Controlling the Narrative

There are things you don't want anyone to know, for fear of judgement; they may be things you're struggling to understand and are uncertain of how to address them. How far can this be taken before it is harmful? Can it ever be healthy? On a basic level controlling (or attempting control of) what is known is distorting reality-also known as lying. If every part of each aspect of a situation were known to others as I know them, there would be no mystery or deception. When I work to keep information from others-in part or in whole-then I want to shape another persons' perception. I do not want them coming to their own conclusions; rather, I want to control what they think. This may be an extraordinary interpretation, but it is not an irrational one. It is commonplace, and often unconscious, to tell only part of the story-even to tell the story which places us in the best light. Whether it is malicious or harmful is separate from the fact of it happening. Note that I will use "lie" as the root word for this discussion for the sake of brevity and simplicity.

Positive public relations in business puts a "spin" on things by only giving out particular information. It is a recognized form of public affairs, and can rely on claims of "intellectual property" and "trade secrets". This can move from complete and factual statements about something into "cherry-picking" only positive aspects, even to suppressing vital 'negative' information that consumers would need in order to make a fully informed decision. The need for private companies to be seen as beneficent entities leads to dubious statements. Naturally, this has extended into advertising, with companies making claims about products that are rather ridiculous lies. Similarly, individuals in the public eye (i.e. celebrities, politicians, and spokespersons) can have personal and professional needs around public image and control of information. We can see this in various campaigns and agencies. However, sometimes "staying on message" can be a form of disinformation-a special kind of lie. Again, we return to the idea that not everything is exposed; there are some things that those advertising their wares are scared of coming to light. These examples can have a far greater impact than those of an individual. I skim over this aspect because it is not the focus of the post, and deserves more exploration another time.

When it is an individual controlling or seeking to decide what is seen or known, we may call it 'privacy', 'secrecy', or 'confidentiality'. We may have select friends we tell all things to, while others receive only cursory or superficial versions of events in our life. Social media is an excellent example: the struggle to always appear positive and likable, as having it all together. It may go beyond "polite" topics, and become a neurotic competition for approval. However, in these situations the harm is fairly restricted to a few individuals around the liar. While it can lead to fervent defense, shame, and "family secrets", it will not have widespread impacts. There's more going on, and as much denial as is put into it, a person cannot succeed at 'spin' and remain authentic.

This is where the topic becomes more intriguing, because an unintended effect of lying is one of denying authentic connection. Rather than letting ones' mistakes and limitations be known, one chooses to obfuscate and deny their existence. This places a barrier between parties, known on one part and sensed by the other. The liar must guard against the lie being found out, for fear both of being judged for the original action as well as for covering it up. The other party begins to place the liar out of reach, as being 'other' in some way; they may not suspect lying, but know that somehow the liar is different. We all know that we are imperfect, and either we have a damaged self-image and think we're alone in that or a healthy self-image and recognize that everyone makes mistakes. If others don't own up to mistakes, we have to suspect something is wrong somewhere.

Finally, it is this social aspect that is at the heart of the matter. Because we are social creatures, and require connection, how we achieve that connection is vital. Basically, either we can connect to others through control or through vulnerability. There is a part of being around others that involves the challenge of judgment. The fear of rejection is the most common motivation for lying. Yet losing connection is the biggest risk of lying. This is an inherent tension of willing to be known by others. Additionally, others cannot struggle with their own judgements if I am not putting who I am in full view. This-again-is part of being human: to experience judgments. Here it is both judging others and being judged by others. The opportunity to be challenged by differing judgments or facts. These judgements are separate from truth or self-image; however, they matter because a healthy human requires the acceptance of other humans. That challenge of facing a difficulty and encountering it directly builds a more solid individual; we could say that it builds character.

All Laws are Negative

There seems to be a misapprehension about laws, that somehow they tell citizens how to live. This is inaccurate, in that laws only tell us what is prohibited. In fact, a great many laws are reactions to terrible injuries and exploitation. Child labor, environmental pollution,workplace safety, manufacturing practices, and financial regulations are all examples of laws that were enacted in order to prevent harms that were being done to the people and lands of various countries. It was not that governments were interested in curtailing business, but that there was such outrage at the deaths related to these business practices that governments no longer had a choice but to pass laws to protect the health and safety of citizens. The truth of this legal history is not the issue at hand. This is all to establish the basis for the objective of this post: that a focus on the negative leads to negativity. Since all laws are prohibitive (that is, they prohibit an activity) - they are negatively focused. Additionally, they are punitive or retributive; the consequence of being found guilty of breaking a law is always punishment. This is because there is no prescription for rehabilitation in a law-remember, laws do not tell anyone what to do-it only says what harm may be leveled against the 'criminal'. This negativity, aside from being demeaning, also sets the entire mindset around law and legality in a negative framework. This means every time I think about the subject, I think about it as a negative.

This relates to the idea of "pessimism", whereby all one sees is the negative or harmful possible outcomes of choices. Instead of recognizing, accepting, and weighing possibilities in a neutral way, the entirety of the process becomes increasingly focused on negatives. Negative reinforcement can be especially impactful when combined with an absolutist and/or "inherently bad" belief system. Someone who believes in absolutes is one who does not believe in extenuating circumstances or 'shades of grey'; these are folks who can only conceive of two possibilities in any situation. One can recognize these individuals by the expressions "like it or lump it", "there's only one way to do something: the right way", and "my way or the highway". The second mindset holds the belief that all people, or certain groups of people (here we can recognize racism or other prejudices), have an initial or inborn 'badness' to overcome...if they believe it possible to change at all. These beliefs combined with the initial assertion of the negativity involved in the "criminal justice system" lead to a greater problem than any of them individually.

Which leads to the conclusion that we are really talking about psychology, not least of which because every person involved in the legal system is a human. Every human is subject to the same psychological issues: biases, stresses, prejudices, and fatigue. Supposing humans somehow become immune to these realities once they enter the legal system is absurd, yet folks seem to act as if that were the case. In the legal system, these psychological factors have tremendous impacts on individuals and society. There are many studies that demonstrate how "priming" participants can lead to fewer options and less desirable outcomes. This is part of the reason defendants are allowed to change out of jail/prison clothes to appear in court: the sight of a person dressed as a 'criminal' primes the viewer (judge or jury) to see guilt, rather than maintaining the presumption of innocence. However, not all factors can be alleviated, thus allowing the psychology of those deciding a legal case to be swayed. Looking at the incarceration of persons of color in the U.S. is a striking example of a series of such psychological impacts. I speak not only of the attorneys, police, judges, and juries-of course these include also the individual suspected or convicted of crime and the communities. Here I may be accused of drifting into a spiritual arena, by including the psychological toll of having a prison or jail in a county, or of the family's grief over the conviction (rightly or wrongly) of one of their own. However, I intend to point out only that there is a psychological impact; this is factual, observable, and-possibly-measurable.

It is this negative psychological toll that I had in mind starting this post. It seems sadly lacking in the discourse of reform around "criminal justice" in the popular narrative of dominant culture. It has seemed absurd to ignore all these obvious components when talking about how to understand such an historically rooted system, let alone how to improve it.

What Keeps Us Safe

I propose that it is business that is the best defense. Guns and bombs aren't "making the world safer," and "a strong military is the best deterrent," is false. Instead, what keeps people from attacking and destroying a place is that place having what those people need. It is very difficult to destroy the only source of food or clothing, and it is a tremendous waste of effort to occupy a country just to insure they continue to produce them. Instead, establishing a mutual business relationship is securing the interests of all involved to maintain the status quo. People will go to great lengths to eliminate a bully, and nations are no different.

Relationship as Ownership

With popular culture singing about "my girl" and "my best friends' girl", is it any wonder? When "you should have put a ring on it" and "I need you to need me". From Pretty Woman to An Officer and a Gentleman to "I want to know what love is". There isn't any rationality to it, and because there is not supposed to be, people assume or play along that everything is the way it ought to be.

These pop-culture consumables are not meant to be models, at least not overtly, yet they end up being-in so many ways-just that. Without healthy models in their own lives, so many children end up needing something to base their ideals of relationship on. They can turn to the ubiquitous presence of music and visual media to learn. An understandable mistake, although a crippling one.

I will propose that it is not to own or be owned; that much is certain. However, the fear of being committed should not keep one from relationship. It is not about belonging in the sense of ownership, if we say "they belong together". It is the kind of belonging like birds belong in the air and fish belong in water; it is that right-ness of being that every moment else was not wrong but can never be right in the same way again.

We do what we value, and value what we do

 While this sounds simple, I will expand on the axiom in order to unpack it and demonstrate how it can have an interesting psychological effect.

First, many may be familiar with choosing what to do with their time; be it donating to a cause, pursuing a career, or visiting friends and family, our choices reflect priorities. Currently, I am doing what I value by writing here-I am choosing to reflect my values in my actions. What about the inverse, or second part of this axiom? Does it just mean that we value completing a task? It's actually less clear, and potentially insidious. What this points out is that once we make a choice (or pay a cost), we unconsciously seek to validate it. In part, this effect seeks to resolve cognitive dissonance by reaffirming that a previous loss was the correct choice. If we apply this to my writing, it could be that once I started this post (or the blog itself) I was invested and therefore would have trouble stopping; by taking time away from other areas of my life or 'paying the cost' I would need to defend that choice. This defence comes at a lower or higher intensity depending on the cost. If I were to give 90% of my money to a cause, I am likely to vigorously defend that choice-even or especially after it turned out to be a fraud! This is because the news that I was taken advantage of clashes with my self-image as an intelligent and cautious individual; the news that I was defrauded threatens my very belief in myself, and therefore must be combated.

This is referred to sunk-cost fallacy, and has been widely studied. Because it is already well-known, it can be found in many areas of life outside business and behavioural psychology. I have encountered it reading about self-help/self-improvement topics. Often, the advice is to spend money on a gym membership or exercise equipment in order to jump-start the process; "I've already spent the money, I might as well use it!". However, it also pops up for individuals looking to 'win friends and influence people'. You may even have encountered it a few years ago in popular articles describing how to get people to help you. It basically amounted to using this effect to manipulate others into giving more than they get; "have them give you something small, then when you make the big ask they are primed to agree."

My goal with this post is simply to acknowledge that this bias/cognitive error exists, hence the pithy title which I often recite as a reminder. As with most things, this is a tool that can be used for good or ill; it depends on the user more than the tool.