The Joy of Manipulation

I just got back home from seeing "Our Brand is Crisis". What I read online tells me the reviews haven't been too kind to the movie, but I loved it. Or more exactly, I loved watching Sandra Bullock's character. I'm not quite sure I noticed the rest of the movie.

As it started up, I knew what the story arc more or less had to look like. We were introduced to Jane Bodine in retirement ... she's not going to do political campaign consulting any more. People come to ask her, Can't you help on this one campaign, please? No, no, no. Of course she ends up doing it. Then when she first arrives in Bolivia (where the job is) she gets sick. And for several scenes in a row all we see is weakness: she can't take the altitude, she's throwing up at random moments, she nearly passes out, she sits like a dull bump on a log during campaign strategy sessions. I knew -- everybody watching the movie must have known -- that this is how the story would have to start out. That it would go like this almost until nobody could stand it any more, and then something would call her into action. That she would start directing the campaign -- doing everything totally differently from how it had been done hitherto -- and the candidate would start winning. It's a movie, after all. That's how the story has to go.

Why did I love watching it? Why does everybody love that particular story arc so well that I knew this movie had to go like that? I think it is because we love to watch strength in action. We love to watch strength winning. But it's no fun to watch Godzilla fighting Bambi: that kind of winning is so preordained that it's a little sickening ... or, worse, boring. No, what's fun is to watch the character that you know is stronger -- the one you know is going to win -- start out weak, beaten, bloodied and broken. And then pull it together, start firing on all cylinders, and pull ahead. That's how the story arc has to look for audiences to love it, and I admit I'm one of them. As I say, I loved to watch Sandra Bullock throughout this movie, as she started out weak and beaten and bloodied on so many different fronts ... and then began, bit by bit, to pull it together. Even as we see her fall apart in other dimensions of her life (how many years had she gone without smoking before starting this campaign?), it is exciting to see her start to drive the campaign. Even though the candidate she is supporting is a complete asshole, it is impossible not to root for her.

It reminded me of "Thank You For Smoking". Both movies showcase a main character who acts completely amorally, just for victory. The joy of winning is the pure joy of prevailing in combat, unsullied with any moral questions about Right prevailing over Wrong. The only thing you can applaud in the main character is strength -- victory -- because the cause she (or he) is fighting for is so wretched. And in both movies, the weapon in this war is persuasion. Golden words. Pure manipulation, soft as silk in one minute, and then hard as a mailed fist in the next. By God, it's wonderful!

When I first saw "Thank You For Smoking" I was still living with the rest of the family, and the boys were both at home. It disturbed me a little bit that I genuinely wanted to instill the right kinds of values in the boys, I dearly wanted to model those values so the boys would take them on without question ... and yet I couldn't conceal my glee at the main character's triumphs. I told them, "Now don't either of you go do this" but I still giggled and cackled as he derailed one legitimate argument after another by raising spurious objections that sounded good. It bothered me that I was reduced to saying (in effect), "This is wicked even though I so obviously enjoy it." And for some time thereafter I puzzled over how I could enjoy (so thoroughly) something I disapproved of (so unambiguously).

Of course the answer is twofold. In the first place, as I said above, it's fun to watch strength in action. In the second place, it's a weapon I love. Persuasion ... manipulation ... weaving a net of golden words ... there aren't many weapons in which I claim expertise but that's one of them. Maybe the only one. But I know I'm good at it. Not as good as Jane Bodine or Nick Naylor, but better than your average bear. So watching these movies is, for me, kind of like a boxer watching "Rocky".

Should it bother me that I enjoy being able to manipulate people with words? A skill is a skill. To be able to do good things with words implies being able to do bad things with them. As Plato has Socrates point out, a doctor who knows how to cure people from poisons will also be the most skillful poisoner just because he knows the subject so deeply. So to enjoy the ability to manipulate people with words is fundamentally no different from enjoying the ability to write fluidly. And in practice, the times it has been clearest to me that I have been engaged in pure manipulation have been when Wife was threatening to do something insane -- kill herself, for example -- and I've talked her down from it, talking and talking and talking until I could push, nudge, wheedle, and cajole her into a safer mental space. Those times, invariably, it was the right thing to do and I was always glad I was able to do it. So maybe the end justified the means.

Another amoral conclusion, to be sure. But when I remember how relieved I always was once I could get Wife to calm down from her hysteria and go to sleep, it's hard to feel guilty about it. Not that manipulation of others is a good thing, of course. Not that I want my boys to grow up to be flacks for the tobacco industry.

But I love watching that kind of skill in action, and it's a simple fact that this is partly because I love using the same skill myself in a smaller way. Oh well, nobody ever said I had to look good to myself.

They are both fun movies. Go watch them.