🚀 go-pugleaf

[From Rick Marken (990506.1500)]

Me:

>Coercion (to me) is control of the behavior of one person by
>another. If you think that, by this definition, all interactions
>between people are coercive then there we jolly well are, aren't
>we;-)

Martin Taylor (990506 13:35) --

> Think about it a bit deeper than as a slogan, please.

I'll try. Though I was thinking about "control of behavior" as
a model (with some aspect of another person's behavior as the
controlled variable), not as a slogan.

> 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.

I don't agree with this drift.

> Can you think of an interaction that does not conform to
> this paradigm

Sure. In fact, it's more difficult to think of interactions
where control of behavior is involved. Here are some non-
controlling interactions I've had recently:

I say "good morning" to people.
I have lunch with people.
I talk with people.
I watch TV with my family.
I work with people to produce some product.
I hug my kids.
.

In all these cases I am interacting with people; in none do
I do it in order to get a particular perception of some aspect
of their behavior.

If you suspect that I _am_ doing interacting with these people
in order to control some aspect of their behavior you would have
to demonstrate that I am using the test. But I am pretty sure
that I am not controlling any aspect of people's behavior when
I do these things. For example, if a colleague doesn't reply to
my cheerful "good morning", I don't grab him by the collar and
demand that he acknowledge my greeting. If people leave
the table at lunch I don't drag them back. If people don't
talk to me I don't point a gun at their head and say "talk".
When I watch TV with my family I don't pounce on anyone who
isn't facing the tube or who leaves the room. And so on. In
fact, the only coercive interactions I can remember having have
involved controlling the behavior of my (or someone else's) kids
(when they were much younger) on those few occasions when I
thought they would get hurt or hurt others if the behavior
went unchecked.

Best

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