Manipulation

Augustine Paul Hennessy, C.P., former editor of Sign Magazine, wrote the following editorial some years ago. It calls attention in a graphic way to a problem I have been witnessing recently. I reproduce it here and add my own reflections on its point...

"Almost every time I ride the crosstown bus on New York's 42nd Street, I find myself thinking about the same two topics: signs of decadence on one of the most famous streets in the world and the patience of all the little people who work in the neighborhood.

The crosstown bus has a short route. It runs from the Hudson River to the United Nations Building. Along the way, it passes Times Square. It lets its riders catch an expansive vista view of Broadway. It always seems to glide by the magnificent public library. It inevitably stops at Grand Station Terminal and the Hotel Commodore. But before it gets to these points of interest on its way to the UN, it first has to pass through the movieland jungle where almost every marquee panders to vulgarity and voyeurism.

Forty-Second Street is like a gospel parable. It dramatizes the painfulness of the human situation. It highlights the anguish of humankind's search for peace. On a bus ride to the place where the flags of all nations testify to a common concern for the dignity of a" men and women, we must pass through the jungle where bookstalls and peep shows and live-model movie-making are inescapable signs of decadence.

And the decadence always comes from some peoples' readiness to manipulate the weaknesses of others. At least one long block on Forty-Second Street has been turned into a human zoo by ruthless promoters who take advantage of sick people. A person has to be a manipulator to make capital out of those pathologies of mind and heart which accompany other people's boredom, apathy, and pitiable search for new escapes from misery.

Yet I can never take this short ride without seeing hundreds of beautiful human faces and without reflecting admiringly on the patience of thousands of little people who walk down Forty-Second Street day after day. They do their jobs and strive to be decently human despite the manipulative tactics they encounter in their own day-to-day existence.

If the world is ever going to be humanized, it will be these little people, unacknowledged giants, who prove to the humanity's best asset in the battle against barbarism... Let me tell you what I mean by little people, manipulative tactics, and the effort to be decently human.

Little people are people who do not credit themselves with a total comprehension of reality. They are always learning about others. They are comfortable with unexplored mystery - even in those they love. They do not pretend to understand other people's motives so thoroughly that they can pigeon-hole all their neighbors and then never allow them to get out of their assigned cages. Little people can be trusted with power without letting it go to their heads. They see power as an opportunity to serve others. And they serve without snarling at the public or without demanding more and more time to lick their own imaginary wounds.

Manipulative tactics are the standard techniques of the go-getter who becomes a disdainer of other people's rights. Manipulators are users of people for their own self-serving interests, whether it be for delight in power, pursuit of comfort, or sheer escape from responsibility. Manipulative tactics are an effort to turn people into puppets.

In contrast, the effort to be decently human is the minimum price all must pay to live in a moral universe. In a moral universe, it is immoral to treat a person like a thing. Persons are designed for being discovered and delighted in. Manipulation is the basic inhumanity of a" immoral behavior. It is immoral because it is inhuman, and it is inhuman because it treats another human being as a tool to be used rather than as a friend to be loved.

People are god's best gift to other people. And people remain little people by keeping their reverence for god's best gift."

It was one such "little" person who brought this article to my attention: a young lady with multiple sclerosis who uses a wheelchair, and who has been desperately seeking, together with a large group of like-minded 'little' people in wheelchairs, on crutches, with canes, to secure necessary public transportation for themselves and for the other 150,000 mobility impaired persons in Chicago who need the same for independence, rehabilitation, education, employment, shopping, visiting, doctors' appointments, and being a part of the mainstream. As Frank Bowe points out in "Handicapping America", such mainstreaming, in millions of cases, would mean millions more taxpayers - who want to be taxpayers - rather than being on public assistance.... The young lady who brought Hennessy's article to my attention exclaimed: "The effect of my reading it was one of complete recognition. It hit me between the eyes. WE ARE MANIPULATED."

The disabled activists appealed in vain for years to this city's Transportation Board to comply properly with Federal Regulations for accessible public transportation. They have had to put up with a para-transit pick-up system which only accommodates 200 riders a day, at limited hours, with a complicated "Dial-a-Ride" system which has been nicknamed "Dial-a-Refusal" Meanwhile there is a list of 6000 disabled people who are certified to use the service. To compound the frustration, the city is purchasing 363 new buses, and not one of them will be wheelchair accessible. Their pleas for a humane dialogue were brushed off until they demonstrated, at great risk to themselves, and forced a series of meetings.

As a participant in some of these meetings, I noted the minimum number of Board members present, and above all, their ignorance of facts and figures, not only about the numbers and conditions of the disabled seeking public transportation, but of federal funds received, costs of various operations, what is being done elsewhere, what kind of equipment is available and how it operates. It was as if this issue had never been heard of. During these meetings, they always made it a point to indicate how much they cared, but always resorted to the so-called problem of "fiscal restraints." When the issue of civil and moral rights was raised, they countered by saying that they were concerned with the rights of all the other riders.

These are all political appointees who receive a substantial salary and expense money for serving on the Board. They have other jobs besides.

Institutional Manipulation

Institutional manipulation is what I call it. Most likely, these gentlemen qualify as very upright people in their communities, and in their own assessment and would resent any accusation of manipulating people. But it is very easy, in our society, for anyone of us in institutional settings to go along with the institutional or organizational manipulation. Positions, jobs, prestige, money are all at stake.

Governments and Businesses

We look with horror on the despotic rulers of the past or dictators of the present who used, and still use, immoral manipulative means to exploit their own and other people, but we are not so horrified at what is done in our own society today in terms of institutional ideology and practices which individuals accept and carry out with little or no concern. Consider the manipulation by governments and businesses, of natural resources, impoverished workers, leaders in 3rd world countries. Where economies and even political systems are manipulated for the benefit of profit.

Religious Bodies

Even Churches are institutional and in danger of this kind of manipulation. To quote the world-renowned theologian Bernard Haring on the Catholic Church: "By her special vocation, the Church is expected to be an effective sign and school of liberty. Manipulations within the Church, and any attempt by her authorities to interfere in a manipulative way in the life of citizens, have therefore to be forcibly rejected. Often in the past, the Church was to a great extent manipulated by civil authorities and conditioned by the authoritarian system of society. The basic principles of the functioning of Church authority, such as subsidiarity and collegiality are, by their very nature, dialogical and anti-manipulative. However, we cannot forget that those who exercise authority and participate in dialogue within the Church bear in themselves all the manipulative input of family and society. The Church herself is only in the process of liberating herself from unacceptable forms of manipulation, and can succeed only to the extent that Christians are committed to liberation at all levels. There is need for ongoing education, dialogue and discernment" (Bernard Haring, Ethics of Manipulation, Seabury Press, N.Y. 1975)

The Media

The media, as institution, is the most powerful modern means for manipulation. In repressive regimes, it is controlled so that a single political ideology can be enforced. While we trumpet the benefit of free speech and exchange of views in this country, and rightly so, there is a not-so-subtle manipulation of mind and emotions through advertising, in particular. It is even frightening, at the time of the elections, to witness the political advertising, the amounts of money spent on this, the re-shaping of events and statistics in order to manipulate the voters.

In the mass media, there is a vicious cycle: the owners of companies and media producers dependent upon purchasers of advertising, the advertisers frenetically competing with others, and a consumer society which responds by buying. This thoroughly commercial approach is a built-in temptation to exploit the passions and baser interests of the buyers. Companies and advertisers often are more concerned with selling a product than cooperating in forming a mature society.

The Long Term Effect on the Young

Young people in the U.S. and Europe have spent more of their time before television than in school. Herbert Schiller, in his book "The Mind Changers", points out that when media managers present messages that do not correspond to the realities of social existence, they become mind-managers. When they intentionally create a false sense of reality and produce a consciousness that does not understand the real conditions of life, they are manipulative, and such manipulation of peoples' minds is a threat to human freedom and dignity.

The Objects of Manipulation

The underdeveloped, the alienated, the poor, the disabled are becoming more and more aware of the manipulation they endure. Men and women everywhere are growing in sensitivity. There are protests and protective reactions to all forms of manipulation which are degrading human beings and inhibiting the quality of life. The movements for freedom, liberation alert us to the various forms of manipulation in which we are unconsciously engaged.

The Non-Manipulator Par-Excellence

At the time I was writing this Notebook, at a religious service, the scriptural reading was Philippians 2, 1-11, the famous passage which speaks of Christ humbling himself unto death, even death on a cross. The commentator on it pointed out that the context of that well-known passage is often overlooked. Paul is addressing a problem in the community. We might say that there was a great deal of manipulating going on. He is calling the community to a realization of what Christianity, and indeed, all decent living is about: unanimity, possessing a one true love, united in spirit and ideals... not acting out of rivalry or conceit... thinking humbly of others as superior to oneself... looking to others' interests rather than to one's own. He climaxes this with the example of Christ himself, who never treated another as a tool to be used, but rather as a friend to be loved... even to death.