My Objective is to Help You Achieve Yours
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Book Review Controlling PeopleThe Paradoxical Nature of Being Human by Richard S. Marken & Timothy A. Carey Reviewed by Bruce Nevin © Bruce Nevin 2015
This compact book introduces
Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) to non-technical readers. The title tackles
head-on the objections that many of us have to the word control. The
phrase controlling people might suggest that this is a manual of
techniques for making others do your bidding; or it could be a how-to book
for dealing with power-seeking people who want to make us do their bidding.
The ambiguity points to a paradox of human experience which the book
develops as a central theme. The resolution is presented as the key to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You feel better when you're in
control of things that matter to you, and the same goes for everyone else. The first two chapters show
that we are all controlling people (in both senses), how ubiquitous and
pervasive controlling is, and the nature of controlling. Controlling is
essential to life. To live is to have purposes and to act so as to realize
those purposes. Anything that is alive is a controlling creature. Non-living
things may be controlled, or not, but so far as we can tell they cannot
control anything. The purposes that they have are due to being controlled
for one purpose or another. The next three chapters
introduce Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), the science that accounts for
controlling. Chapter 3 describes the elegant mechanism of circular
causation by which we act so as to realize our purposes. In Chapter 4, we
learn how the "multitudes" of purposes within us are hierarchically
arranged. Higher-level perceptions are controlled by prescribing purposes at
the next-lower level of the perceptual hierarchy. Obviously, control is not
always successful. Chapter 5 describes the remarkably simple innate process
of trial-and-error reorganization, the imperceptible inward process from
which emerge learnings of all sorts, including acquired skills, "aha"
solutions, and basic cognitive development. Given this basic
understanding of the nuts and bolts of how control works, the paradox of
"controlling people" makes more sense. So long as we are alive, we cannot
help controlling, that is, having purposes and acting to realize them. And
as social beings, our purposes necessarily involve one another. We have
norms or standards for how people should act, and we apply these to
ourselves as well as to others (even if the application is in the form of
rebellion). Chapter 6 describes three ways in which people control others. One, "do what I want in order to get what you want", was elaborated by the behaviorist psychologists and other animal trainers. A second, control by deception, is familiar from advertising, public relations, and propaganda. The third is control by brute force, overwhelming the victim's capacity to control. (Other options are touched on in later chapters.) Controlling another person (or animal) requires you to be on the watch to make sure they comply, and it opens you to counter-control, as in The Good Soldier Svejk or Catch-22. The chapter closes with a
valuable discussion of "self control", where one purpose is controlled by
means of another. The analysis of the dieter's problem of so-called
"willpower" as a conflict between two purposes within the same person is by
itself worth the price of admission for a lay audience, though more deeply
significant payoffs are yet to come in the more general treatment of
conflict. Chapter 7 begins with the
most obvious cases of conflict, when people's purposes cross, with a very
useful distinction (or gradation, rather) between arbitrary control and
respectful control. Respectful control recognizes that other people have
their own goals, and at least tries to accommodate their need to be in
control of their lives. This makes possible various cooperative arrangements
in which each participant is in some respects controlled by others and in
some respects controls others. In these arrangements, the relinquishment of
control is voluntary, that is, it is done in a controlled way (as shown by
the fact that it can be rescinded). Each participant uses their
accommodation to others as means to better control other important purposes.
There is a gradation between fully cooperative arrangements and those in
which participation is enforced, if only because the arrangement is the only
available means of controlling important variables, as in behaviorist
conditioning. Only hinted here are the very exciting developments in PCT
sociology and anthropology investigating the collective control of the
"furniture" of civic life, including social norms. The concept of loop gain,
introduced with the example of the dieter in Chapter 6, is brought out here
as a way to keep social interactions from escalating into conflict. The
effect of higher gain in controlling a given variable is that you are more
attentive to that variable and more quickly and vigorously resist any
disturbances that would shift it from the state that you want it to be in.
It's how important it is to you. Most social interactions involve control at
fairly low gain. If someone fails to return a smile or a wave, you don't
ordinarily turn back and demand that they do. The example given is asking
someone to pass the salt, but they're engrossed in conversation, so you
employ other means to get the salt; you might ask someone else, or go get it
yourself. Here, the gain on controlling use of the salt remains relatively
high, but the gain on controlling particular means of getting the salt is
low, and that is what frees you to look for alternative means. There is a
lost opportunity here to bring out the relationship of this to the Method of
Levels in the next chapter, but the connection is brought out at the end of
the book. Chapter 7 closes with an
entertaining survey of the field of self-improvement. What needs
"improving" - the source of that dissatisfaction that leads us to buy
self-help books, videos, and courses - is internal conflict. The "improver" is
the Reorganization system. The good part about our
reorganization capacity is that even the most distressing turmoil can be
resolved given the right conditions and sufficient time. It may be something
of a drawback to this ability, however, that, because it works so well,
almost any technique will seem successful if it's applied to enough people. The secret sauce behind every success for a
given therapeutic technique or therapist is the Method of Levels (MoL).
Chapter 8 begins with the striking proposal that every time we make a
choice, we experience a conflict and then resolve it. We routinely resolve
mundane conflicts all the time, with others as well as within ourselves,
without ever becoming particularly aware of them as conflicts. The means
that I use to control a given purpose could be either A or B. But there are
reasons for using A, and different reasons for using B; that is, A and B also
serve other, additional purposes, and as long as those motivations are out
of awareness the choice is difficult to make. Choosing one, the motivation
for the other choice is dissatisfied. The higher the gain at the level of A
and B, the greater the distress. By bringing awareness above that level to
the motivation for A and to the motivation for B until both are held in
view, the problem resolves itself. Just as, at the dinner table, it's really
not so important to make Alice listen to me, there are other ways to get the
salt, in the same way lowering the gain at the level of an internal conflict
and turning attention to the motives that are driving each side of the
conflict opens the way to a spontaneous resolution. Consciousness, or awareness,
is the Mysterious Moe of PCT. No one knows quite what it is, only that with
it "we" seem to move around from one perception to another. Chapter 7 closes
with a brief discussion of the role of awareness in MoL, and some cogent
suggestions for applying MoL to ourselves. It turns out that talking to
yourself might not be so crazy after all. Rightly understood, it might be
just the thing for sanity, peace of mind, and - dare we say
it? - self-improvement. Chapter 10 starts off with a definition of
freedom as being in control, and then surveys the three enemies of freedom:
overwhelming disturbance, ignorance, and conflict. Control by definition
acts to maintain a perceptual variable in a preferred state in spite of
unpredictable disturbances in the environment that affect that variable. As
we drive we keep the car more or less centered in our lane of the road,
despite curves, bumps, and wind. Some disturbances are just too strong for
our means of control. During a hurricane, we should park the car and seek
shelter. Ignorance is remedied by education and
practice. Knowing how to play baseball won't help you understand a cricket
match, and vice versa. There's a deft political touch here, affirming that
investment in education is investment in freedom, and identifying poverty as
overwhelming disturbance. Conflict, also, is re-examined in terms of
politics. So once again we confront a paradox of
controlling people: in order to be in control (free) people have to allow
themselves to be controlled (to play by the rules of society). This is
actually the paradox that all societies have to confront. How to organize
themselves so that each individual is best able to control their own life
without giving up too much control to the powers that be; [those] who
enforce the rules that are implemented to reduce interpersonal conflict. Although we don't generally think of it that
way, control actually restricts one's freedom. We don't think of it that way
because, when we're controlling successfully, our experience is just as we
wish it to be. If you did want a different experience at the same time, you
could not control either experience with complete satisfaction, due to
conflict. The bumper sticker might say "I'd rather be sailing", but when
you're driving the car you can't be sailing a boat. You have to restrict
yourself to being a part of the machinery of the car, its control system. As
my grandfather used to say, the part of a car that causes the most accidents
is the nut behind the wheel. If you were to daydream too much about sailing,
it might reduce your competence as a driver. But why drive? Why sail? Those
questions lift you above the conflict, and in general By applying the MoL process,
we can identify what matters most to us, and then we will have a much better sense of the
battles that are worth fighting for. We will know with clarity and
determination what is important to us, and we will also be more certain of
the things that can fall by the wayside. The final chapter suggests how
an understanding of ourselves as controlling people can help us "understand
that altruism is, ultimately, a selfish act". Paradoxically by giving
others the freedom to have the control they want, we will actually be giving
ourselves more freedom as well. The suggestion is that this is how to
establish more humane social and economic arrangements. Control is the way it is. Life is control. We
need to understand it, and we need to learn to live with it. We need to
strive for a world where people prioritize finding ways to control what is
important to themselves in a way that minimizes the extent to which they
interfere with the controlling of others. That, and all that it implies, would really be
a world worth the trouble. Why would anyone wish it otherwise? Why
indeed. But the book may well be forgiven for not concerning itself with the
pathologies which make such a ruckus in the world. It is engaging,
accessible, and serves its purposes well. |
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This page last updated on August 2, 2019 |
