Alleged and Real Control Freaks
I have been accused of being a control freak a few times in my life. Maybe what I am writing in this blog may also give a wrong impression. I am a rationality freak, but not a control freak.
A control freak is a person, whose high level of anxiety, fear, paranoia, insecurity drives him to get alleviation and reduction of these feelings by establishing control over his environment and all people in it.
A control freak can appear to be a nice person, when he either really is in control or believes to be in control, because people of goodwill do him favors or just happen to accidentially do, what he wants. A control freak becomes a nasty jerk, as soon as he feels out of control and attempts to reestablish it, ruthlessly oblivious or unconcerned of what harm he does to his victims.
I fear wild animals like bears, I fear male animals using physical force to abuse of my body. I feel fear, when I stand inside a house during an earthquake, and I would certainly feel fear of any real threat to my life. Nothing of this gives me any reason to want to control people. I am lacking the kind of anxiety to be a control freak.
I have been accused of being a control freak a few times in my life. Maybe what I am writing in this blog may also give a wrong impression. I am a rationality freak, but not a control freak.
A control freak is a person, whose high level of anxiety, fear, paranoia, insecurity drives him to get alleviation and reduction of these feelings by establishing control over his environment and all people in it.
A control freak can appear to be a nice person, when he either really is in control or believes to be in control, because people of goodwill do him favors or just happen to accidentially do, what he wants. A control freak becomes a nasty jerk, as soon as he feels out of control and attempts to reestablish it, ruthlessly oblivious or unconcerned of what harm he does to his victims.
I fear wild animals like bears, I fear male animals using physical force to abuse of my body. I feel fear, when I stand inside a house during an earthquake, and I would certainly feel fear of any real threat to my life. Nothing of this gives me any reason to want to control people. I am lacking the kind of anxiety to be a control freak.
Rationality is in the core of my identity. I want to live in an environment controlled by rationality. But I do not want to fight for rationality, I wish it to just be there without me making any efforts.
I can be nice and tolerant to anybody, whose brain is wired differently, who is religious, gullible and who believes in any nonsense, no matter if god or homeopathy. I am polite and I hide my true opinion, but I have compassion for their bad luck of having this dysfunction and delusion wired in their brains. But they have to be kept at a distance. These kind of people just do not qualify to be my intellectual equals in a relationship. It is not possible that I can respect someone like this enough to get involved with.
It is obvious, that a relationship is doomed, when one partner considers the other as stupid and with a dysfunctional brain. Therefore a rational person like me can only have a relationship with a truly rational partner.
As a consequence, I may feel very strong about some topics, not to control someone's thinking, but to find an agreement based upon shared rationality. I do not like the word control, so I want a relationship guided and determined by rationality and logic.
Also I am very eager to comprehend people's good rational reason for what they do. If someone's behavior is incomprehensible, I feel uncomfortable, because this gives me the suspicion that he could be a believer and a gullible person, whom I cannot respect, and I feel an urge to restore respect by comprehending his rational reasons. Therefore I have no wish to be right, I am just as content to be convinced, that I am wrong, as long as I can respect the reasons of the other as rational
To illustrate the difference between my importance of rationality and a control freak, the following is a hypothetical scenario. It is immediately comprehensible to everybody, whose rational brain enables him to know, that NLP is pseudoscience and a cult.
In this scenario, I get in contact with someone, who claims to be an atheist and a skeptic. Before I really know him well, he tells me, that he just has read his first book about NLP and that he has booked a course to learn more. When I hear something like this, a flash of disappointment goes immediately through me, and my respect for that man is temporarily damaged, while I wonder, what is wrong with his brain.
There are four different possible continuations.
1. I explain, that NLP is pseudoscience, I give him the link to some skeptical articles and I let his rationality do the rest. He will find out the obvious for himself, which he would find out sooner or later anyhow. I do not control his thinking, I just give him a hint to avoid a detour to the obvious.
2. All my explanations about NLP being pseudoscience bounce off him with no effect, as if he were deaf. He really is a control freak, who grasps at NLP with some urgency, because NLP promises simple tricks how to manipulate people to gain power. He believes to have found a method of control, that he perceives as too important for his survival in a hostile fear invoking world to allow himself to be deprived of by allowing reasonable doubts.
It is obvious, that a relationship is doomed, when one partner considers the other as stupid and with a dysfunctional brain. Therefore a rational person like me can only have a relationship with a truly rational partner.
As a consequence, I may feel very strong about some topics, not to control someone's thinking, but to find an agreement based upon shared rationality. I do not like the word control, so I want a relationship guided and determined by rationality and logic.
Also I am very eager to comprehend people's good rational reason for what they do. If someone's behavior is incomprehensible, I feel uncomfortable, because this gives me the suspicion that he could be a believer and a gullible person, whom I cannot respect, and I feel an urge to restore respect by comprehending his rational reasons. Therefore I have no wish to be right, I am just as content to be convinced, that I am wrong, as long as I can respect the reasons of the other as rational
To illustrate the difference between my importance of rationality and a control freak, the following is a hypothetical scenario. It is immediately comprehensible to everybody, whose rational brain enables him to know, that NLP is pseudoscience and a cult.
In this scenario, I get in contact with someone, who claims to be an atheist and a skeptic. Before I really know him well, he tells me, that he just has read his first book about NLP and that he has booked a course to learn more. When I hear something like this, a flash of disappointment goes immediately through me, and my respect for that man is temporarily damaged, while I wonder, what is wrong with his brain.
There are four different possible continuations.
1. I explain, that NLP is pseudoscience, I give him the link to some skeptical articles and I let his rationality do the rest. He will find out the obvious for himself, which he would find out sooner or later anyhow. I do not control his thinking, I just give him a hint to avoid a detour to the obvious.
2. All my explanations about NLP being pseudoscience bounce off him with no effect, as if he were deaf. He really is a control freak, who grasps at NLP with some urgency, because NLP promises simple tricks how to manipulate people to gain power. He believes to have found a method of control, that he perceives as too important for his survival in a hostile fear invoking world to allow himself to be deprived of by allowing reasonable doubts.
Depending on my level of interest in him, I may continue my futile compulsive efforts to point out the facts to him much longer than it would make sense. Reasoning with him is futile, because as little as NLP does, what it promises, for an anxiety driven control freak already the believe to have found a method to gain control helps him to reduce his anxiety. So from then on, my respect is damaged and thus is my interest for this man.
For him, I appear as If I were a control freak attempting to control his thoughts. For him, agreement or not is of no importance, he wants to gain power by his learning NLP tricks. He would allow me to disagree with NLP as much as I do, he concedes me tolerance, because what I think it not important, only gaining control over me is.
3. I know that it is never good to jump to conclusions. As soon as I mention, that NLP is pseudoscience, he agrees immediately and explains, that he does not believe in it at all, but that he wants to have some first hand experience about the kind of gullible people, who attend such a course. He may be writing an article about why quackery attracts people. So something only appears weird, until I get a rationally convincing explanation.
To sum it up: My mindmate is someone, who really is rational, an atheist and a skeptic down to the bone. Only in this case mutual respect, appreciation and valuation can be maintained.
For him, I appear as If I were a control freak attempting to control his thoughts. For him, agreement or not is of no importance, he wants to gain power by his learning NLP tricks. He would allow me to disagree with NLP as much as I do, he concedes me tolerance, because what I think it not important, only gaining control over me is.
3. I know that it is never good to jump to conclusions. As soon as I mention, that NLP is pseudoscience, he agrees immediately and explains, that he does not believe in it at all, but that he wants to have some first hand experience about the kind of gullible people, who attend such a course. He may be writing an article about why quackery attracts people. So something only appears weird, until I get a rationally convincing explanation.
To sum it up: My mindmate is someone, who really is rational, an atheist and a skeptic down to the bone. Only in this case mutual respect, appreciation and valuation can be maintained.
