Thought Manipulation: The Use and Abuse of Psychological Trickery (11 page)

Hayek emphasizes that freedom and responsibility are connected values. In other words, freedom without responsibility is an empty notion. If a person chooses to be maneuvered by manipulative tricks, this is his personal problem and he has to bear the consequences. However, this simplification of Hayek’s view is only the beginning.

Hayek’s arguments point out that raising questions and problems, which belong to the individual mental private sphere, encourage the literal interpretation of metaphors. Such mistaken interpretations can lead to miserable consequences, which endanger the foundation of an individual’s personal responsibility. The concrete danger is that meaningless terms, such as “mental freedom,” will become guiding principles for regulation, and sketching policy according to meaningless principles removes any barrier and limitation. In this respect, the manipulation phenomenon, our case study, demonstrates the danger and the difficulties.

ORWELL’S THOUGHT POLICE: FEAR-PROVOKING DELUSION OR A REAL DANGER?

Social life is not always amusing but rather too often invites crises, difficulties, and problems. The frequent call for government intervention in response to social distresses should come as little surprise. Unfortunately, we tend to forget that governments and leaders should not be trusted. Their ability to cope with social crises is limited, particularly when focusing on the gray area, the location of manipulative behavior. How could leaders protect our “mental freedom,” the abstract individual domain, which cannot be demarcated by concrete physical criteria?

Manipulative behavior in general and advertising in particular operate in the mental domain. They are geared toward influencing the decision-making process of the target without physically and overtly limiting his options. Moral and legal discussions regarding manipulative behavior is problematic because of our limited ability to formulate an objective test to quantify the impact of such influences on a person’s decision-making process. How it is possible to determine a concrete mental sphere, a place where manipulations are not able to enter?

Aware of this limitation, advertisers direct most of their work at the gray area—the place where it is almost impossible to measure interference in our independence and free choice. Their elusive and sophisticated strategies make it almost impossible to formulate objective criteria to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate and moral and immoral manipulation. How can we protect the individual from damaging influences that we cannot measure, quantify, and sometimes even identify?

No doubt that the call for government intervention and control in the advertising market expresses sincere wishes to cope with real social issues, such as the desire to reduce the negative impact of irresistible influences, bring social justice, and improve quality of life. Free-market economists like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, however, will argue that governmental regulation and control in the gray area (the mental dimension) is not practical and will bring only social misery: What are the criteria to distinguish between a decent and an indecent advertisement? How can we decide which political candidate is a dangerous, manipulative demagogue and which is a true social reformer? Which political campaign expresses sincere intentions to bring a desirable change and which only uses attractive manipulative slogans to get elected?

The problem is that even the most “professional” regulators with the best intentions lack any X-ray into the mind and soul. This very gap indicates that almost any regulation in this area is subject to guesswork and the regulator’s arbitrary personal view and judgment. The sad result is that such a clumsy regulation will probably fail while the social problems, still unsolved, are only exacerbated. The danger is that the growing pressure for solutions will lead to stronger and tighter regulation. In the absence of objective criteria to set the boundaries to such regulation, sooner or later we might found ourselves living under the supervision of Orwell’s thought police. This dark vision sounds like an imaginary nightmare, but some famous scholars, such as Thomas Szasz, insist that just such a dystopia—the opposite of utopia—is an actual danger. Unfortunately, some members of our society even experience it firsthand in everyday life.

MENTAL ILLNESS, MANIPULATION, AND THE THERAPEUTIC STATE

Thomas Szasz is a libertarian psychiatrist who practices the ethics of psychology and sees himself as Hayek’s student. He demonstrated the previous “Orwellian” dark vision in his sharp and brilliant critique of the very term “mental illness.” According to Szasz, illness is a physical state of the body. To be more specific, it describes the body as a broken machine. Just as insufficient water in the radiator will cause the engine of an automobile to overheat, the flu will weaken the human immune system and cause a fever. Accordingly, Szasz believes that medical terms such as “mental illness,” which describes the health of the psyche, should be regarded as metaphors and not be interpreted literally.

Szasz points out that mental illness is a metaphor from the material world (illness viewed as a broken machine) that is borrowed to describe a mental state. The disaster is that many people, especially mental doctors like Freud, tend to forget that mental illness is only a metaphor and come to regard it far too literally. Taking the term mental illness as literally true leads to a phenomenon labeled “psychiatric imperialism.” It began by labeling the neurotic as sick. Next came the pretender, or in medical terms the “malingering,” so labeled because his medical condition seemed much more severe because its cause seemed to be buried much deeper in his psyche. Of course, the inevitable end to this endless mode of labeling is that we are all crazy and need some kind of “mental surgery.” The truth is that no one, including “mental doctors,” is endowed with an X-ray to test the “medical” condition of our psyche.

The phenomenon of psychiatric imperialism, according to Szasz, turned the modern state into what he has labeled “the therapeutic state,” by which he refers to the exaggerated power that governments tend to assign mental doctors. This power is manifested in their authority to hospitalize a person against his will. The scandal is that no human being, including mental doctors, is able to measure and quantify sanity. Therefore, the decision to hospitalize any human being for “his own sake” and against his will is mostly arbitrary (at least by formal “scientific” standards).

According to Szasz, mental illness is no more than the manipulative behavior of the weak in society as they attempt to attract attention. It is a hopeless strategy of crying out for help. Ironically and sadly, the confusing medical terminology, such as “mental patient” and “mental hospital,” does not benefit the poor manipulator. Often enough, the mental doctor falls too deep into the suffering manipulator’s trap. He imprisons the poor wretch (the “mentally ill”) in a “mental hospital” with a schizophrenic, paranoid, or some other rationalizing psychiatric diagnosis.

It is hard to doubt that Szasz’s allegations raise severe doubts regarding the nature of psychiatry. To be more specific, Szasz seems to illuminate some dark corners concerning the moral implications of this metaphorically but thence literally “medical” profession. Nevertheless, it seems to be no less important to consider the other side of the coin despite Szasz’s valuable critique.

One does not need to possess a medical certificate to notice that certain people behave strangely, and it is hard to accept the view that an extreme deviating behavior is simply a manipulation by a person intending to attract attention. Most mental doctors will insist and argue that Szasz’s “therapeutic state” is very much an exaggeration, especially nowadays. These assertions, whether true or not, do not diminish Szasz’s brilliant critique of the very notion of mental illness.

Modern diagnostic techniques can demonstrate that certain deviant behaviors result from physical distortion. Szasz will reply that in this case the patient is ill, but certainly not mentally ill. True or not, the term mental illness often functions more as a stigma than as a medical diagnosis for the treatment of a free and self-interested patient. The important point (beyond the debate on the existence of mental illnesses) is that Szasz’s critique enfolds an important message, which is that policy without clear principles might be very dangerous, but policy according to meaningless principles is a complete disaster.

Like the concept of mental illness, Hayek will claim that the very notion of “mental freedom” invites unrestricted regulation. In other words, regulation that is supposed to ensure our “mental freedom” might sooner or later bring us under the supervision of Big Brother. The danger arises from the lack of criteria to quantify damage to our mental freedom, which is a meaningless concept—at least according to Hayek. Therefore, besides the major difficulties inherent in a discussion of the different solutions to unwelcome interference in our mental freedom, Hayek finds major difficulties in formulating the very problem.

Notions such as mental freedom and mental illness helped me clarify major obstacles in thinking about regulation on manipulative behavior, so now it is possible to go back to the issue of modern advertising with much better intellectual equipment. The inevitable question is: If there is any truth in Erich Fromm’s descriptions (that is, irresistible impact of advertising upon consumers) and modern advertising is indeed damaging our mental freedom, what can we do about it?

As stated previously, Hayek’s view focuses on major difficulties in even formulating the problem (that is, mental freedom is a meaningless concept). However, it is hard to deny, as Hayek usually emphasizes, that there are “real” social problems and distresses that we do not know how to formulate. Indeed, my concentration on manipulative behavior was intended to demonstrate such basic difficulties. No doubt Hayek’s disregard of sensitive questions concerning our mental freedom is consistent with his world view. Nevertheless, he is not leaving such problems open. The challenge is to expose Hayek’s invisible solution to these unformulated problems.

WEAKNESS, CHOICE, AND COMPETITION

I have limited the discussion to manipulative interactions where the target seems to cooperate with the manipulator. These manipulative interactions have the potential to embarrass many liberal thinkers because the target of a manipulation who plays the role of the mark might simply choose, or more precisely want, to be led astray—a frequent fascist excuse.

In principle, classical liberals consecrate the decision-making capabilities of the individual and his independence. They emphasize the importance of individual sovereignty and his right to harm himself, even via suicide. Manipulative interaction where the target seems to cooperate with the motivator is a widespread phenomenon present in almost all dimensions of life. Therefore, it is hard and painful to accept the view, especially under the liberal umbrella, that so many people on so many occasions want to be misled in a way that might not be for their benefit. Accordingly, I will insist and ask again: Is the “assistance” that the target is giving to the manipulator the outcome of his free will or is the manipulator abusing the target’s human weaknesses?

At first blush, it seems that Hayek must affirm free choice because abusing human weakness seems to be similar to mental coercion. In other words, manipulative behavior, practically speaking, does limit the mental freedom of the target, and Hayek has already taught us that such an argument is meaningless. Hayek’s opinion, at least as I have presented it, might seem insensitive and even dangerous. Moreover, it seems that a competitive society, where everyone strives to promote his personal affairs, not only does not discourage manipulative behavior but even invites it. It is strange that a prominent thinker like Hayek simply disregards this subject. However, careful examination indicates that it is not a matter of absentmindedness, naivety, or laziness but is instead an intentional disregard.

I do not have any doubts that Hayek recognizes the existence of damaging manipulations. Moreover, Hayek is fully aware, even if he is not always ready to admit, that human mental capabilities are imperfect and that any individual might sometimes show weakness, vulnerability, and a limited ability to reject damaging influences. However, it seems that Hayek’s fear—or maybe his traumatic, obsessive fear—of catastrophic governmental regulation is playing a major role. In his view it is implicit that dealing directly with questions concerning the individual’s mental capabilities sooner or later leads to governmental regulation, which endangers the individual’s freedom. Therefore, such a discourse is extremely dangerous. Issues concerning our mental capabilities should be left out of the political discussion, even if such an omission comes at a heavy social and ethical expense.

The first impression is that Hayek’s position leads us to a dead end, as he does not leave any room for discussing problems that are connected to our mental capabilities. Discussion of the problem of manipulation is out of limits. The beauty is that Hayek does not leave the difficulties unsolved. He succeeds in providing a solution without discussing and formulating the problem. The free market system, the mechanism that can build the foundations of a good society, provides us a “mental shield,” according to Hayek. This mechanism is able to filter manipulations better than any government regulation and control.

Hayek emphasizes that individuals do not operate in a vacuum but in a complicated social framework. Institutions and social interactions have substantial influence on human beings’ decisions, actions, and lifestyle. This influence is mostly unpredictable, invisible, and beyond the comprehension of any mortal human being. In a good society (that is, Hayek’s version of capitalism), the problem of indecent manipulative behavior is solved by itself (that is, mostly without any deliberate governmental regulation). The competitive market is able to solve, or at least diminish, the problem spontaneously without the need for rational discussion that might call for “protective” actions, which will likely damage the efficiency of the market mechanism. Toward the end of this chapter I demonstrate the role of the invisible hand—the mechanism of competition—in solving moral problems and social dilemmas concerning manipulative behavior.