I had a great day in Brockville yesterday. I met some wonderful community people who genuinely want to make life in their region happier for the younger of us. I met teachers that still have passion and compassion for their students. I met young people who are asking the great questions and looking at their world with healthy hope and desire.
It was my pleasure to be there.
Please allow me a little ramble of thoughts stimulated by our time together.
The thing that seduces me into teaching is the flash of joy that young people exhibit from time to time when they are breaking through into new thoughts. As people, they are still in “discovery mode.” Although they have come a long way since infancy, there remain sophistications that adult living and adult responsibilities will eventually impose upon them but as yet they are free from. Until then there is an expectation that life will bring them all the things they dream. There is an acknowledgment that they don’t yet know it all - and that they want to.
They absorb information. It passes through a less refined machine that is not designed to keep them safe (as it becomes when we age) but designed to help them grow. Make no mistake they don’t just accept everything people say to them. There is nothing gullible about them. They simply have a great combination of openness and skepticism. They still use emotion in combination with intellect. Because they come to the circumstance with the expectation that they will learn, they consider before they assimilate or discard.
Hence I have always found it easy to teach the concepts of power to younger audiences. I love teaching the course at Fleming.
Adults on the other hand have well established views on power and its place in their lives. When I speak to adults I find I have to persuade rather then reveal.
It has been my experience both as a teacher of adults, and also as a learner now back in school, that we tend to receive information in a closed way. We have constructed an impenetrable wall that has doors. We will not let anything new in unless it completely fits the way they want to see the world. If so we will open the door and let it in.
There is no longer a sense of discovery or joy in our learning.
It is more like fear.
Maybe it’s just that feeling of power we know so well. We understand that new information impacts the choices we make and we have become very anxious about change and very reliant on habits. Habits in our daily lives because it is the only way to survive the day and complete everything that must be done. Habits in our relationships because they are comfortable even when they are unhappy. Habits in our thinking because to change our views hurts our self image.
When adults open themselves up to new ideas they think they have to decide right then and there if what they are being presented with is “true or false.”
If it is false it must be rejected out of hand for risk that it will pollute their world view. The filter we use to determine such veracity is one of emotion - whether or not it makes us uncomfortable. If it causes us to question too many things we hold as “true” it is simply too much work. If we have to reevaluate too many of our views, we will cling to what we already have and go about making the same mistakes and wondering why nothing changes.
On the other hand when we see something that looks like truth, we think we have to immediately find some way to embody it. We are compelled to make it real in our lives. For although we resist, we still yearn for truth. We want to live truth.
This all or nothing approach often leaves us out in the cold when it comes to understanding power. We cling to the myths of power because they make us comfortable.
The thought that our relationships are full of power is upsetting.
The thought that we use power everyday as a parent, friend, employee, or spouse challenges our moral judgment of ourselves.
The idea that power is a methodology based on the exploitation of another person’s need, and available to all people, flies in the face of our life-long rationalization that power is OK. In fact, maybe it’s even a worthwhile pursuit.
Teachers like me, are particularly upset when you remind us that our lives are all about authoritative power imposed on children and parents by our laws. It is the “necessary” socialization of an individual. It is the training required to fit in. Otherwise you don’t belong.
Sometimes we forget that it is all about love.
When we come to the education power dynamic with a predominant intention based in love…well…then it doesn’t feel like power does it?
Maybe it isn’t…
Is power a good or bad thing? Well a better question is, can we live without power?
A better question yet is what is the opposite of power?
Compassion – when a teacher comes to the table with compassion they are not using their ability to control and exploit the needs of a young person to attain some end. They are simply there to help address those needs without any desire to affect own personal needs.
We didn’t get to talk about this yesterday. Power always has two sides - two dynamics. One with the Subjects needs in play – and since we don’t use power unless we need something – a dynamic with the Actors needs in play. It’s is how kids seem to be able to turn the tables in places like grocery store isles.
Nonetheless I think power has to have two sides to be power. When you drop your side of the bipolar dynamic – it is no longer power. It is compassion.
I saw a lot of compassion yesterday. It made me feel wonderful about the city of Brockville.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Art of Getting Homework Done
I was reading the Art of War today.
It is so simple and yet with every group of people I speak to, they seem to miss it.
The one who would overcome the other does not force their way but uses the weaknesses of the other to succeed. It allows reality. It uses reality. It does not fight it.
My son has been having some difficulty at school.
He finds so much of what he has to do in class to be virtually pointless. He says, “It’s stupid. I don’t need to do it. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
I tell him he is fighting what is.
He thinks that by refusing to do it and then being very difficult about it – arguing, crying, ignoring, avoiding - he wins. His teacher gives up. His mother gives up. His father gives up and then he doesn’t have to do it.
He sees the battle as victorious but he loses sight of the war.
Last night I accepted Sun Tzu’s, Lao Tzu’s and Chang Tzu’s words.
I said, “Ok. Don’t do it. I guess you get to do grade three twice. They won’t let you out of grade three if you can’t do these things. I am finished fighting with you. I just want us both to be happy.”
I walked away and he began to work.
Water flows downhill and power is about needs.
Sun Tzu – The Art of War – Chapter VITranslated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes BY LIONEL GILES, M.A. Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum First Published in 1910
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/132/132.txt
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in itsnatural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and tostrike at what is weak. [Like water, taking the line of least resistance.] 31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of theground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory inrelation to the foe whom he is facing.32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, soin warfare there are no constant conditions.33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to hisopponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) arenot always equally predominant; [That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominatealternately."]the four seasons make way for each other in turn. [Literally, "have no invariable seat."]There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waningand waxing.
It is so simple and yet with every group of people I speak to, they seem to miss it.
The one who would overcome the other does not force their way but uses the weaknesses of the other to succeed. It allows reality. It uses reality. It does not fight it.
My son has been having some difficulty at school.
He finds so much of what he has to do in class to be virtually pointless. He says, “It’s stupid. I don’t need to do it. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
I tell him he is fighting what is.
He thinks that by refusing to do it and then being very difficult about it – arguing, crying, ignoring, avoiding - he wins. His teacher gives up. His mother gives up. His father gives up and then he doesn’t have to do it.
He sees the battle as victorious but he loses sight of the war.
Last night I accepted Sun Tzu’s, Lao Tzu’s and Chang Tzu’s words.
I said, “Ok. Don’t do it. I guess you get to do grade three twice. They won’t let you out of grade three if you can’t do these things. I am finished fighting with you. I just want us both to be happy.”
I walked away and he began to work.
Water flows downhill and power is about needs.
Sun Tzu – The Art of War – Chapter VITranslated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes BY LIONEL GILES, M.A. Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum First Published in 1910
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/132/132.txt
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in itsnatural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and tostrike at what is weak. [Like water, taking the line of least resistance.] 31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of theground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory inrelation to the foe whom he is facing.32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, soin warfare there are no constant conditions.33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to hisopponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) arenot always equally predominant; [That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominatealternately."]the four seasons make way for each other in turn. [Literally, "have no invariable seat."]There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waningand waxing.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Things the Tao taught me....
Everyday people seek power.
I don’t know why.
They want the ability to control others. They want the ability to ensure they get what they want. They like the feeling of dominating others - even if they are strangers.
They see it as control. They pursue the mastery of the world around them.
If they ever become good at power they learn that the best way to have it is to control their own self enough to be able to access the needs of others. It is in controlling their response to others needs and desires that they create power.
Eventually, power fails. It always has a limit. Power seekers run head-long into the limit and then, lying the ruin of their plans, they wonder why.
Why?
Because control is an illusion.
The only thing they really controlled was how they responded to the situation before them.
Mastery of the world comes not from an ever growing realm of control. It comes from the absolute ability to control the self.
Not only is that the place of true power, it is also the beginning of true freedom.
Later…
I don’t know why.
They want the ability to control others. They want the ability to ensure they get what they want. They like the feeling of dominating others - even if they are strangers.
They see it as control. They pursue the mastery of the world around them.
If they ever become good at power they learn that the best way to have it is to control their own self enough to be able to access the needs of others. It is in controlling their response to others needs and desires that they create power.
Eventually, power fails. It always has a limit. Power seekers run head-long into the limit and then, lying the ruin of their plans, they wonder why.
Why?
Because control is an illusion.
The only thing they really controlled was how they responded to the situation before them.
Mastery of the world comes not from an ever growing realm of control. It comes from the absolute ability to control the self.
Not only is that the place of true power, it is also the beginning of true freedom.
Later…
Monday, February 19, 2007
Fear
Like anger and excitement, I have suggested that fear is an emotional feeling of power. If you are feeling afraid then someone is using power over you.
Simply you have a need and someone has the ability to either help you with that need or inhibit your ability to satisfy that need. The need is the thing that has the fear in it. It is the thing that holds the power. It is not the ability that holds the power.
Historically and somewhat naturally we think that the power is in the ability to affect the need. But if the need is small enough then there is little power to trigger.
Identifying power with a thing, or ability to use a thing, is one of those misdirecting myths about power.
I get a regular newsletter from Denny Hatch - a direct marketing/PR writer and speaker. He gives examples of good or bad marketing and offers explanation and analysis.
Like so many newsletters and emails we get they are about promoting the interests of the sender. The idea is to show you how that vendor can solve your need, or has insight that you don’t have. It plays on your need and offers an ability to solve it.
That is what marketing is – deliberate attempts at power. The deliberate attempt to stimulate the motivating power in your needs by offering an ability and thus controlling or influencing a choice.
It’s a kind of poetic layering that Denny uses his often insightful analysis of others attempts at power as a platform to use his power and thus impact choice.
Add to that the layers of power you can find in the actual story. Using a recent newspaper article, he tells us about people who use fear in their marketing - because it works.
I know when these kinds of ads and PR techniques are used, regardless of customer response, the result always includes an element of mistrust.
Power destroys trust. When someone uses your fear to get you to do what they want you to do - although you may be willing to do it to alleviate your fear - in the end, you don’t really like the person who influenced you that way.
Yes it works. Power works from time to time. Big surprise…
But now I ask you – how do you feel about it?
Below is the copy of Denny’s newsletter from last week.
Enjoy the power analysis.
Moves to Vaccinate Girls for Cervical Cancer Draw FireAs Merck Lobbies States To Require Shots,Some Fret Over Side Effects, MoralsBills being drafted in some 20 U.S. states that would make a cervical-cancer vaccine mandatory for preteen girls are sparking a backlash among parents and consumer advocates.—John Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7, 2007
February 13, 2007:
Vol. 3, Issue No. 12
Fear: The Most Powerful Emotion on the Planet How to Put Fear to Work in Your Marketing Efforts
In 2005, Merck & Co.—the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate—was poised to get FDA approval for Gardasil, a supposedly foolproof vaccine against cervical cancer.In June 2006, the influential government Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), recommended that shots be given to all pre-teen girls starting as young as nine at the discretion of their doctors.Merck operatives and lobbyists blitzed state legislators with the news.
Their message of fear: Unless you make Gardasil a requirement for entrance into junior high and high schools, girls in your state could die of cervical cancer. So far, fearful lawmakers in 20 states are drafting bills that make the vaccine mandatory.If the bills become law, the three shots of vaccine—totaling $360 per child— will represent billions of dollars for Merck.
Fear works.Fear Begets Fear-1Many parents are fearful of their daughters being forcefully vaccinated. As John Carreyrou wrote in The Wall Street Journal:Tina Walker, the mother of an 11-year-old girl in Flower Mound, Texas, says she would prefer to wait until the vaccine has been on the market for several years before subjecting her child to it.
“We are the guinea pigs here,” she says.Tina Walker is spot-on. No one knows the long-term effects of this vaccine. The Wall Street Journal reported that so far “82 adverse events” have occurred as a result of Gardasil injections.
How hungry is Merck for this business? One of its lobbyists in Texas is the former chief of staff for Governor Rick Perry and Merck’s political action committee donated $6,000 to Perry’s re-election campaign. This past week, Governor Perry issued an executive order mandating that every female child entering the sixth grade must be vaccinated with Gardasil starting in 2008.
Currently, Merck is being sued by 1,400 patients—and families of the deceased— for failing to reveal that the long-term use of its drug, Vioxx, could result in heart problems and death.
Presumably it is desperate for the Gardasil windfall in order to pay off the projected billions in Vioxx judgments.Fear Begets Fear-2Vaccines for chicken pox, polio and measles are widely accepted. No parent wants a child in school exposed to one of these highly contagious diseases.But cervical cancer? You do not contract it from a crowd or in a swimming pool. It is sexually transmitted.
A number of conservative organizations have come out against mandatory vaccination because they fear that it will encourage sexual promiscuity among girls and young women. It seems to me that the behavior of daughters is private family business and not any concern of busybody butt-in-skies across town or around the country. But then I have never had kids, so what do I know?
Interestingly, on February 5, Reuters reported on a Common Sense Media survey of 1,138 parents across the United States which concluded that 57 percent of parents were fearful of their kids being exposed to the media versus 45 percent that said they were more concerned about sex or alcohol abuse.This story will not receive widespread coverage because the media are fearful of publicity generated by parental criticism and the possibility of advertising boycotts.
In combing through 20 newspapers and Web sites a day, and downloading dozens of stories, I cannot help but notice widespread fear throughout our society. A sampling from just this past week:* Pinch Fears—and Fires—Morgan Stanley.
The New York Times publisher, Arthur (Pinch) Sulzberger, Jr. axed Morgan Stanley because of fear that the family money manager, Hassan Elmasry, will be successful in his campaign to change the corporate share structure in order to wrest tight control of the company from the Sulzberger family.*
Lisa Nowak Fears Colleen Shipman Would Steal Her ManIn one of the most bizarre—and sad—stories of the week, Astronaut Lisa Nowak packed a BB gun, pepper spray, plastic gloves, garbage bags, and donned a wig and diapers (so she would not have to take a bathroom break) to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando. Her objective was to confront Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman about her relationship with another astronaut. That an Annapolis graduate and former test pilot who had risen to the rank of captain did not come to her senses somewhere in the eighth or ninth hour of her drive and say to herself, “What in the hell am I doing!” is a testament to the power of fear.*
Oil Companies Fear Global Warming Report. The British Newspaper, The Guardian, reported that the American Enterprise Institute—a conservative Washington think tank funded by ExxonMobil—offered scientists and economists $10,000 each for articles that would undermine a major report on climate change issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.*
Queen Fears Backlash of Prince Charles “going green.” The Daily Mail reported that Her Majesty fears that the Prince of Wales is embarrassing other members of the royal family with his environmental stance and speech in New York that climate change was a “war” that must be won. “It is feared the knock-on effects of the criticism may restrict the royals’ ability to act as ambassadors abroad,” said The Daily Mail. “Some senior sources fear the situation may lead to splits in the royal family itself.” *
Voters Fear Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. “Mormon Candidate Braces for Religion as an Issue,” was the headline of a New York Times feature this past February 8. “Mr. Romney’s advisers acknowledged that popular misconceptions about Mormonism—as well as questions about whether Mormons are beholden to their church’s leaders on public policy—could give his opponents ammunition in the wide-open fight among Republicans to become the consensus candidate of social conservatives,” wrote Adam Nagourney and Laurie Goodstein.
One Industry Entirely Based on Fear: InsuranceAll insurance is purchased out of fear—fear of financial ruin. Health, homeowner, long-term care, automobile, flood, travel, liability—all are policies for which people pay dearly. And both insurers and insureds have one single, fervent hope: no claims.Yet insurance marketers have the most screwed-up vocabulary of any industry, because they do not understand the difference between features and benefits. For example, a 10-year term life insurance policy might offer the following “benefits:”* Provide a death benefit to the designated beneficiary of $1 million.*
Provide Accidental Death and Dismemberment benefit equal to the amount of Basic Group Life Insurance.* Offers an accelerated death benefit, which allows terminally ill employees the opportunity to collect all or part of their life insurance prior to death.* No physical exam is required.* Your acceptance is based on your answers to just three simple health questions.* Once enrolled, benefits are payable from the very first day coverage takes effect.* There is no waiting period before full benefits are available.* You can never be singled out for a rate increase.*
Etc., etc., etc.
In any other industry, these would be features. Only insurance marketers call them benefits.How would a direct marketer use fear to sell insurance?“Go for points of maximum anxiety,” counsels the great copywriter Bill Bonner who presides over the multimillion-dollar Agora Publishing.
In other words, get inside the heads of the people to whom you are writing, figure out what keeps them awake at three in the morning and feed on those fears. For example, chances are that they are wildly overextended financially and if anything happened to the breadwinner, the family would be evicted from their home and forced on to public assistance.The benefits of having a $1 million term life policy: You can sleep soundly knowing that if the unthinkable happened, the mortgage would be paid and your family will be taken care of. They will remember you with love for your foresight and for the protection you gave them rather than with contempt for putting them out on the street.The actual features of the policy are incidental to the sale.
Another Industry Based on Fear: Politics
Who can forget the gaffe that may have cost John Kerry the presidency when he said the following about the senate vote on the Iraq War, “I voted for it before I voted against it.” The Republicans replayed that line over and over again with lethal effect, scaring the voters into believing Kerry was a flip-flopper and therefore a danger. When Kerry refused to immediately dispute the Swift Boaters’ charges that his Vietnam medals were not earned, voters perceived that maybe those allegations were true and feared that Kerry was a liar and a coward that could not be trusted to support our troops in Iraq. The 2004 presidential election was won on voter fear of John Kerry.
Hillary Clinton is in for the same treatment—the result of the 20-second gaffe at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in Washington early in February—that I mentioned in last week’s edition of this e-zine.
Here is the fear-based, 30-second spot I would run were I managing the campaign of Barack Obama or Rudolph Giuliani:
[SIGN ACROSS TOP OF SCREEN THROUGHOUT THE 30-SECOND SPOT]Should Hillary Clinton Be President?
[ON SMALL TV SCREEN INSET, SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKS TO DNC. USE THE JERKY, PRIMITIVE YouTube.com VERSION TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION IT WAS A HIDDEN CAMERA CAPTURING AN OFF-THE-RECORD SPEECH]The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund … [SOUND FADES TO SILENCE][ON SCREEN, WE SEE CLINTON CONTINUING TO SPEAK. NO SOUND]
[GIULIANI VOICE OVER]In June 2005, the Supreme Court said that the government could seize your home and turn it into condos in order to raise more tax money.Now Hillary Clinton wants to seize business profits. What will Hillary try to seize next? Your investments? Your savings? Your bank account? Your salary? This is more than scary. It’s un-American.I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.[LOGO]GIULIANI IN ‘08 In short, if you can scare the wits out of people and then offer salvation, you are on your way to a successful promotional effort.
Takeaway Points to Consider:
* “Probably well over half of our buying choices are based on emotion.”—Jack Maxson, freelancer*
“Go for points of maximum anxiety.”—Bill Bonner*
The seven key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that cause people to act: Fear—Greed—Guilt—Anger—Exclusivity—Salvation—Flattery.* Of these, the most powerful is fear.*
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”—Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)*
“I am always living with fear.”—Placido Domingo (b. 1941)*
“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear—fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.” —H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)*
“Fear makes us feel our humanity.”—Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)*
“When I was 10 years old, I lived with fear of the atom bomb. It would keep me awake nights and make me wake up screaming. We all carried that with us.”—Cass Elliot (1941-1974)*
“Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.”—Aristotle (384-322 BCE)*
“We manage the fear, I manage the fear, but it certainly takes its toll, the strain does.”—Christiane Amanpour (b. 1958)
Web Sites Related to Today's Edition:
Merck’s Gardasil Press Releasehttp://tinyurl.com/yvd8pq
Bill Bonner’s Agora Publishinghttp://www.agora-inc.com
Simply you have a need and someone has the ability to either help you with that need or inhibit your ability to satisfy that need. The need is the thing that has the fear in it. It is the thing that holds the power. It is not the ability that holds the power.
Historically and somewhat naturally we think that the power is in the ability to affect the need. But if the need is small enough then there is little power to trigger.
Identifying power with a thing, or ability to use a thing, is one of those misdirecting myths about power.
I get a regular newsletter from Denny Hatch - a direct marketing/PR writer and speaker. He gives examples of good or bad marketing and offers explanation and analysis.
Like so many newsletters and emails we get they are about promoting the interests of the sender. The idea is to show you how that vendor can solve your need, or has insight that you don’t have. It plays on your need and offers an ability to solve it.
That is what marketing is – deliberate attempts at power. The deliberate attempt to stimulate the motivating power in your needs by offering an ability and thus controlling or influencing a choice.
It’s a kind of poetic layering that Denny uses his often insightful analysis of others attempts at power as a platform to use his power and thus impact choice.
Add to that the layers of power you can find in the actual story. Using a recent newspaper article, he tells us about people who use fear in their marketing - because it works.
I know when these kinds of ads and PR techniques are used, regardless of customer response, the result always includes an element of mistrust.
Power destroys trust. When someone uses your fear to get you to do what they want you to do - although you may be willing to do it to alleviate your fear - in the end, you don’t really like the person who influenced you that way.
Yes it works. Power works from time to time. Big surprise…
But now I ask you – how do you feel about it?
Below is the copy of Denny’s newsletter from last week.
Enjoy the power analysis.
Moves to Vaccinate Girls for Cervical Cancer Draw FireAs Merck Lobbies States To Require Shots,Some Fret Over Side Effects, MoralsBills being drafted in some 20 U.S. states that would make a cervical-cancer vaccine mandatory for preteen girls are sparking a backlash among parents and consumer advocates.—John Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7, 2007
February 13, 2007:
Vol. 3, Issue No. 12
Fear: The Most Powerful Emotion on the Planet How to Put Fear to Work in Your Marketing Efforts
In 2005, Merck & Co.—the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate—was poised to get FDA approval for Gardasil, a supposedly foolproof vaccine against cervical cancer.In June 2006, the influential government Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), recommended that shots be given to all pre-teen girls starting as young as nine at the discretion of their doctors.Merck operatives and lobbyists blitzed state legislators with the news.
Their message of fear: Unless you make Gardasil a requirement for entrance into junior high and high schools, girls in your state could die of cervical cancer. So far, fearful lawmakers in 20 states are drafting bills that make the vaccine mandatory.If the bills become law, the three shots of vaccine—totaling $360 per child— will represent billions of dollars for Merck.
Fear works.Fear Begets Fear-1Many parents are fearful of their daughters being forcefully vaccinated. As John Carreyrou wrote in The Wall Street Journal:Tina Walker, the mother of an 11-year-old girl in Flower Mound, Texas, says she would prefer to wait until the vaccine has been on the market for several years before subjecting her child to it.
“We are the guinea pigs here,” she says.Tina Walker is spot-on. No one knows the long-term effects of this vaccine. The Wall Street Journal reported that so far “82 adverse events” have occurred as a result of Gardasil injections.
How hungry is Merck for this business? One of its lobbyists in Texas is the former chief of staff for Governor Rick Perry and Merck’s political action committee donated $6,000 to Perry’s re-election campaign. This past week, Governor Perry issued an executive order mandating that every female child entering the sixth grade must be vaccinated with Gardasil starting in 2008.
Currently, Merck is being sued by 1,400 patients—and families of the deceased— for failing to reveal that the long-term use of its drug, Vioxx, could result in heart problems and death.
Presumably it is desperate for the Gardasil windfall in order to pay off the projected billions in Vioxx judgments.Fear Begets Fear-2Vaccines for chicken pox, polio and measles are widely accepted. No parent wants a child in school exposed to one of these highly contagious diseases.But cervical cancer? You do not contract it from a crowd or in a swimming pool. It is sexually transmitted.
A number of conservative organizations have come out against mandatory vaccination because they fear that it will encourage sexual promiscuity among girls and young women. It seems to me that the behavior of daughters is private family business and not any concern of busybody butt-in-skies across town or around the country. But then I have never had kids, so what do I know?
Interestingly, on February 5, Reuters reported on a Common Sense Media survey of 1,138 parents across the United States which concluded that 57 percent of parents were fearful of their kids being exposed to the media versus 45 percent that said they were more concerned about sex or alcohol abuse.This story will not receive widespread coverage because the media are fearful of publicity generated by parental criticism and the possibility of advertising boycotts.
In combing through 20 newspapers and Web sites a day, and downloading dozens of stories, I cannot help but notice widespread fear throughout our society. A sampling from just this past week:* Pinch Fears—and Fires—Morgan Stanley.
The New York Times publisher, Arthur (Pinch) Sulzberger, Jr. axed Morgan Stanley because of fear that the family money manager, Hassan Elmasry, will be successful in his campaign to change the corporate share structure in order to wrest tight control of the company from the Sulzberger family.*
Lisa Nowak Fears Colleen Shipman Would Steal Her ManIn one of the most bizarre—and sad—stories of the week, Astronaut Lisa Nowak packed a BB gun, pepper spray, plastic gloves, garbage bags, and donned a wig and diapers (so she would not have to take a bathroom break) to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando. Her objective was to confront Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman about her relationship with another astronaut. That an Annapolis graduate and former test pilot who had risen to the rank of captain did not come to her senses somewhere in the eighth or ninth hour of her drive and say to herself, “What in the hell am I doing!” is a testament to the power of fear.*
Oil Companies Fear Global Warming Report. The British Newspaper, The Guardian, reported that the American Enterprise Institute—a conservative Washington think tank funded by ExxonMobil—offered scientists and economists $10,000 each for articles that would undermine a major report on climate change issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.*
Queen Fears Backlash of Prince Charles “going green.” The Daily Mail reported that Her Majesty fears that the Prince of Wales is embarrassing other members of the royal family with his environmental stance and speech in New York that climate change was a “war” that must be won. “It is feared the knock-on effects of the criticism may restrict the royals’ ability to act as ambassadors abroad,” said The Daily Mail. “Some senior sources fear the situation may lead to splits in the royal family itself.” *
Voters Fear Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. “Mormon Candidate Braces for Religion as an Issue,” was the headline of a New York Times feature this past February 8. “Mr. Romney’s advisers acknowledged that popular misconceptions about Mormonism—as well as questions about whether Mormons are beholden to their church’s leaders on public policy—could give his opponents ammunition in the wide-open fight among Republicans to become the consensus candidate of social conservatives,” wrote Adam Nagourney and Laurie Goodstein.
One Industry Entirely Based on Fear: InsuranceAll insurance is purchased out of fear—fear of financial ruin. Health, homeowner, long-term care, automobile, flood, travel, liability—all are policies for which people pay dearly. And both insurers and insureds have one single, fervent hope: no claims.Yet insurance marketers have the most screwed-up vocabulary of any industry, because they do not understand the difference between features and benefits. For example, a 10-year term life insurance policy might offer the following “benefits:”* Provide a death benefit to the designated beneficiary of $1 million.*
Provide Accidental Death and Dismemberment benefit equal to the amount of Basic Group Life Insurance.* Offers an accelerated death benefit, which allows terminally ill employees the opportunity to collect all or part of their life insurance prior to death.* No physical exam is required.* Your acceptance is based on your answers to just three simple health questions.* Once enrolled, benefits are payable from the very first day coverage takes effect.* There is no waiting period before full benefits are available.* You can never be singled out for a rate increase.*
Etc., etc., etc.
In any other industry, these would be features. Only insurance marketers call them benefits.How would a direct marketer use fear to sell insurance?“Go for points of maximum anxiety,” counsels the great copywriter Bill Bonner who presides over the multimillion-dollar Agora Publishing.
In other words, get inside the heads of the people to whom you are writing, figure out what keeps them awake at three in the morning and feed on those fears. For example, chances are that they are wildly overextended financially and if anything happened to the breadwinner, the family would be evicted from their home and forced on to public assistance.The benefits of having a $1 million term life policy: You can sleep soundly knowing that if the unthinkable happened, the mortgage would be paid and your family will be taken care of. They will remember you with love for your foresight and for the protection you gave them rather than with contempt for putting them out on the street.The actual features of the policy are incidental to the sale.
Another Industry Based on Fear: Politics
Who can forget the gaffe that may have cost John Kerry the presidency when he said the following about the senate vote on the Iraq War, “I voted for it before I voted against it.” The Republicans replayed that line over and over again with lethal effect, scaring the voters into believing Kerry was a flip-flopper and therefore a danger. When Kerry refused to immediately dispute the Swift Boaters’ charges that his Vietnam medals were not earned, voters perceived that maybe those allegations were true and feared that Kerry was a liar and a coward that could not be trusted to support our troops in Iraq. The 2004 presidential election was won on voter fear of John Kerry.
Hillary Clinton is in for the same treatment—the result of the 20-second gaffe at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in Washington early in February—that I mentioned in last week’s edition of this e-zine.
Here is the fear-based, 30-second spot I would run were I managing the campaign of Barack Obama or Rudolph Giuliani:
[SIGN ACROSS TOP OF SCREEN THROUGHOUT THE 30-SECOND SPOT]Should Hillary Clinton Be President?
[ON SMALL TV SCREEN INSET, SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKS TO DNC. USE THE JERKY, PRIMITIVE YouTube.com VERSION TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION IT WAS A HIDDEN CAMERA CAPTURING AN OFF-THE-RECORD SPEECH]The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund … [SOUND FADES TO SILENCE][ON SCREEN, WE SEE CLINTON CONTINUING TO SPEAK. NO SOUND]
[GIULIANI VOICE OVER]In June 2005, the Supreme Court said that the government could seize your home and turn it into condos in order to raise more tax money.Now Hillary Clinton wants to seize business profits. What will Hillary try to seize next? Your investments? Your savings? Your bank account? Your salary? This is more than scary. It’s un-American.I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.[LOGO]GIULIANI IN ‘08 In short, if you can scare the wits out of people and then offer salvation, you are on your way to a successful promotional effort.
Takeaway Points to Consider:
* “Probably well over half of our buying choices are based on emotion.”—Jack Maxson, freelancer*
“Go for points of maximum anxiety.”—Bill Bonner*
The seven key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that cause people to act: Fear—Greed—Guilt—Anger—Exclusivity—Salvation—Flattery.* Of these, the most powerful is fear.*
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”—Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)*
“I am always living with fear.”—Placido Domingo (b. 1941)*
“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear—fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.” —H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)*
“Fear makes us feel our humanity.”—Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)*
“When I was 10 years old, I lived with fear of the atom bomb. It would keep me awake nights and make me wake up screaming. We all carried that with us.”—Cass Elliot (1941-1974)*
“Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.”—Aristotle (384-322 BCE)*
“We manage the fear, I manage the fear, but it certainly takes its toll, the strain does.”—Christiane Amanpour (b. 1958)
Web Sites Related to Today's Edition:
Merck’s Gardasil Press Releasehttp://tinyurl.com/yvd8pq
Bill Bonner’s Agora Publishinghttp://www.agora-inc.com
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The dimensions of power
I was asked at the Brantford speak if it is possible that we use power unintentionally? And of so is it still power?
From a simply technical point of view the answer is simple – if you are using an ability that triggers someone’s need and it impacts a choice they are making - then that is power.
There is a great deal of discussion about this in the modern sociological world of power. In fact it seems to be the most popular topic with sociologists who study power.
A leader in the study of that question, Dr. Steven Lukes, has recently re-released his book - Power: A Radical View, Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. It is best described in a review by Sociologist Daniel Béland of the University of Calgary, as follows:
Using the post-war debate over "power elite" (Mills) and "pluralism" (Dahl) as a starting point, the 1974 essay — reprinted without major modifications — explores the three dimensions of power. Associated with the work of Robert Dahl, the first dimension is related to "the study of concrete, observable behavior" (17, emphasis in original). From this angle, what matters is the analysis of observable conflicts between organized interests over concrete political issues. The second dimension of power is underlined as the result of political scientists Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz's critique of Dahl's pluralism. This critique points to the forces that prevent potentially controversial issues from generating "observable conflicts." Consequently, in order to grasp this second dimension of power, "it is crucially important to identify potential issues which nondecision-making prevents from being actual" (23). Beyond the analysis of observable conflicts, political analysis is about studying hidden forces that constrain the agenda. Thus, according to Lukes, power has a third dimension, which is ideological in nature: "Is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial?"
I believe that there is no question that power is sometimes used so effectively that no one knows it is at work. This is commonly experienced everywhere from the classroom to the sports channel. However the real issue for my friend I think is whether or not this is actually power? Does there have to be a conflict? Does power have to be intentional?
I think the first question is how you define power. If power is about the results – like it is with most sociologists then whether or not you see a response determines whether or not there is power. I think all it shows is whether or not there is sufficient power to create a measurable phenomenon.
If however you define power by its method – the application of an ability to a need, then we see intention has nothing to do with it.
The study of power is ageless. However in a modern context we have had scientific rules to honor. Originally we saw power as a question of “power over” another and the idea of dominance. We study and measure the effects of power. Again all we were focused on was the “other” and their will using the subject only as a meter or measuring device. The implication was the need for the choice to be made against the will of another.
Then it was a question of “power to.” We asked if it was possible to define the questions so as to have impact on the answers. Again the target was conflict and the ability to control the outcome by controlling the question.
Finally Lukes asked if it was possible to have power that is not detected as power and hence define the reality within which the question is asked – not just the question itself.
But all of this study has an underlying assumption – the actor intends to influence the outcome. None of this study answers my friend’s question.
I see his point. He is a large man. He would get accused of bullying because he is big. He has a booming voice. He gets accused of bullying because he is loud. He is accused of using power when that is not his intention.
I think the second more important question is what is the role of intention within a power dynamic?
I have always made it clear that I believe that life is lived in a series of choices. Choice is the increment of living. We go from choice to choice, acting on those deliberate and often non-deliberate decisions. The whole purpose of power is to impact those choices. Certainly when choices are made without the consideration of the whole gambit of possibilities, then there is a “Lukes” type, or layer, of power which is at work and goes unrecognized and therefore unaddressed.
When we participate in that “system” of power I suppose we have no intention and the goal of the power dynamic propagates itself.
Using power without intending to use it is still power because it is essential to see it as a method of acting on the subject not as a characteristic of the actor.
I don’t know if I have an answer for you.
However I think the question of intention is still the most important question we can ask.
It seems that few of us live a deliberate life. We act on memory and habit and seldom question the nature of our lifestyle and its purposes. We are so good at power we don’t even have to try to use it. We just do.
The significant question isn’t whether or not it is still power if/when we are not intending to use it? The question is whether or not this is a true life if we are not deliberately living it?
When it comes to intention, power is just one of those things we do without intention.
Intention - that is a whole new ballgame. Power is about forming intention. It is about controlling intention. It is another dynamic that has to be recognized and overcome.
Choice never goes away - whether or not we make one.
From a simply technical point of view the answer is simple – if you are using an ability that triggers someone’s need and it impacts a choice they are making - then that is power.
There is a great deal of discussion about this in the modern sociological world of power. In fact it seems to be the most popular topic with sociologists who study power.
A leader in the study of that question, Dr. Steven Lukes, has recently re-released his book - Power: A Radical View, Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. It is best described in a review by Sociologist Daniel Béland of the University of Calgary, as follows:
Using the post-war debate over "power elite" (Mills) and "pluralism" (Dahl) as a starting point, the 1974 essay — reprinted without major modifications — explores the three dimensions of power. Associated with the work of Robert Dahl, the first dimension is related to "the study of concrete, observable behavior" (17, emphasis in original). From this angle, what matters is the analysis of observable conflicts between organized interests over concrete political issues. The second dimension of power is underlined as the result of political scientists Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz's critique of Dahl's pluralism. This critique points to the forces that prevent potentially controversial issues from generating "observable conflicts." Consequently, in order to grasp this second dimension of power, "it is crucially important to identify potential issues which nondecision-making prevents from being actual" (23). Beyond the analysis of observable conflicts, political analysis is about studying hidden forces that constrain the agenda. Thus, according to Lukes, power has a third dimension, which is ideological in nature: "Is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial?"
I believe that there is no question that power is sometimes used so effectively that no one knows it is at work. This is commonly experienced everywhere from the classroom to the sports channel. However the real issue for my friend I think is whether or not this is actually power? Does there have to be a conflict? Does power have to be intentional?
I think the first question is how you define power. If power is about the results – like it is with most sociologists then whether or not you see a response determines whether or not there is power. I think all it shows is whether or not there is sufficient power to create a measurable phenomenon.
If however you define power by its method – the application of an ability to a need, then we see intention has nothing to do with it.
The study of power is ageless. However in a modern context we have had scientific rules to honor. Originally we saw power as a question of “power over” another and the idea of dominance. We study and measure the effects of power. Again all we were focused on was the “other” and their will using the subject only as a meter or measuring device. The implication was the need for the choice to be made against the will of another.
Then it was a question of “power to.” We asked if it was possible to define the questions so as to have impact on the answers. Again the target was conflict and the ability to control the outcome by controlling the question.
Finally Lukes asked if it was possible to have power that is not detected as power and hence define the reality within which the question is asked – not just the question itself.
But all of this study has an underlying assumption – the actor intends to influence the outcome. None of this study answers my friend’s question.
I see his point. He is a large man. He would get accused of bullying because he is big. He has a booming voice. He gets accused of bullying because he is loud. He is accused of using power when that is not his intention.
I think the second more important question is what is the role of intention within a power dynamic?
I have always made it clear that I believe that life is lived in a series of choices. Choice is the increment of living. We go from choice to choice, acting on those deliberate and often non-deliberate decisions. The whole purpose of power is to impact those choices. Certainly when choices are made without the consideration of the whole gambit of possibilities, then there is a “Lukes” type, or layer, of power which is at work and goes unrecognized and therefore unaddressed.
When we participate in that “system” of power I suppose we have no intention and the goal of the power dynamic propagates itself.
Using power without intending to use it is still power because it is essential to see it as a method of acting on the subject not as a characteristic of the actor.
I don’t know if I have an answer for you.
However I think the question of intention is still the most important question we can ask.
It seems that few of us live a deliberate life. We act on memory and habit and seldom question the nature of our lifestyle and its purposes. We are so good at power we don’t even have to try to use it. We just do.
The significant question isn’t whether or not it is still power if/when we are not intending to use it? The question is whether or not this is a true life if we are not deliberately living it?
When it comes to intention, power is just one of those things we do without intention.
Intention - that is a whole new ballgame. Power is about forming intention. It is about controlling intention. It is another dynamic that has to be recognized and overcome.
Choice never goes away - whether or not we make one.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Brantford Speak
I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Brantford last Tuesday.
The idea was to connect the insights into power to the conduct of business. Truth be known, marketing is one of the things that has taught me a lot about power. As much as my practice of law has.
Power is about choice. That is its purpose – to impact choices. Business is about getting people to choose our product over the competition’s offerings. The connection is obvious.
Nonetheless I was pleasantly surprised to see the flashes of enlightenment on the faces in the group. It is a subtle and almost trite revelation that the source of power is need. Most people would pause and say “Yes, and so…?” However as much as it is seems a small leap of logic to connect power and need, when people finally recognize that little nexus, they automatically start thinking of the implications. Those implications lead them to a thousand questions.
The questions are what I enjoy the most when we chat afterward.
If you have questions or thoughts – post them here.
I am thankful for the opportunity to come out and speak. If you would like a speaker for your events, let me know. We can customize these ideas in countless ways because power exists in countless forms.
Thanks
The idea was to connect the insights into power to the conduct of business. Truth be known, marketing is one of the things that has taught me a lot about power. As much as my practice of law has.
Power is about choice. That is its purpose – to impact choices. Business is about getting people to choose our product over the competition’s offerings. The connection is obvious.
Nonetheless I was pleasantly surprised to see the flashes of enlightenment on the faces in the group. It is a subtle and almost trite revelation that the source of power is need. Most people would pause and say “Yes, and so…?” However as much as it is seems a small leap of logic to connect power and need, when people finally recognize that little nexus, they automatically start thinking of the implications. Those implications lead them to a thousand questions.
The questions are what I enjoy the most when we chat afterward.
If you have questions or thoughts – post them here.
I am thankful for the opportunity to come out and speak. If you would like a speaker for your events, let me know. We can customize these ideas in countless ways because power exists in countless forms.
Thanks
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