🚀 go-pugleaf

[From Kenny Kitzke (990505.2045 EDT)]

<Bill Powers (990504.0845 MDT)>

<I find this whole coercion argument pretty baffling.>

That goes for me as well.  8-)

<If A can make B do anything that A wants, what difference in the outcome is
produced by what B wants?>

If A can, but does not, would you call it coercion?  I was burning yard
trimmings today in an open fire.  There is a zoning law and a law enforcement
person in the Township against such burning who can make me stop (coerce me).
 Obviously, he did not from my dual definition.  I did what I wanted.

<B, inside, may feel either controlled or uncontrolled, but what does
A care about that?>

A does not have to care about that, but A does have to care whether B
perceive A's coercive power.  If the zoning officer rides by, sees me
burning, stops his car, and sees me put out the fire, he may conclude I was
coerced.  But, what if I did not see his car stop and just decided I wanted
to go in for lunch and did not want to leave the fire unattended.  Do we want
to define that as coercion of B's behavior in PCT terminology?  I say no.  It
would make PCT not only look like a weird science to others, they would think
we are lunatics with a crazy set of defined terms.

Isn't Bruce Nevin, the language expert?  Can't we listen to him to gain
counsel?  As I recall he disagreed with calling the above type example
coercion.

<And what difference does it make in any visible outcome?>

I would like to propose that we agree that a third party observer can't tell
for sure if coercion is taking place.  We could take an educated guess when
we see the cookie jar broken on the floor and Freddie is getting a paddling
from dad, coercion is taking place.  But, to know for sure, the coercer A
would have to say, 1) if B has not done as I want, I'll force B against
his/her will to do what I want AND coercee B would have to say, 2) because of
the threat of force of A, I did what A wanted even though I wanted to do
something else.  Positive answers here would confirm a coercive interaction
between A and B and it would not matter whether an observer thought what they
observed was or was not coercion.

<Perhaps the answer to Isaac's oft-repeated slogan (you need two people to
have a relationship) is that forcing another person to act by using
overwhelming physical force is not a relationship between two people. It's
a relationship between one person and a thing. When you're controlling a
thing, you simply increase the force you're using until the thing does what
you want. Some things are easier to force than others, but if you can
muster enough resources, you can control most of them.>

This would be double insanity to me.  Then, the PCT description for me
picking up my pencil is that I am coercing it.  What I thought that would be
described as in PCT science is I was acting to control my perception of where
the pencil should be: in my hand instead of on my desk.

Getting frustrated by all the coercion over coercion.  8=)

Kenny