🚀 go-pugleaf

[From Bill Powers (990506.1355 MDT)]

Martin Taylor 990506 13:35 --

> If there are almost
>(perhaps exactly) no interactions that do not involve the control of the
>behaviour of one person by another, then all (or almost all) interactions
>must be coercive, mustn't they? At least by this definition they are.>

>Here's the drift: If I interact with you in any way, it is because I wish
>to see some aspect of your behaviour differ from what it would have been
>had I not interacted with you. If "I wish to see" something, in PCT that
>means I have a reference for obtaining a particular value of a perception.
>If I act on that wish, I am controlling that perception. In the case of
>my interaction with you, the perception I am controlling is of some aspect
>of your behaviour.

Is it really true that if I interact with you, I have a goal for your
behavior and am acting so as to correct deviations of it from my goal?
Sometimes this is true, of course, but is it always, or even often, true?

I think you're leaving out an essential ingredient of coercion (besides the
paprika). Even if I do want to control some aspect of your behavior, do I
always have the resources to overcome your resistance to change, and am I
always willing to carry my actions to the point of physical violence to get
my way? I don't think so. Yet without the real or threatened use of
overwhelming physical force, there can be no coercion. Conflict, yes;
coercion, no.

Best,

Bill P.