Standing
Up to Experts and Authorities:
How to Avoid Being Intimidated, Manipulated, and Abused Introduction/Preface Every individual has the power to think for him- or herself, the power to stand up to experts and authorities when needed. But the experts and authorities can take your power away by manipulating, bamboozling and seducing you. Examples are everywhere: Experts dazzle you with jargon and mystifying technical language. Physicians won’t answer your questions or they tell you to leave it to them because they are the experts. Officials cloak themselves in the trappings of authority, using uniforms or fancy settings to cow you. Bureaucrats give you the run-around. Clerks say it can’t be done. Bosses expect you to help them cheat. Co-workers harass you. Talk-show hosts or authors claim they are experts merely because they have Ph.Ds. Smooth-talking salespeople trick you with persuasive selling techniques. A committee chair bamboozles you into working on a committee you don’t really have time for. Politicians seduce you to their point of view with sly imagery that plays with your emotions. The examples are nearly endless. If you don’t recognize what they are doing or know how to stand up to them, they’ve got you. Being manipulated and bamboozled can happen to anyone. Uncritically going along with authority and experts is easy. All kinds of people do it, including smart people. This book can change that. You can earn to be more mindful of what experts and authorities say. You can learn techniques for spotting and avoiding manipulation by experts, for avoiding the “seduction of the situation,” and for standing up to unjust authority. You’ll get guidelines on how to spot situational factors that affect you when you don’t even know it. You’ll learn how to avoid playing the passive role in a power relationship and how to avoid going along with the crowd. You’ll read about positive strategies for making yourself less vulnerable beforehand to the pressures of authority and persuasion. You’ll learn to take back your power. Your first and most important tool is becoming aware of how both social and personal factors unconsciously influence you to go along with alleged experts or self-styled authorities. Some of the social influences that can affect you without you being aware of it include titles (e.g., Dr. or Professor), clothes (e.g., uniforms or lab coats), or appearance (e.g., attractive people). Unconscious or unquestioned assumptions that you hold may justify uncritically obeying authorities or going along with experts. Unquestioned, unacknowledged scripts that many of us play out in relationships such as doctor-patient, employer-employee may make us more vulnerable to being manipulated. Personal factors may make you more vulnerable to the pressure of authorities and experts. Lack of self-confidence, childhood parental messages telling you not to question, or feelings of helplessness can erode your ability to stand up for yourself. In this book, we’ll also look at specific settings in which authorities or experts can bamboozle you, including institutions (e.g., schools, bureaucracies), the workplace [e.g., troublesome bosses, asking for a raise], media (e.g., news programs, magazines, ads, self-help books), services (e.g., medical care, repair and sales people), and interpersonal relations (e.g., friends and family). We’ll explore standing up for your rights and the rights of others with the police, IRS, and other government agencies. Real-life anecdotes will show you how people have been bamboozled and how some of them have successfully avoided being taken in by experts or have been effective in standing up to authorities. You’ll read about practical, concrete steps for interacting critically with experts and for standing up to unjust authorities. Since in real life we don’t always succeed, you’ll also see some examples of efforts that have failed in spite of good efforts and even a few that deservedly failed because the person was wrong. In real life, we aren’t always right or deserving of what we ask for, alas, and we need to recognize that too. What This Book is Not Let me say a few words about what this book is not. It is not a book about getting whatever you want regardless of merit. It is not a book about how to run over other people’s rights or how to manipulate them. It is not intended for those who feel they are entitled to anything they want because they want it. It is not intended for bullies, whiners, and chronic complainers who just want to get whatever they can get. This book is intended for those who have legitimate gripes, reasonable questions, and sensible issues. It’s for those who may be treated unfairly because they don’t know how to deal effectively with authority. Unfortunately, there are no easy guidelines to separate the legitimate wheat from the merely demanding chaff. I do know that being fair and observing the rights of others makes for a better world. I also think being fair is ultimately more practical and effective in the long run and often in the short run. I hope that my readers will agree that being fairstanding up to authorities and questioning experts only when your issues are reasonable and justifiableis a desirable and morally appropriate course. A Critical Tool: Critical Thinking Another important tool to help you deal effectively with experts and authorities is critical thinking. “Critical thinking,” say Brooke Noel Moore and Richard Parker, authors of the textbook, Critical Thinking,” is the careful, deliberate determination of whether we should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and of the degree of confidence with which we accept or reject it.” Regardless of the situation, applying the principles of critical thinking can help you sort out the real from the false, manipulation from facts, inappropriate pressure from simply good advice. You won’t always be right. You’ll sometimes make mistakes. But making your own decisions based on critical thinking, even if you’re wrong, strengthens you psychologically and makes you better able to withstand pressures from authorities and sharper at spotting expert bamboozling. A Word on Definitions Many people use the terms “expert” and “authority” interchangeably but while the terms overlap, they don’t actually mean the same thing. Sociologist Robert Bierstedt makes an important distinction that I think is a useful one. Experts, he says, use persuasion. He points out that expertiseskill and knowledge in a particular areais something we are free to accept or not. Authority, however, uses coercion. Authorities are those who have power over us whether we agree to it or not, for example, government bureaucrats or police officers. So, we may say, for example, that Omar Sharif is an authority on the game of bridge but what we really mean is that he is an expert. A person can have authority without being an expertneed I say, for example, that government bureaucrats often fall into this category? On the other hand, experts may not have authority in the sense of power. Therefore, I will continue to use the phrase “expert and authorities” rather than just collapsing them into one and will, in some cases, treat them differently. The techniques we may wish to use in dealing with experts, though overlapping, are not necessarily always the same ones we may use with authorities. Go for it Armed with new awareness and practical techniques, you’ll have the weapons you need to stand up to unjust or unhelpful authorities and not be the victim of “expert” advice that isn’t right for you. You have the power to take control of your life. You have the power to just say no to bad advice, pressures to conform, or demands for inappropriate obedience. When they tell you that you have to do it their way, you can seize your power, say “sez who?” and get away with it. Click here for Outline of Book © 2003 by Sharon Presley |