What do you do if you're "told to choose"?

Taking sides leads to nowhere (unless it's good vs. evil)

This is just going to be short piece on something we all face these days with regard to life and especially politics: the allowance of individual agency. Take note: I have been watching Dr. Phil episodes lately. :)

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THM: If someone you know Sith Lords you - ie: puts you in a position of having to choose a side, else ‘some repercussions’, then you might want to side-eye that person. Make no mistake, advice is vital as passive guidance because it leaves individual agency in-tact, but manipulation is an ever-present lurky Larry that can arise out of “false duo-collective agencies”.¹ It is important to recognize that manipulations are actions taken with the intention to sway and oftentimes, this is done with malintention.

Manipulators use tactics such as guilt, self-pity, and emotional blackmail to control their victims, which can severely impact the victim’s mental health and relationships.²

Regardless, in the case where individual agency is respected, one should never have to resort to manipulation. Individual agency entails the claim that humans do in fact make decisions and enact them on the world.³

As individual agency-in-tact Harry Potter once said to Draco Malfoy: “I think I can tell the wrong sort for myself, thanks.”

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Let’s take an example. A mother decides that a girl - who incidentally, her son has chosen to be with, is “no good for her son”. The son trusts that his mother wants what’s best for him. The mother launches a campaign to remove the girl from his life, no matter what the cost. The mother explicitly states: it’s the girl, or me. The son is immediately put in the middle of a conflict (that doesn’t need to exist) and feels as if there is a tug of war going on, and it’s not good for him. It’s also not good for the girl as she did nothing wrong, and ultimately, it might ruin what could be a wonderful relationship, and also damage her as in innocent by-stander.

Now the son has an obvious duty to his chosen girl, does he not? He needs to stand by her, doesn’t he? But what if he has spent his entire life in a state of manipulation and emotional gas-lighting and blackmail by his mother, and is deficit in understanding that she is not truly looking out for him? What if he also truly believes that she wants what’s best for him? He still loves her, but he is somewhat incapable - by indoctrination - of doing what will make her “unhappy”. What if he decides because of this that his chosen girl cannot be the “right” girl because, after all, if she was the “right” girl, his mother wouldn’t dislike her for no apparent reason, right?

But here’s the thing. The mother might simply be self-motivated to such a fault (due to her own deficiencies through manipulations and personal traumas) that she doesn’t actually care about her son’s feelings above her own. This might even manifest subconsciously. She might also be worthy of compassion but does it change the fact that she’s interfering?

Let’s replace the words mother and son with Some Motivated Idiot Trying To Harm (SMITH) and Newly-Elected Official (NEO), and girl with The Right New Intern This Year (TRINITY). Let’s assume that SMITH and NEO are friends from college.

SMITH decides that TRINITY - who incidentally, NEO has chosen to be with, is “no good for NEO”. NEO trusts that the SMITH wants what’s best for him. SMITH launches a campaign to remove the TRINITY from his life, no matter what the cost. SMITH explicitly states: it’s TRINITY, or me. NEO is immediately put in the middle of a conflict (that doesn’t need to exist) and feels as if there is a tug of war going on, and it’s not good for him. It’s also not good for TRINITY as she did nothing wrong, and ultimately, it might ruin what could be a wonderful career relationship, and also damage her own career as in innocent by-stander. It might also affect the entire world, depending on NEO’s position.

Here’s the thing regardless of whichever example you connect to: even though we all have the right to input our advices into other’s lives, we have no right to undermine their individual agency through manipulation or interference. Input is one thing, but interference through manipulation is quite another. The reasoning behind input - I would dare say - is usually sourced in caring. For example, we don’t want to see a friend marry an abusive person, so we may softly input that we “have a funny feeling about a person” and give a warning to “be careful”. This must be premised on the fact that we know that said person is abusive. This example would have to grounded in knowledge through personal experience, I believe.

But the reasoning behind interference - I would dare say - is never sourced in caring. For example, if we take the above example, and change a parameter in that the “abuser” is not actually abusive, and provide the same “soft input” scenario, this would not be a demonstration of caring at all, would it? It would a demonstration of interference sourced in selfishness; in a word: manipulation. I see this on Dr. Phil all the time when “homies” just don’t want to lose their hang-out “chum”, for example, or when mothers won’t let their sons be happy with their chosen spouse.

Interestingly, both scenarios rest on individual truth and character, and individual agency: both the ability to own it, and allow it in others.

In the former example with the mother and son, it boils down to the fact that mother is trying to rob her son of his individual agency: his right to choose is undermined by her manipulation of him.

In the latter example with SMITH and NEO, it boils down to the fact that the SMITH is trying to rob NEO of his individual agency: his right to choose is undermined by his manipulation of him.

In both of the above examples, the attempt to undermine individual agency clearly demonstrates not only a defective trust bond - and trust to allow agency - but a respect deficiency. In a way, the mother and SMITH think so little of the son and NEO, respectively, that they stoop to manipulation in attempts to use their powerful positions as mother and close friend, to leverage the son and NEO to believe that there was something terribly wrong with their choices for partners.

Don’t get me wrong, the son and NEO are innocent, but they are also responsible. It is their responsibility to create boundaries and to assert their individual agencies such that they are un-manipulatable. But this is a process, and in an environment of covert manipulation, this might be very hard to achieve.

This all sounds obvious but sadly, it’s happening all around us - both on conscious and unconscious levels - sometimes either of which aren’t always apparent to us as the observer. I find that it’s always best to ask logical questions and to try not get too fixed on any particular idea of someone, no matter who they are. There are so many of us who are good, and who have individual agency and allow it in others. But it is important to acknowledge that not everyone is good, and not everyone is who they appear to be.

So what do you do if you're "told to choose"? Think of it this way, if anyone tries to tell you who you should partner with - in love or politics - very calmly ask them, why are you interfering? I think a decision will boil down to whether or not you can detect if they are trying to change your chosen trajectory (for some reason), and if that attempt to affect you (make you change your actions) makes you feel at odds with yourself.

You shouldn’t ever feel at odds with yourself.

Ultimately, we all must take full responsibility for the actions that we take - through agency or manipulation by another - because ultimately, we all do have individual agency. This will all become very important in the coming days for me personally when I continue to explore the AI and LLM realms.

Have a lovely day and maintain your individual agency! Collective agency will thank you. :)

I asked Grok to generate a non-human abstract image of individual agency and it drew a flower that looks like a dahlia.

1. This is my own term that defines a collective of two where the best outcome is the best outcome for both people.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manipulation_(psychology)

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)