reacting to you.
Manipulation, then, is the art of behavior. Specifically—behaving in a way that makes it easiest for you to implement your agenda, whatever it may be.
It does not involve lying, or even bending of facts. Indeed, being transparent and authentic is very often the best form of manipulation—because you come across as trustworthy and reliable, people are more likely to let you get your way. Manipulation is a skill, a skill everyone should be trying to develop.
Why do we hate it?
Perhaps our hasty dismissal of manipulation is because our most frequent exposure to manipulative behavior is by politicians. Stereotypically speaking, they are overly-social douchebags who worship power. They create facts, they flip sides, and in general have little respect for morality. But that's pretty (logically) bad manipulation! A common lament nowadays in democratic countries is choose between two evils. How many people do you meet who actually like politicians they vote for?
Everyone manipulates. Think of a successful politician you dislike. They have a “brand”—a curated set of ideas, style, and moves that they play by. You’d probably call this as unprincipled. Now think of a successful politician you like. You probably find them to be “so authentic”! But they also have a brand, it’s just that the brand rubs you in the right way so you can't/won't realize they're manipulating.
Since manipulation is strongly related to authority, let's go with the first source of authority in most of our lives: parents. If your parents have a rule they want to enforce, they can do it in many ways. They can subtly "trick you" into accepting it—and that's what we commonly call manipulation. But if they demand it, and enforce it violently, that's still manipulation. They're acting in a certain way (violence) to get something that they want (the rule), and you're reacting in a certain way, and your opinions of the people involved change (you might think you have bad parents, or that you're the problem).
Let's say, for example, that they, instead, sat down and proposed the rule. You had space for objections, and you amended and ultimately decided on the rule yourself. That is still manipulation. They're acting in a certain way (treating you with dignity) to get a certain agenda (the rule, but also you being happy with the rule) and you're reacting in a certain way, and your opinions of the people involved change (you might respect your parents more). It makes you like them more and it's a far more sustainable way of rule-making. Very advantageous. This is logically good manipulation.
And yet its moral. Not all manipulation is equal. If you take these three cases, the first two are "dictatorial"—they attempt to subvert your will. The last one is manipulation, but it's manipulation that involves you in your agenda. And that's why we might say it's also right, or morally good manipulation.
(Side-point: that's why systems like democracy, equality, and freedom are so popular, atleast in theory—they're both logically and morally good.)
Why not "be genuine"?
It is extremely difficult to get stuff done in life while “being yourself”. This is primarily because it is very flaky existence. You are not a single predictable entity; instead, you’re an amalgamation of circumstances and emotion and (some attempt at) logic. On good days, you may be a delightful person to be around, humble and hardworking; and on bad days, you’re often entirely another, perhaps snapping at people or dismissing their opinions.
Instead, it’s better to be consistent—and consistently “nice”. This may not always feel genuine in the moment, but it is very much genuine more broadly—you’re being nice because you believe in treating people with dignity and kindness. In some sense, it is the “real you”—who you want to be, as opposed to the moody, terribly flawed, human being you actually are. Yet, self-alleged “principled” people will condemn this behavior, calling it inauthentic.
I’ve had multiple conversations about this topic, and the best argument I've been able to gather for their case is intent. Perhaps being nice for the sake of being nice is “good”, but being nice for the sake of being popular, or cool, is “bad”.
There’s some merit to this argument. I still think, though, that this attitude is fundamentally naive, dismissing the very real complexity of human morality.
When you pay taxes today, you aren’t just being a good citizen—you’re also trying to avoid trouble. When you didn’t cheat on tests, it’s not just I’m not that kind of person, it’s also I don’t want to be suspended.
There is nothing particularly wrong with having multiple intentions—in fact, there almost always are multiple intentions for any morally positive action. Some of these intentions are nobler than the others. And that’s okay.
Even if you were to go with the intent argument, it’s often incredibly hard for a person to exactly what they themselves “truly intend”. Nobody really understands anybody, including themselves.
Don't be manipulative
None of this is to say that you should always be thinking about branding all the time. You shouldn't. I'm not saying manipulation is great. It's not. It's just not evil, a tool to be used when you need to use it. In many cases in life, though, you needn't and shouldn't.
One good example is friends or family. For most people I’m close with, or want to be close with, I actively try to shut off the self-awareness stream—because it’s kinda hard to form relationships if you’re scheming and trying to “implement your agenda” in the most efficient way possible. Relationships are a two-way street, not a wrestle for power.
That being said, manipulative behavior isn’t restricted to power (in fact, I've so far never used it in at attempt to gain power).
It can be used to advance intellectual arguments—debates on stage, or lunchtime friendly fire. What you say, and how you say it, influences your argument powerfully.
Humans are special because we have language. Language is often thought of as solely a tool of information. But it's also, very fundamentally, a tool of manipulation, of convincing, of change. Manipulation is how anything gets done; it's the bedrock of human society.
You can use it to make people feel better about themselves. Manipulation is used all the time in progressive social movements—feminism, the civil rights, independence. Your agenda could even be helping other people meet their agenda!
It is also used by by the Nazis, by religion, by conspiracy theorists. And that’s sad, but it doesn’t change anything.
Your words can hurt people, or they could soothe them; they can build, or they can destroy; they can advance truth or push forward lies. Both sides use manipulation. You choose which side to be.