🚀 go-pugleaf

[From Rick Marken (990503.1440)]

Bill Powers (990503.1034 MDT)--

> If B [the coercee] wants to achieve something other than wasting
> effort and getting tired, all B can do is try to guess where A
> [the coercer] wants his hand or how A wants his body configured,
> and bring about that result before A can generate the appropriate
> forces.

In fact, it's worse than that. B has to guess which of his
_own_ perceptions, when controlled at particular level, will
produce the perception A wants (and keep A off B's back).

We've been talking as though a coercee could "align" his
references with those of the coercer but we haven't talked much
about what this would actually entail. What it doesn't (and can't)
entail is coercer and coercee having the same reference for the
same perceptual variable. If that were the case then the child,
whose references are aligned with those of the father who wants
her to read Chaucer, would want to see exactly what her father
wants to see: _herself_ in a chair  holding "Cantebury Tales"
in front of her.

I think "aligned references" must mean that coercer and coercee
have references for completely different perceptual variables;
but that the coercee can control the "right" perceptual variables
relative to the "right" references so that the coercer sees the
coercee's behavior as the behavior he (the coercer) wants.

It strikes me as very _unlikely_ that coercees would often end up
controlling just those perceptions that would result, as a side
effect (from the coercee's perspective), in just the observable
behavior the coercer wants to see. My guess is that, when you are
in a coercive environment (like a jail) and you see a lot of
people (inmates) "behaving themselves", what you are seeing is
a bunch of coercee's who have learned how to control their own
perceptions in such a way that they appear to be well behaved to
the coercers (guards); that way the coercee's can avoid the actual
application of force by the coercers.

Kenny Kitzke (990503.1000 EDT)--

>Because I believe that coercion is a useful concept in PCT only if it
>describes an interaction between people, I feel there has to be two
>conditions simultaneously existing in order to describe the
> interaction as coercion:
>
>A.  The coercer must be able and intend to intervene with
> overwhelming force if the observable action(s) of the other
>person is/are not what the coercer wants, and

>B.  The coercee must be compelled by such threat of force
> (real or implied or magined) against their own will to act
> as the coercer desires.

Bill Powers (990503.1138 MDT)]

> Ah. We agree. You put it so simply -- and I hope persuasively.

I'm persuaded!

Best

Rick
---
Richard S. Marken                 Phone or Fax:  310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates          e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/