🚀 go-pugleaf

[Martin Taylor 990504 23:30]
>[From Bill Powers (990504.0845 MDT)]
>
>I find this whole coercion argument pretty baffling. If A can make B do
>anything that A wants, what difference in the outcome is produced by what B
>wants? B, inside, may feel either controlled or uncontrolled, but what does
>A care about that? And what difference does it make in any visible outcome?

I agree that it's pretty baffling. But what is baffling to me is that
I cannot see  as coercion the application of direct force to, say, grab
a child out of the street, and I don't understand why you have been
calling it coercion. It is manipulation, domination, perhaps, but
hardly coercion. And it is of no more interest to PCT (as theory) than
is the manipulation of a rock to control the perception of its location.
Any PCT interest comes in how the manipulation of the victim affects
the victim's reorganization--and in your question above, it is _precisely_
whether B feels controlled or uncontrolled that is the _only_ interesting
element in the whole situation.

Coercion, to me, involves the ACTIONS of the coercee being what the
coercer wants. It does not involve the STATE of the coercee being
what the coercer wants. I do agree, though, that the coercer need
have no concern with whether the coercee is controlling the variable
that is the object of the coercion (e.g. whether the child wants to read
Chaucer, or to sit up straight). But the coercer _does_ need to be
concerned with finding some variable that the coercee wants to control.

To coerce someone, you must have overwhelming force at your disposal over
some external variable whose perception you believe them to want to control.
That force need not be large, but it must be overwhelming. If she says
"Do that or I won't smile at you" and you want to perceive her smiling,
she has at her disposal overwhelming force, because you have no mechanism
to generate her smile that is as strong as her muscles, until you kill
her and arrange the shape of her mouth. Her overwhelming force is applied
not to you, but to an environmental variable that you perceive and for
which you have a reference value that she thinks she knows.

I do not think that even if you could use your hands to manipulate her
mouth into a smile, you would satisfy your reference for perceiving her
to smile, because the physical smile is not actually the perception you
are controlling. You are controlling for her production of the smile,
which your application of muscular force to her face will not accomplish.
So, she has overwhelming force and can coerce you into "doing that" by
threatening to not produce a smile voluntarily unless you do.

Overwhelming force can be applied to a physical object even by the
weaker party. Wheelchair-bound Joe might coerce strongman Bill by saying
that he would break Bill's most precious Ming vase if Bill refused to
open the window. Bill might not open the window--and might toss Joe out
of the wheelchair, but Joe might still be able to break the vase (or
get some other visitor to Bill's house to do it), so the threat, and the
coercion are credible. Joe, the weaker, can apply overwhelming force,
because once the vase is broken, Bill cannot control for seeing it whole
(antique Humpty-Dumpty's cannot be unscrambled).

Coercion needs overwhelming force, but it does not imply a contest of
strength in a mano-a-mano conflict. It requires the coercer to discover
a variable whose perception is controlled by the coercee, but over which
the coercer has the greater influence.

I think it not a good idea to use the term "coercion" to apply to all
interactions between people, even though it is true that all interactions
involve each party controlling perceptions of some state within the
other(s). We already have a term "interaction." Why use another, especially
one with a pejorative connotation? "Cooperation" occurs in interactions
among people, and it involves the control be each of perceptions of the
actions of the other(s). It sounds really funny to be required to say
that "cooperation" is one kind of "coercion," because each is controlling
a perception of the other--that they act as if they are happy with their
joint endeavours. It makes a difference to both Bill and Joe whether Bill
opens the window because Joe might otherwise break the Ming vase or
because Bill has a  reference to see his ailing father Joe appear
comfortable.

Martin