Why Are Blacks and Whites the Most Vulnerable to Manipulation?
The two shades of extremism
The world has grown into a chaotic multidimensional-bipolar complexity as I call it. The mid-way now is nothing but a depletion region similar to the ones observed in p-n junctions, which in this contemporary era, turns out to be more difficult to walk on than to imagine the functioning of MOSFETs (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), trust me.
One end of the spectrum spews hate for being too liberal, the other for being too conservative. One end being man-hating, while the other wanting to control women. All such polarities operate on mob mentality most of the time, unable to understand the nuances of reality while forming opinions.
“Principles are the territory. Values are maps. When we value correct principles, we have truth — a knowledge of things as they are.”
Stephen R. Covey
The Grey-Scale
I now feel the need to provide the basic idea of my article, which is as follows.
People who view the world as blacks and whites and can not understand the greyscales well are vulnerable to manipulation.
It is quite clear why that is the case.
- Polarities always have some self-motivated people trying to further their agendas.
- On becoming part of a mob, you and I have a strong tendency to lose our ability to reason amidst all the great people who agree with us.
- Lo and Behold! A few great ones among them now have the remote controller that operates us.
Generally, it gets difficult for people to shift their paradigms, i.e. to understand a better aspect of viewing things if they had once deemed some idea incorrect. To align their values with the core principles and build the character ethic as pointed out in the book, 7-Habits-of-Highly-Effective-People, one needs to ask the right questions from oneself in a very unbiased manner.
Working on personality ethics is more persuading as it takes lesser time to apparently fix the issues in your lifestyle, but the truth is, it never completely fixes the underlying faults in you, hence your weaknesses will time and again resurface. A better approach is to work on character ethic — no doubt a long and tedious process, yet it almost always gives better results in bettering our lifestyles than the quick hacks we normally see in articles.
The principled group — or the Perfect Grey
The people forming a group relate to each other quite well because they tend to share similar experiences. This creates a system of harmony among themselves but depending upon the collective interests of these people or the interests of the ones that are leading them, the group either inflicts chaos or becomes a source of light for others.
For example;
- A gang
- An NGO
This group might form anywhere on the spectrum; the far right or left or somewhere in between.
That said, having an opinion and inclining towards a specific region of the spectrum is in my view, the rightest thing to do. Why? Because there’s another parameter apart from those I’ve already mentioned. The parameter called diplomacy. If in the pursuit of being diplomatic, you end up choosing neutrality, then remember that “Neutrality at the time of crisis is a sin.”
A noble person can distinguish right from wrong without manifesting extremism. For this, he needs the ability to identify the grey scales. I call such a group of noble people, the principled group.
Simply put, have an opinion without joining the mob.
Neutrality at the time of crisis is a sin — But why?
In case of crisis, be it moral, economic, or natural, taking on a make-everyone-happy stance will have the worst impact on the people in general, especially if you’re one responsible citizen. Your position will only allow one form of extremism to blossom. Moreover, you also lose your integrity.
It is probable that your ideas somewhat coincide with this trendy group’s ideas, only that yours are a bit moderate version. You need to make your mind clear and your voice heard. The trendy group might be right for the most part, but anything in excess makes it go downhill on the graph of right vs wrong. Your neutrality just propels it downhill further.
It is also probable that your opinions are somewhat against the louder voices (or noises), but concurrently, you do not completely agree with the naysayers due to their extremity either. Here, if you stay where you are and if you choose neutrality, you are essentially telling the trendy mob, “Yeah you’re right”. This means your voice does not matter to you, let alone anyone else. Your stance is unclear.
You see it around you
Let me put forth some examples of terrible misuse of people who view the world in blacks and whites.
- Masterminds behind certain extremist groups actively look for weak-minded people. They identify the key factors that motivate each individual and play with those vulnerabilities. That is one reason many suicide bombers and criminals have heart-breaking family histories that we, people with luxuries of life, can not even imagine.
Many of these people flee their homelands due to war, witnessing horrendous crimes in their childhood. They need to hold someone accountable for things that have gone wrong in their lives. This is their motivation. That is when they group together and scale up their crimes. And if God forbid, they end up in a systematic brainwashing factory, they then contribute towards making others lose what they had.
Even if they are taught to believe that their cause is to uplift their own people, practically they’re doing the exact opposite of that. - Less knowledgeable religious sect leaders use this weakness as well. A religious sect leader making his followers hate other sects is another gleaming example. These followers have lost their ability to differentiate between having an opinion and imposing it on everyone else, most of the time.
- Manipulative relatives use it as well. In regions where mother-in-law and daughter-in-law politics is dominant, the son either gets manipulated by his wife to hate his mother or vice versa. The guy here is the reason for all mess, who then would shun his responsibilities towards either his mum or wife as a form of protest. This is exactly what extremism does, it makes you forget your responsibilities and focus solely on the errors of others.
Takeaways
- Your position on the following two parameters defines your ideals. Choose consciously and wisely.
i. Extent of Extremity
ii. Degree of Diplomacy - Anything in excess, bad or even good, is bad.
- Staying neutral is a position that might benefit you temporarily, but looking at the bigger picture, you’re actually with the mob.
