Play with me.

queen of hearts- You are not the only one to believe this. I have maintained, for years, that people who do not have control of themselves, feign control by dominating others.

If you think of it taken to extremes, you have the dictator, who wants the power of life and death over his subjects. The sadist, gains an illusion of control by having the power of being able to control his victims in the most perverted of ways.

A person, secure within himself, does not need to exert unnecessary power over others. He is comfortable in his own skin.

Re: Play with me.

As a l'aissez faire libertarian individualist, I 'd rather tell u that u r right.


However: suppose a man offers his services,
and subservience, in exchange for a given price ?

How 'd that affect your thesis ?
David

....precisely. Some accept "control" in exchange for security.

I suggest this thesis is not about "control" per se, but disputes about control. The tendency to control may indeed be a "natural state" (as in pecking orders in animals). Humans tend to reify such natural tendencies by formal litigation ,or mythical "divine authority", the latter often being used by chauvinists or despots to their own advantage.

that's one way you could put it.

why do we feel a need to control people though? maybe fear, or maybe we get ideas that are good ideas for us, or for one situation, and then we think along the lines of "one right way" to live. it happens. but i think sharing ways to live is a really good thing, the problem comes from assuming you always know better. sometimes you do, other times, you have to listen.

people aren't very good listeners, they're better zombies. once oppressed, even by mediocrity and narrow-mindedness, some of the very best people find themselves getting others to submit, if they ever wake up to it.

a meme like "there's more than one right way to live" would do wonders.

What does that have to do with litigation ?

i could have read this post more thorougly, and it would have saved me alot of time and i would have missed some amazing experiences, but i would be fr the better.


every single person on the planet has a secret agenda of contorlling as many other people as they can.


its wierd its like the "real" point to life, the hidden secret nobody wants to admit.

well not really secret. lol. its wierd.

I think people could control our bodies, but not our hearts and minds.

oh yeah? have you ever been seduced?

And just what do you think religion is?

religion=seduction... hmm...

i know that's not what you meant (unless it was...) but i like the two posts back to back. i don't think religion is only for controlling people, it should only be used to free people, (from what?) but you and i both know that it's used poorly everyday.

I meant that your heart/mind is controlled by another person when they seduce you

The concept of "control" needs to be studied on two levels.

1. We as "thinking animals" have a concept of "future events" and some capacity to manipulate them. What we call "knowledge" is basically all to do with this manipulation. "Control" is a human trait with evolutionary origins.

2. As social animals our concepts of "self" are inextricably linked yo our concept of "others". Even the idea of "self control" involves an internal dialogue between varous "aspects of self". The phenomenon of hypnosis confirms the ease with which a "parental other" can take control of "self".

As far as religion is concerned it functions at the individual level as "security" especially to "control events after death" and at the social level it functions within a group or tribal dynamic of ligitimising social "control" features (as in "the Divine Right of Kings" ).Religion also staves off our sneaking suspicions that that our goals to which "control" aims are arbitrary. Beyond fulfilment of basic needs we psychologically yearn for a "purpose in life" which we are happy to delegate to a "mysterious deity".

You could be seduced if you want to.

If you don't want to, nobody could do it.

i think control is a nescessary part of life.

if you believe that we have evolved over billions of years to our current form and thinking, we could well be connected to rest of the animal kingdom.

I watched a documnetary about some meer cats where the leader , dominant female or controller of the group had to consider that if the group were to get too large (caused by one of the females being too promiscuous) it would affect the health of her offspring and the group as a whole.

Ultimately i think it is about survival. If you don't have control of the masses will you suffer because of their collective ignorances, such as going to war with a rival tribe for no apparent valid reason.

We can't all walk round doing as we please without a set of rules or morality.
How do we judge those rules to be correct and right?
we can hope that the people who assume control are the more experienced and morally sound and that they can maybe guide us from making unecessary mistakes.

when you talk about one human being controlled by another, then it comes down to who do you want in control?

MYSELF!