Thus, consider how remarkable it is that we can describe a person with words. What makes us able to compress an entire personality into a short phrase like “Joan is tidy,” or “Carol is smart,” or “Charles tries to be dignified”? Why should one person be generally neat, rather than be tidy in some ways and messy in others? Why should traits like these exist? In §9-2 Traits we’ll see some ways in which such things could come about:
In the course of each person’s development, we tend to evolve certain policies that are so consistent that we (and our friends) can recognize them as features or traits—and we use these to build our self-images. Then when we try to formulate plans, we can use those traits to predict what we’ll do (and to thus discard plans that we won’t pursue). Whenever this works we’re gratified, and this leads us to further train ourselves to behave in accord with these simplified descriptions. Thus, over time our imagined traits proceed to make themselves more real.
Of course, these self-images are highly simplified; we never come to know very much about our own mental processes, and what we call traits are only the few consistencies that we learn to perceive. However, even these may be enough to help us conform to our expectations, so that this process can eventually provide us with enough of what we call “Self-Reliance.”
We all know the value of having friends who usually do what they say they will do. But it’s even more useful to be able to trust yourself to do what you’ve asked yourself to do! And perhaps the simplest way to do that is to make yourself consistent with the caricatures that you’ve made of yourself—by behaving in accord with self-images described in terms of sets of traits.
But how do those traits originate? Surely these can be partly genetic; we can sometimes perceive newborn infants to be more placid or more excitable. And, of course, some traits could be the chance results of developmental accidents. However, other traits seem more clearly acquired from contacts with one’s imprimers.
Is there some risk in becoming attached to too many different personalities? That could lead to attempting to model yourself on too many different sets of traits; a person with coherent goals should usually do better than one encumbered by conflicts because of having more time to acquire the skills to achieve them all—and consistency also makes others feel safe in depending on you.
This also applies inside ourselves: if we changed our minds too recklessly, we could never predict what we might want next. We’d never be able to get much done if we could not “depend on ourselves.” However, on the other side, we need to be able to compromise; it would be rash to commit to some long-range plan with no way to later back out of it. It would be especially dangerous to change oneself in ways that prevent ever changing again.
If a child has only a single Imprimer—or several with more or less similar values—it won’t be too hard for the child to learn which behaviors will usually be approved. However, if the child’s Imprimers have conflicting goals, this could make it difficult for the child to decide which to elevate—or to end up with so many different ambitions that very few of these will develop well. Nevertheless, eventually we each must deal with persons with diverse ideas, so there can be advantages to having diverse collections of models.
Most imprimers will be concerned with the values their children acquire, hence may will try to keep them from attaching themselves to persons of ‘dubious character’. Here is an instance in which we see just such a concern about a certain researcher’s machine!
In the 1950s, Arthur Samuel, a computer designer at IBM, developed a program that learned to play Checkers well enough to defeat several excellent human players. Its quality of play improved when it competed with its superiors. However, games against inferior players tended to make its performance get worse—so much that its programmer had to turn its learning off. In the end he allowed it only to play against transcripts of master-class championship games.
When anyone interacts with you, they’re likely to have their own purposes, so you have to try to assess their intentions. Consider how members recruit for their cults. First they remove you from all familiar locations, and then persuade you to ‘decide’ to break all your other social attachments—especially all your family ties. Then once you’re detached from all your friends it becomes easy to undermine all your defenses—until you are ripe to be imprimed by their local prophet, seer, or saint. Those experts do indeed know schemes through which any stranger can program you—by exploiting techniques that they know can help to suppress and supplant the ideals that you hold.
We face similar conflicts in other realms. While your parents may have your welfare in mind, businesspersons may have more interest in promoting the wealth of their firms. Religious leaders may wish you well, yet be more concerned for their temples and sects. And when leaders arouse your pride in your nation, you may be expected to sacrifice your life to define some vague boundary line. Each organization has its own intentions, and uses its members to further them.
Individualist: I hope you don’t mean that literally. An organization is nothing more than the circle of persons involved with it. It cannot have any goals of its own, but only those that its members hold.
What does it mean when someone suggests that some system has an intention or goal? Section §6-3 will discuss some conditions in which a process could appear to have motives and purposes of its own.
§2-10. Public Imprimers
We’ve only discussed how attachment-based learning might work when a child is with an Imprimer. It might also be related to the phenomenon in which hordes of persons are influenced by others who ‘catch the public’s eye’ by appearing in broadcast media. One way to make a person feel that something is desirable would be to put forward some evidence. However, it appears to be more effective to use the so-called ‘testimonial’, which may not exhibit the product at all, but only suggests that its use is approved by some popular ‘celebrity’. Why would this method work so well? Perhaps because those particular persons have ways to evoke an impriming response and thus more directly modify the personal goals of their audiences.
Sociologist: Perhaps this happens only because when the ‘celebrity’ takes the ‘center stage’ this makes other people focus there. Then once most of the audience gets engaged, the rest feel compelled to join them.
That may be what happens, but still we should ask what makes our ‘celebrities’ popular. Attractive physical features may help, but those actors and singers use something else: they are experts at feigning emotional states. Competitive athletes are expert deceivers, and so must be our popular leaders. More generally, perhaps, to achieve celebrity, it helps to have some special ways to make each listener feel some sense that “this important person is speaking to me.” That would make listeners feel more involved—and therefore more compelled to respond —despite that it’s really a monologue!