Emotional Exploitation: A Tool of Sales and Propaganda

Anyone who has studied argumentative and rhetorical techniques knows that emotional appeals can be a very powerful tool for changing the mind of a listener or reader. Unfortunately, like most tools, these emotional appeals can be misused and abused. This may happen on a small scale when some advertiser or low level scammer tries to get us to donate to their foundation (which may not actually exist) or buy their supposedly "green" product (which may actually damage the environment just as badly as the cheaper regular version). These types of emotional sales pitches aren't only used to unload products and services of questionable quality on unwary consumers either. Sometimes, poking at our feelings can lead us into accepting some pretty bad ideas like supporting censorship. There is more though, the exploitation of our emotional responses may be enlisted to push for far darker and far more destructive purposes, when it is employed by the systems of authority to fool us into fighting a pointless war that kills countless innocents on all sides. To put it simply, when they are used as a means of getting us to act against our own interest, our emotional reactions can become an avenue of exploitation and, that being the case, it is important for us to be able to recognize and resist the exploitative attempts that will be made by those who would take advantage of our emotions.

While propaganda and misinformation are the more destructive incarnations of this sort of emotional manipulation, it is, more often, used as a sales technique. I pointed to the way in which companies will label their products as "green" even if they are far from it, earlier. However, the example that I believe works best is the funeral industry. They know that a person's loved one has died, they know that this person is grieving, and they take advantage of that grief. They might say something like the following: "Your father deserves the best doesn't he? Give me $8000 for this fancy coffin to bury him in because that is what a 'loving' son would do." The salesman's wallet grows fatter off the suffering of others because they have learned how to appeal to that suffering. It is better, I think, to say "my father wouldn't want his son getting scammed by some box selling vulture" or whatever would apply to a particular situation. The thing to remember is that, regardless of what is being sold or which feeling is being poked, our emotions can make us vulnerable and that there are people will try to exploit that vulnerability.

While money is always a major motivator of manipulation, sometimes, it is obedience and loyalty that the exploitationists are after. This abuse of our emotions can manifest in diverse areas for diverse reasons but it usually targets our fears and our desires. We can think of this as a "carrot and stick" approach to emotional manipulation. The one doing the exploiting offers a reward for compliance and threatens some punishment for noncompliance. Our fear of punishment prevents some of us from resisting an unjust law, corrupt religious organization, or what have you. We are told that we will go to jail or be punished in some afterlife and that scares many people away from standing against the authority that cares nothing for the people it claims to "justly" govern. Then, a reward is offered. They will say "if you support this law and turn in your friends for smoking weed, we will have a safer society" or "If you join my particular brand of religion and go off to fight in its name, you will go to some great paradise when you die" and many people will follow those promises because they tickle some deeply held desire. That is not to say that all religion or all laws are bad or exploitative, mind you, but this is just an acknowledgment that they can be misused in this way to benefit the authorities, whomever they may be, at the expense of the believers, citizens, or whatever. Digressions aside, my point is that people who try to fill our heads with too much hope, fear, or both should be held in suspicion until we have a reason to believe what they say.

Worst of all, our emotional responses can be used by the authorities and the powerful to both demonize their opponents and lead us into supporting highly negative policies and actions. This, of course, is the real heart of the issue at hand. The negative outcomes from the other types emotional exploitation mostly harm individuals or small groups but this can destroy societies and it has happened in the past and continues to happen, right now. Whenever the government tries to sell another unnecessary war to the public, it will target our emotions to drum up support and hatred. I recall, during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan, the media showed us images of the enemy testing poison gas on puppies. That is a terrible thing and we were angry and less sympathetic toward the people of Afghanistan as a result. However, those "news" reports failed to mention that our own military also has and (as far as I know) continues to test weapons on animals (including dogs). One could certainly make a case for that war (whether one thinks it is a good case is another question) but the authorities and their puppets in the media knew that showing us something awful, like animal abuse, would be more effective at generating their desired response. The same principal applies to drug war propaganda ("weed makes people neglect their children"), anti cryptocurrency propaganda ("bitcoin is used by human traffickers"), pro censorship arguments ("he said something 'offensive' so he has to go away"), the creation of social division ("look at how privileged that other group is compared to yours"), and many others false, flawed, or misleading arguments. If we see that someone wants us to be angry about a thing, at a person, or group, they may have other motivations and it is not to our benefit to jump on board with their war, ban, regulation, or whatever until it has undergone due examination and has been viewed in a larger context with a cold and unfeeling eye.

A little practice and a lot of discipline are all that is required to protect us from these types of emotional exploitation. The technique, as it is used against us, relies on us making snap decisions based on our emotional states. We often fall for this because we are emotional creatures and we are prone to that type of decision making. However, we have the ability to discipline our minds and this can, with a little effort, suppress our impulse to jump into things without thinking them through. First, we must learn to recognize when someone is trying to provoke an emotion. If someone seems to want you to feel a certain way, then this should be taken as a reason to question them and their motives. If they have something to gain from our emotional reactions, we should avoid providing them with that reaction until we see a good cause to do so. If we see that there is no good cause, then we should reject the emotional appeal entirely. This is not always easy. Our emotions are powerful things and they serve a vital function in our lives. Putting feelings aside is very difficult, in fact, but we must not let them rule our lives. If we do, we risk leaving ourselves open to exploitation by shills, hucksters, con men, corrupt authorities, and destructive ideologies which is something, I think, we all would like to avoid.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.