Written by Dr Constantine Mantis, Lecturer in Psychology, Centre for Applied Psychological Science, Health and Wellbeing theme.
“The greatest tragedy is not the brutality of evil people, but rather the silence of the good people” Martin Luther King
Persuasion is a concept that appears constantly in our lives. Either we try to persuade others, or others try to persuade us for various reasons. Being able to persuade others means that you can control them, and if you can control them, you can get more and more power in your hands and achieve your goals. It is inevitable for everyone to be exposed to various maneuvers that others use to manipulate them, and therefore, we should be able to resist to such tactics and determine our lives rather than ending up becoming puppets in the hands of others. The purpose of this report is to highlight a strategy, rationalization, that people use to influence others without feeling guilty about anything.
Rationalization is a defense mechanism that was mentioned by Freud in his psychoanalytic theory and refers to developing reasonable explanations to avoid guilt that results from engaging in behaviors triggered by unacceptable motives (Fall et al., 2017). Although the behavior of most people revolves around this mechanism, it is surprising that it is not mentioned so often; it is like rationalization is a collective safeguarding mechanism that works for most people who look for excuses to hide their wrongdoings instead of assuming responsibility of their actions.
Using rationalization to justify maladaptive practices can have detrimental consequences, though, when, it is used by politicians to persuade people that wars are a necessity. To explore the effectiveness of rationalization in the hands of politicians, I did some research on this topic (Mantis, 2007). Specifically, during the war in Iraq (2003-2011), I was in the US and thought I had a unique opportunity to explore the mindset of citizens whose government initiated such a war. The aim of the study was to explore the persuasive effect of arguments that politicians can use to present war either as unacceptable under any circumstances, or as justified in the name of self-defense, by using fear- or sadness-eliciting images and music to enhance the persuasive effect of messages.
Although only around 10% of participants disagreed that war is a foolish idea, unfavorable, wrong, bad, and negative (11.34%, 10.31%, 9.28%, 9.28%, and 12.37%, respectively), it was interesting that 32.99% of them disagreed that war is unacceptable, while 30.93% of them thought that war is acceptable. This indicates that with proper persuasive tactics, politicians can justify the wars that they conduct. The great power of rationalization was nicely illustrated through some quotes that came from the individuals who participated in my project, which illustrate what was going through their mind while they were exposed to messages for and against the war in Iraq. For instance, based on the results of my study (Mantis, 2007), a thought such as “Supposedly innocent kids killings soldiers” shows that thanks to rationalization, you can kill as many kids as you want to, and as long as you perceive them as potential future enemies, you can have your conscience clean. Or, a thought such as “They killed more of our innocent people than we did theirs” adds a quantitative aspect to morality, meaning that if you do less bad things than others, then, you are justified and you can keep doing such things at least until you match up with your opponents. Other supportive quotes that relate to rationalization include: “To do nothing only makes the infection worst”, “Revenge is good sometimes when you kill people that actually did something to you”, “When evil people raise children to be evil, innocence is all lost”, “Defending yourself even attacking people who know nothing but hate is justified”, and “Fighting to support your country isn’t revenge”.
Citizens do definitely know what is right or wrong and there is no doubt about it. They still CHOOSE, though, to remain silent rationalizing that it is not them who make decisions about wars, and they CHOOSE to prioritise their own personal peace and interests leading to a society that gets surviving upon the ones who CHOOSE to support the evil through their silence. As long as, though, the citizens of the countries keep rationalizing their silence and inactivity, then, this chameleon-like Hydra (i.e., Lernaean Hydra was a Greek mythical creature) will keep having several heads (e.g., Hitler, Stalin, Putin) across the years. This was nicely illustrated in “Die Hydra der Diktator” in Jorge Luis Borges’s “Viejo Habito Argentino” (1946), which depicts Rosas, Peron, Mussolini, Hitler, and Marx.
Of course, there will always be some quasi revolutionaries, dreamers, or drifters-if you prefer-who will claim that they disagree with wars and they are ready to fight for peace. O’Brien (see “1984” of George Orwell [2013]) will still find the way, however, to make them accept the wars and fight for wars. Specifically, George Orwell (2013) talked about a reintegration process that consists of three phases: learning, understanding, and acceptance. This process is used to brainwash Winston (i.e., the citizens) and persuade them that there is no reason to resist against him because they have no chance to beat him. They have to learn how much powerful O’Brien is, they have to understand why things happen in the way they do, and finally they are expected to betray “Julia” (i.e., what they love most) and serve O’Brien (i.e., the status quo), even through their silence and inactivity. For O’Brien, it is not enough, though, to be a pawn in their hands; you have to be a happy pawn. And happy pawns do citizens become. Such brainwashing is indicated in the following quotes: “I remembered seeing things like that when I was over there that their own people had done to them and we treated them, fed them, and clothed them”, “It’s suicide to not try to prevent terrorism”, “If we did not go to war, what would we have done” Say ‘Thank You?’”, “Is this what I fought for, people who don’t care or are ungrateful?”, “How could people not know/agree with what we’re fighting for”, and “I wish to see these people in Iraq when I go back, and we’ll see if they agree then” (Mantis, 2007).
By CHOOSING to go against O’Brien, however, you will end up feeling-as Dr Grigory Rodchenkov mentioned in the 2017 documentary “Icarus” – that “My freedom is my slavery”. That’s still a CHOICE, anyway, a meaningful one; and according to Viktor Frankl (2006), the choices that we make determine the meaningfulness in our lives. Death might be inevitable for everyone, for instance, but the attitude you take towards this unavoidable suffering is a matter of CHOICE. You can either die fearful or brave. Which stance you CHOOSE is up to YOU.
In individual counseling, they say that although we cannot change others, we can change the clients. Similarly, at a societal level, the citizens are the ones who need counseling. We cannot change the politicians, but we can certainly change the citizens. Considering that most people’s behaviour revolves around rationalization, we need to explore how we can help them resist to using this defense mechanism that renders them invisible accomplices to crimes against humanity, while at the same time, by empowering citizens, we will be closer to “cutting” or even better “burning” some heads of this chameleon-like Hydra, making this monster weaker and more manageable.
References
Benedict, N. C. (2019). Censorship and political allegory in Jorge Luis Borges’s ‘Viejo habito argentino’. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 96(1), 89-107.
Fall, K. A., Holden, J. M., & Marquis, A. (2017). Theoretical models of counseling and psychotherapy (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Frankl, V. (2006). Man’s search for meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.
Mantis, K. (2007). Images and music as means of enhancing the persuasive effect of message-elicited affect. Master Thesis.
Orwell, G. (2013). Nineteen Eighty-Four. Penguin Classics.