Manipulators and incoherence. Part 1

Manipulators and incoherence: or how to find back your reason when you do lose it with their sudden changes in behavior.

One of the reasons why people do find it hard to recognize manipulators (even the worst cases) resides in their incoherence, one of their typical features. I start with some rather outstanding examples to make myself be understood. Regularly, when a killer is discovered in the neighborhood, perhaps with 30 skeletons in his cellar, the neighbors appear astonished at the microphones of the journalist on duty, with expressions like: "But how? He was so nice! I greeted him on the landing, he helped me with the shopping bags and even the old ladies at the crosswalk. " Statements like these are so trivial, that, at times, I get annoyed, but especially with the journalist who is wasting his time in this way. The Green River killer, one of the most ruthless US serial killers, charged with at least fifty victims (if not seventy: I remember that the prosecutor who had to charge him, refused to seek the death penalty, because policemen were still looking for the bodies), was regularly married, even affectionate with his wife (who never noticed anything) and very pious; he was proselytizing door-to-door with a lot of Bibles. I remember another one who was a clown in a hospital to entertain ill children!

When in 2004 the movie Der Untergang (Downfall) came out about the last days of Hitler in the Berlin bunker and with an amazing Bruno Ganz in the lead role, criticism arose because the film showed the dictator behaving kindly with his secretary. It was true: the film was based on the memories of the secretary on issue, Frau Traudl Junge; and then, even Hitler could be courteous. The point is that people, in general, use very little discernment to assess others, so they expect that someone evil or dangerous is constantly such, monster from morning to night. But this is absurd. We must instead learn to recognize inappropriate behavior by specific signs, although manipulators can disguise themselves in daily life and among hoards of positive details. Do not worry, no one is inexorably condemned to repeat the experience of the wife of the Green River killer: there are ways to learn how to recognize a pathological personality, and how, long before we face him / her (!). I'm sure that, on a closer look, Gary Ridgway (the killer above) would reveal quite a bunch of flaws.
The inconsistency is therefore one of the main characteristics of a manipulator (even of more "common" ones). They can behave well, if not virtuously, but not permanently. So watch out for the surfacing of oddities and signs that should put you on alert, even sporadically. For example: do not minimize an aggression with bad words: it is not a good sign, although it happens infrequently. Next, there comes violence, psychological and physical violence. As claimed by Dr. Nazare-Aga (I point out here the features listed by her and which are relevant to this part according to their number), a manipulator:
5) Changes his /her opinions, behavior, according to people or situations.15) Changes the subject abruptly during the conversation.25) His / her speech seems logical and consistent, when his / her thoughts and acts, or way of life do not match.
I have gathered all of these under the hat "inconsistency". This is an inconsistency that occurs at various levels:

• Chronological: M. is now the opposite of what he /she did yesterday or the day before yesterday, without any logic. Okay, everyone of us can change opinion or attitude, but usually in a rational, reasoned way: not out of the blue, for no reason. Indeed it often seems that M. is not aware of the change!
• Situational: = 5. M can behave in opposite ways with people who belong to the same category (eg., as we shall see, parents manipulators make serious differences between their own children) or in similar situations.
• Cognitive: I call so the kind of inconsistency set forth in the characteristic 15. Actually, if manipulators change their subject abruptly during the conversation, that can refer to two different causes: it may be a lack of respect and listening to their interlocutor (very frequent) but it may also be, when it has not directly to do with the other party, a kind of "cognitive" discrepancy. In a nutshell: manipulators, expressing their thoughts, seem changing their minds so capriciously, as if they did not care of the consistency of their mentality. Today they believe white, tomorrow black, over - tomorrow white again, then they go to the striped red and even to violet polka dots. Something to get crazy.
• Ethical: it is the characteristic 25. If there's many a slip twixt cup and lip, this saying has never been so true as concerning to manipulators. They claim principles and good behavior that they do not follow (with remarkable effect of hypocrisy). They say, but they do not, they boast of virtues that they have not or do not practice (at least not consistently), deceive their entourage with high-sounding statements that are pure smoke. This is perhaps the most tragic characteristic, one that creates a facade of deceit and lies: and behind that facade, victims remain hidden from the public eye. So that they ignore the skeletons in the cellar of M.

                                                              Emperor Tiberius

The causes of such behavior? I can only advance hypotheses, inspired by my experience (as always I recall that I am not a psychologist!). My impression is that manipulators act so because they are psicho - rigid, that  is, they think grossly, black and white, without shades: and life is full of nuances .... So, instead of adapting themselves realistically to the context, adopting the right shade, they even change their color, like chameleons. However, I have also another suspect. The person trying to bring back M. on his / her feet and to remind him / her that yesterday he / she said white and black today, regularly receives a tirade: "Not true! You're lying! I've always said black!" (Of course, the poor listener, at this point, believes he / she is seeing things).

Obviously, manipulators are also great liars and adjust their behavior to the situation, just like a chameleon: they adapt themselves without any ethical principle and consistency to exploit others. So they can lie shamelessly and deny their "values" (at least those expressed) with the most brazen impudence. But, sometimes, I wonder if they are really aware of the change. Here I skip the discussion about the degree of awareness of manipulators, which requires another blog page: however, there is frequently the case of manipulators who do not realize the way they behave. This does not make them less dangerous: but I have the impression that they have a narrowing consciousness that disconnects them from their previous behavior. That is, their awareness covers today, but not yesterday nor the day before yesterday. They have a limited awarenesss: in this case, they would behave like puppets, which change their position depending on the angle of their wires. The breadth of conscience is a fundamental fact in the development of a person: I hope to be able to treat it one day.

                                                           Agrippine the Elder

Before leaving (practical examples of the assertions above require another post), my personal memories. In November 2006 I went to the University of Vilnius, as a PhD student, to attend a convention. The subject of my lecture was the psychiatric diagnosis of Emperor Tiberius, based on historical sources available (not only historians Tacitus, Suetonius and Velleius Paterculus, but also inscriptions and the like). I came out with a large study (which was only a third of the material I produced in total: someone advised me to prepare a biography of the Emperor Tiberius, and maybe one day I will write it, but I need time!) in French, then published in Vilnius in the Lithuanian translation. Well, I summarize here my result, because I do not expect you'll go to read it in Lithuanian (! Nor I would either): in substance, Tiberius was a paranoid personality, but I managed to finish my "diagnosis "(in quotes because I'm not a psychiatrist!) just following the lines of the behavior of manipulators, because they are all paranoid (but not all manipulators are paranoid, indeed!). The feature that struck me the most, however, was the fact that historians, both ancient and modern ones, failed to give an unanimous judgment about him; in essence, the big question is: Tiberius, the successor of Augustus, was good or bad? He was a good administrator, a great general, a political conservative; yet, he spread terror with trials for high treason, exterminated his family, he often behaved cruelly. Some professors who listened to my lecture felt that this inconsistency was due to the conscious use of political manipulation, but I think instead (which thrilled historians for centuries) he had a real behavioral pathology, marked by a bad inconsistency. It still consoles me that a French professor called my portrait "alive". In part, I was inspired by real events ... Back then I had an employer (I'm not saying who) that looked a lot  (even physically!) like old Tiberius; and when my professor, an elderly Belgian gentleman, worriedly asked me how I was, because I was not well in that working place, I replied: "We are more or less at the point of Tiberius and Agrippine the Elder...".

PS. Well, it may be my sense of identification with the main victim of Tiberius, but, if you look at her portraits and eliminate the idealized side, Agrippine the Elder really looks a little like me...

Bibliography

I.Nazare-Aga, Les manipulateurs sont parmi nous, Montréal, Ed. de l'Homme, 1997 = L'arte di non lasciarsi manipolare, Milano, Ed.Paoline, 2000.

Annarita Magri, Moralinis priekabiavimas ir Imperija? Nauji budai Tiberijaus asmenybei ir santykiui su valdžia suprasti, in Saeculo primo: Romos imperijos pasaulis peržengus "Naujosios eros" slenkstį[mokslinių straipsnių rinkinys] / sudarė ir parengė Darius Alekna. - Vilnius : Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 2008 (Kaunas : Aušra), pp. 25-93.