I just realized I missed church (after completing my morning stimulator session and having breakfast it was already 10 minutes into the service). So I might as well continue with my entries. After I finish these next 2 books though it'll go slower because I'll have to think more about what I need to cover for each entry.
Here's the reference for this next book:
Torrance, E. Paul. (1960). The Struggle for Men's Minds. Patterson AFB, Ohio: Orientation Group, USAF.
Incidentally, if you are ever looking for a book or other resources like that (audio, visual, newspaper, etc.) the U.S. Library of Congress catalog and Worldcat.org are good places to start, although if a publisher has granted permission to Amazon.com, having access to images of some of the pages in print materials can sometimes be helpful too. I say that because somehow I didn't have the complete reference to this book so I had to look for it; I found it on Worldcat.org. That's the librarian in me coming out; the use of APA citation style (versus other possible styles) is the adult educator background in me.
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"Men seem to respond most negatively to influence attempts which they see as wrong and or not legitimate. They respond better to what they consider direct influence than to what they regard as indirect influence." (p. 4)
There's a lot here, so I'll have to break this down some.
1) "Men seem to respond most negatively to influence attempts which they see as wrong..."
Does this mean that the overwhelming majority of the people I worked with in Vienna did NOT see the influence attempts of veteran missionaries there as wrong? I suspect that initially they may have, which could have resulted in early internal struggles that eventually caved in to the mission's monolithic and unbending insistence on accepting their ways.
2) "... and or not legitimate."
By virtue of the fact that people at the mission had gone through the admissions process and raised support funds to get there, I doubt that the legitimacy to make demands of them was questioned. So if there was a problem regarding accepting the morality of the attempts, this perceived problem must have eventually been deemed less influential than the legitimacy of it. In other words, the mission had legitimacy and the right to make demands, but whether or not the specific demands were right or wrong was subordinate to the perceived right of the demander to make demands.
3) "They respond better to what they consider direct influence than to what they regard as indirect influence."
As to HOW the demands are made... this could also have led to some initial dissonance for the newly arrived. But the legitimacy of the demander, again, won out in the end.
So, here we have 3 possible areas that could lead to problems in the area of demand-making, namely, the demand itself, the entity making the demand, and how the demand is made. Sounds to me almost like an anatomy of basic communication.
So the next question is, where did I fall in all of this? Initially I probably reacted to the third point, the means of influence. I think I mentioned before that trying to influence me through what I might perceive as force or manipulation doesn't work very well with me. So my response was to ostensibly ignore the apparent indirect pressures/demands and just respond to the direct ones.
As time went on I think I next doubted what I understood to be the actual substance of the demands (although it can be difficult to farrot out indirect demands, though, especially initially when there were so many signals and new stimuli to sort through).
In the end I came to not even see the entity making the demand as legitimate. That is, I saw them more and more as an aberration of what true Christianity should be and as such, they had no spiritual authority over me. As an employee, however, I would do the work that I was explicitly instructed to do (and I did still take initiative within the job descriptions provided). I would not "play their game" though, in as much as I thought there was gamesmanship going on.
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"Attempts to exercise personal influence may boomerang and appeals to groups seem to be more effective. 'Low-pressure' seems to be more effective than 'high-pressure' or 'no-pressure'. 'High pressure' is least effective, tending actually to produce negative effects and develop feelings of not being respected. Straightforward, objective presentation of information and accountability for behavior proved [in USAF experiments] to be the most effective types of influence." (p. 4)
When they really amped up the pressure about the 5th month of my tenure in Vienna, as I saw that they really meant business and were going to carry out what they said they would, I completely did an about face concerning how I saw the mission itself. I don't really know what their goal was in how they treated me, especially in so soon treating me so extraordinarily badly (that's an understatement, really), but it's hard for me to believe that they had really exhausted all other possibilities of bringing me in line.
First of all, I was not doing anything antagonistic to the mission - it's not like I was a spy or something and my credentials leading up to entering the mission were impeccable, and included close work with some of the top leaders of the field. So I find it almost impossible to believe that they saw me as such a threat that they needed to set me up and treat me so very, very horribly.
And certainly 5 months wasn't that long of a time that after that short time they had given up hope on me to the point of treating me so badly.
... And certainly they mustn't have been completely ignorant (again, we're talking theologians, pastors, military chaplains) of how people respond to 'high pressure' (or call it what you will)? And they certainly knew of corollaries of their treatment of me with Soviet treatment of believers and dissidents?
So was their intention even to induct me? Or was it once and for all to get rid of me? and the only reason I can think of that they might want to do that is because of my dad's work.
I can't tell you yet what they did, and I'm not leading you on just to keep you hanging; it's because I'm talking about a real life - mine - and it's a big personal risk at stake here. So I want you to understand some of the context first. In fact, even then I'm afraid that people might not bother with this background information and take isolated details out of context.
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"A basic strategy of coercive influence is that of making the subject feel powerless." (p. 8)
I trust you picked up from the reference above that this is a U.S. Air Force publication. My dad was in the Air Force, but some 8 years prior to this being published. Also, it's possible that the military chaplains on our mission staff were functional in this type of military psychology.
In the mission in Vienna it was easy to be made to feel powerless, at least in a lot of cases, because of the new surroundings and language milieu, as well as entering a new job which was more of a family unit than most jobs. So when a person just arrives there they may have some expertise in theology or office skills, but don't necessarily know how to function in the particular context, which is more of an all-inclusive context that your average job entails.
However, it's understandable that the newbie feels powerless in these issues, so if the newbie is open to the influences of the mission, they could possibly experience a loving parent guiding them through the quagmire to success in their new context. If someone isn't so amenable, there could be some of the negative Pavlovian experiences, brought on ostensibly by self in the early path to success.
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"In dealing with peoples of other countries, we generally insist that they communicate in our language instead of theirs, disregard their customs and traditions, and compel them to think in terms of our institutions and symbols. We assume that their methods, institutions, and the like are inferior to ours and that they can learn only from our methods, institutions, and the like." (p. 9)
This is something my dad and I clashed on, especially after I changed my undergraduate major to European Studies. For example, we had disagreements over which subjects should be required in school and I thought language should be required (it wasn't required any more by the time I was in school - high school or college): I thought it should be because it could be useful and also we're to ethnocentric anyway, but he adamantly didn't think it should be required. Another time he grumbled about the Swedes, regarding his business trips there, that they all knew English, but would sometimes speak Swedish amongst themselves - no one on the Boeing team knew Swedish. Now don't tell me that Boeing couldn't afford to send a couple people to take a crash Berlitz course (or other equivalent) in Swedish, because I won't believe it. Obviously this really stuck with me and I thought (and still think) this is the epitome of ethnocentrism.
But this text here actually even tops my dad's language ethnocentrism. I've been known to go into whole diatribes on this subject, so don't even get me started. However I'll say a couple things here: 1) this text makes the "ugly American" official and 2) I mostly avoided Americans while living in Siberia in the '90s, and when I didn't I almost always saw something mirroring this text.
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I wasn't going to quote this next text here (because it's redundant from the last quote), except for the last line...
"We cast the individual from other lands in an inferior role (knowing less, having less, etc.). We try to make communication a one-way process rather than the mutual process which it must be."
This text could almost make me believe that activist referrals to the U.S. as "AmeriK.K.K.a" may have more insight than I gave them credit for.
But also, the final admission means that the authors were fully aware that real communication is a "mutual process" (two-way/bidirectional), so that means what they're proposing is something less than real communication. Well, I think it is "real" communication, but certainly not a healthy.
Also, in communication (and linguistics) theory all communication actively involves both the sender and receiver of a (verbal or otherwise) conveyed message, because even if the receiver doesn't appear to respond, for communication to happen, there is some kind of mental processing on the part of the receiver that is also active, despite initial appearances to the contrary. If the intended receiver does NOT receive the message (i.e., can not hear what is said or see the body language), then communication has not happened. If the receiver processes a message with an understanding different from what the sender intended, then it is miscommunication - which is not the same as no communication happening at all, as in the case of not sending a message or the message not being received at all.
Coming back to our text though, it would appear that the authors have a hardened conscious, recommending something shy of what they consciously recognize (good) communication: "Here, let me show you how to do this, it's bad communication, but it's what we do. We want you to learn to do bad communication and we're here to instruct you in it." I don't suppose the people in Vienna ever thought like that, did they?
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"A third procedure for making others feel powerless is to create as much uncertainty as possible. In the hands of the enemy, this is achieved by such measures as irregular schedules, inconsistent discipline, withholding information about plans or decisions, never allowing relaxation, keeping feelings covered, and the like." (p. 10).
This was used very well in Vienna in their treatment of me, especially towards the end of my time there. I was shuffled around, didn't know who was doing what, people weren't keeping their appointments, etc. It was very hard to deal with. We're going to get into this in another file though, but this is definitely a tool that was in use with me in Vienna.
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"In the hands of the enemy, the subject is made to see the one in power over him as invulnerable -- as knowing everything about him and having all power over him. Again, the purpose is to convince the subject that it is futile for him to resist and that nothing is to be lost by complying. The enemy may achieve this by obtaining a small bit of information about the subject's private life in some way. From this, he makes clever inferences from known information to exaggerate the amount of information possessed. The enemy magnifies the power he has over the subject and promises improved conditions as reward for following his will." (p. 14)
There were a few instances where I felt (even at the time) like this kind of thing was used against me, but also in a few cases, mostly at the beginning, in the USSR/Russia. The things that I this seemed to be the case concerned information that the individual(s) reasonably could have known something about, and these concern areas I'm not proud of, so I'm not looking forward to those discussions either when that time comes. But if I told you I was perfect would you believe it? (I'm not a poached egg either, though).
In the Vienna context, though, I kept trying to deal with them on the direct, explicit level, although what I perceived as possible or likely innuendos did have an effect on me, even if I tried to ostensibly ignore them.
***
I'll just summarize the discussion on pages 21-22 regarding "personal idiosyncracies which can be exploited," which labels people as either: the servile, the talkative, the frightened, the arrogant, the selfish, or the naive.
In reading through these brief descriptions, I don't think any of them really fit me at the time, although I might have been a little naive about work in the East Bloc. I think using this approach to get to me would have been frustrated, and I don't think I exhibited these qualities. As time went on I did have increasing fear, but I'm not sure it would have been apparent except by my direct admission of it, and there was one such case when Mom came to Vienna at the end of my time there and she has repeated throughout the years (including in the past 6 months, when this whole thing blew up with my brother up north and she started agreeing with me that everything was all my fault, so she wanted to dig up things to throw at me - at least that's how I felt and I think I'm right in that understanding).
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Here's a no-brainer for you:
"Healthy infludence [sic] and effective communication requires respect." (p. 23)
My respect for the leadership in Vienna started eroding at least by the 5th month, if not sooner. I'm not sure if they recognized that or, if they did, at what point they might have recognized it. I never really felt like they respected me, because I didn't think that respect would have been demonstrated by their means of communication and how I was treated. I think at first I thought they respected me, but I think that also began to change (my belief as to whether they respected me or not) around the same time as my respect for them started eroding.
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Here's a quote that is so broad that it's hard to comment on without going into a lot of detailed accounts of my time in Vienna, but I'm putting it here to acknowledge that this has been (at least at the time of publication) part of the US Air Force's psychological arsenal and thereby to connect it with the military:
"The strategy of the 'big lie' may range from simple distortions of fact to the creation of 'whole cloth' of a situation to achieve the purpose of the coercive agent. Psychologically, the purposes of this strategy are to destroy the victim's accustomed props, take away his anchors in reality, and make him more dependent upon the coercing authority. This may be accomplished by arousing feelings of doubt concerning perceptions and motivations, making the important unimportant and vice versa, enforcing trivial demands, manipulating perceived consensus of group norm and the like." (p. 25)
I would also like to point out that there are some similarities between what this text presents and ones we've already reviewed concerning brainwashing and certain religious groups and cults. As such, some of the earlier discussions apply here too.
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This text presents one possible explanation to one aspect of my experiences in Vienna:
"In plying the strategy of ego inflation, the coercive agent plays on the victim's vanity or need for status and then contrives a situation wherein the victim 'loses face' if he does not comply. The purpose is to influence the victim to behave according to the desires of the coercive agent in order to protect his ego -- 'to be important.' In the first stage, he seeks to magnify the victim's value, his intelligence, his understanding of the coercive agent's purpose, his talents and skills, his virtue and goodness. After the victim begins enjoying this appreciation, the agent then threatens to withdraw it unless he proves his intelligence, ability, skill, or the like by complying with his wishes. In other words, the victim is given the 'VIP treatment' and made to enjoy it; then the coercive agent 'moves in for the kill.' He thus takes advantage of man's deep need to be important to someone." (p. 41)
It is possible that the people in Vienna, knowing my preparations and experience for the work there, thought that they could use this on me. Despite my coming as a secretary, suggestions of my being part of ground breaking work in the Soviet Union were verbally given more than once, and I was moved to a better office not long before the big strike came. But while I may have been positive about these offers, I don't think I was overly so, and I don't think it affected my relations with others. They may not have known that I have a history of befriending the less popular that goes way back to elementary school when I would go to the other side of the block to play with a handicapped boy for which his mother was appreciative, and that's not the only example. And my social live in Vienna included all sorts of people, not just hobnobbing with the bigwigs (my boss was second in command there), but also people like the retired woman who came for a few months to help out, taking her out for her birthday - she certainly was not an insider or someone anyone would kowtow in the organization (or any other organization in that line of work either).
Also, even when given demeaning tasks I did them the best I could and I don't think I particularly grumbled, although I certainly wasn't happy about it, and soon got to see that that was part of the manipulativeness of what was going on there.
This ideas in this text very well could have been in play in my experience but, if so, it still isn't clear whether the idea was to break me to become a solid member of the team or break me to get me out of there because of my dad's work.
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"Legitimate power would be operating if the student believed that the counselor has a legitimate right to prescribe behavior for him." (p. 45)
I discussed this a bit at the beginning of this post, but it's worth coming back to.
This text is ambiguous out of context, but the rest of the paragraph discusses the power of an individual (i.e., the legitimacy of the wielder of power, sender of a message). It also refers to a classic text on power that I believe I have in another file for discussion here).
As I see it this text deals with what the student (in this quote) or counselee or receiver of communication thinks about the legitimacy of the person prescribing behavior as well as the actual (at least socially acceptable) legitimacy. For example, (most of American) society as a whole believes that police have a legitimate right to arrest prostitutes. However, prostitutes may think that they should have a right to their profession just like "everyone else" in other professions and so the police don't have a legitimate right to arrest prostitutes.
I'll stop there and apply it to my situation. I think that the leadership in Vienna, in their designated positions and for the good of the organization had a right to make certain kinds of behavioral demands on us, the workers. But I don't believe that that legitimacy was absolute - that it applied to all aspects of life. I'm not sure what the mission leadership, the mission board (with representatives from all the various missions) or the leadership of the individual missions thought about this. There may have been some diversity of viewpoints, but my knowledge of missions to that part of the world and my experience in Vienna in particular lead me to believe that they probably gave the leadership a lot of latitude, perhaps more than in some other contexts, because of geographical context of the work and because of risk factors of our mission specifically, which I mentioned earlier in another post. I'm not sure they were given a carte blanche to do whatever they want to make sure the mission ran smoothly, but it's possible there were no specific boundaries laid out by the board and member missions as to what they could or could not do vis a vis managing the mission, including socialization processes.
In elevating the perception/opinion/belief of the "student" in this text, the authors seem to be referring to "soft power" which that French and Raven text addresses. It sounds like the authors are saying what really counts is not hard/positional power, but soft power. In the context of coercive efforts, the perceptions of the coerced would be primary, so this makes sense. In this case, then, it seems that part of what the coercer would need to do is lay the ground work and make sure the coerced view him/her as having legitimate power to demand the requested behavior. I think in Vienna the leadership assumed that everyone there would acknowledge the legitimacy to make whatever demands the made. In this framework, Eastern European mission work, sending missions, and sending Evangelical churches are all socially constructed entities. The workers in Vienna had already accepted the legitimacy of the leadership they'd encountered thus far (their home churches and sending missions) and they simply needed to transfer that unquestioning allegiance to the leadership in Vienna.
Fortunately or unfortunately, however, I have always sort of been a thinking person, one not willing to succumb to single (human) sources of authority and I try to think critically. At Bible school, for example, I felt like one of the few women who really wanted to discuss theological issues in an attempt to understand them better. I think it was considered unfeminine to act so though, so I was sort of bucking the system. But no harm was done from it, as far as I'm aware. At least the male students were acting in their accepted roles, which I suppose was good preparation for the pastorate or some similar position. Where would this king of thing lead me, a female, though?
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We're only half way through with this book, but I need to break now, so I'll post this and come back for the rest of it.
