Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1992, Page 49
Cultural Implications
Because it implies variety and the freedom to choose, pluralism inevitably results in
competitive marketplaces --whether of goods, services, or ideas. Although free compared
to the social structures of an authoritarian or totalistic society, such marketplaces are not
absolutely unrestrained. Legal and, more importantly, unwritten ethical rules of influence
undergird the marketplaces and ensure that no individual or group so dominates that
freedom is lost. The legal rules are essentially codified guides for dealing with more serious
wrongs. Ethical rules restrain wrongs that are not damaging enough to warrant the
freedom-limiting intrusion of legal rules.
Understanding these kinds of influences and the legal and ethical rules which govern them
is a demanding task. The less successfully citizens of a free and pluralistic society master
this task, the more vulnerable will they be to unscrupulous and skillful influencers who seek
to control and exploit them.
Social psychologists have shown that we are unaware of many of the influences that affect
how we think, feel, and act. In his book Influence, Cialdini (1984) analyzes what he calls the
“click-whirr” nature of a kind of automatic, mindless compliance that causes us to say “yes”
without thinking, but that also helps us adapt to a complex environment.
The blitz of modern daily life demands that we have faithful shortcuts, sound rules of
thumb to handle it all. These are not luxuries any longer they are out-and-out
necessities that figure to become increasingly vital as the pulse of daily life quickens.
(Cialdini, 1984, p. 267)
Because these information-processing shortcuts are necessities, our freedom depends more
than ever upon society‟s demanding strict adherence to rules of fair play. We simply must
be inclined to trust others not to exploit us. Caveat Emptor will not suffice. In a rule-
flouting, high-rev world, no individual can be so knowledgeable, so alert, so vigilant that he
can go through life without “having his pocket picked” --not once or twice, but countless
times.
To keep our freedom, we must understand how the psychological “pickpockets” operate.
Only through such understanding can we protect ourselves in our day-to-day lives and
establish appropriate ethical and legal restraints on their behavior. Focusing only on legal
restraints, which has been the modern tendency, can place a crushing burden on the judicial
and law enforcement systems. Furthermore, such a reliance on law can indirectly encourage
the very behavior the system is trying to restrain. Because the population at large fails to
imbibe the rules of fair play that keep most people well clear of the legal-illegal boundary,
the population is implicitly encouraged to test that boundary. The society then becomes
increasingly legalistic, resulting in either an enlargement of the zone of permissible behavior
or the range of behaviors which the law controls. In other words, when the law and ethics
are coterminous, ethics deteriorates or the law becomes tyranical --or both occur in
different areas of society.
The study of psychological abuse can contribute a great deal to the elaboration of the rules
of fair play because it exposes the rule breakers, the psychological “pickpockets.”
Moreover, through understanding psychological abuse we also come to understand its
opposite --respect. Respect is foundational to civilized society. All rules of fair play rest on
respect for other people.
More than a decade ago, many people decried “the new narcissism.” During the past few
years much has been written and said about the “me-decade” of the 1980s. Surveys of
youth often produce troubling findings, such as one survey of seventh- to ninth-graders that
found that 65% of the boys and 47% of the girls said it is acceptable for a man to force a
woman to have sex if they have been dating for more than six months (Kikuchi, 1988, cited
Cultural Implications
Because it implies variety and the freedom to choose, pluralism inevitably results in
competitive marketplaces --whether of goods, services, or ideas. Although free compared
to the social structures of an authoritarian or totalistic society, such marketplaces are not
absolutely unrestrained. Legal and, more importantly, unwritten ethical rules of influence
undergird the marketplaces and ensure that no individual or group so dominates that
freedom is lost. The legal rules are essentially codified guides for dealing with more serious
wrongs. Ethical rules restrain wrongs that are not damaging enough to warrant the
freedom-limiting intrusion of legal rules.
Understanding these kinds of influences and the legal and ethical rules which govern them
is a demanding task. The less successfully citizens of a free and pluralistic society master
this task, the more vulnerable will they be to unscrupulous and skillful influencers who seek
to control and exploit them.
Social psychologists have shown that we are unaware of many of the influences that affect
how we think, feel, and act. In his book Influence, Cialdini (1984) analyzes what he calls the
“click-whirr” nature of a kind of automatic, mindless compliance that causes us to say “yes”
without thinking, but that also helps us adapt to a complex environment.
The blitz of modern daily life demands that we have faithful shortcuts, sound rules of
thumb to handle it all. These are not luxuries any longer they are out-and-out
necessities that figure to become increasingly vital as the pulse of daily life quickens.
(Cialdini, 1984, p. 267)
Because these information-processing shortcuts are necessities, our freedom depends more
than ever upon society‟s demanding strict adherence to rules of fair play. We simply must
be inclined to trust others not to exploit us. Caveat Emptor will not suffice. In a rule-
flouting, high-rev world, no individual can be so knowledgeable, so alert, so vigilant that he
can go through life without “having his pocket picked” --not once or twice, but countless
times.
To keep our freedom, we must understand how the psychological “pickpockets” operate.
Only through such understanding can we protect ourselves in our day-to-day lives and
establish appropriate ethical and legal restraints on their behavior. Focusing only on legal
restraints, which has been the modern tendency, can place a crushing burden on the judicial
and law enforcement systems. Furthermore, such a reliance on law can indirectly encourage
the very behavior the system is trying to restrain. Because the population at large fails to
imbibe the rules of fair play that keep most people well clear of the legal-illegal boundary,
the population is implicitly encouraged to test that boundary. The society then becomes
increasingly legalistic, resulting in either an enlargement of the zone of permissible behavior
or the range of behaviors which the law controls. In other words, when the law and ethics
are coterminous, ethics deteriorates or the law becomes tyranical --or both occur in
different areas of society.
The study of psychological abuse can contribute a great deal to the elaboration of the rules
of fair play because it exposes the rule breakers, the psychological “pickpockets.”
Moreover, through understanding psychological abuse we also come to understand its
opposite --respect. Respect is foundational to civilized society. All rules of fair play rest on
respect for other people.
More than a decade ago, many people decried “the new narcissism.” During the past few
years much has been written and said about the “me-decade” of the 1980s. Surveys of
youth often produce troubling findings, such as one survey of seventh- to ninth-graders that
found that 65% of the boys and 47% of the girls said it is acceptable for a man to force a
woman to have sex if they have been dating for more than six months (Kikuchi, 1988, cited
