594. The Difference Between Control And Influence
In entry 593 I mentioned, that control and trust are mutually exclusive. But it is very important to distinguish between control and influence. While control destroys a relationship, reciprocal influence is needed.
Control means, that the relationship is asymmetrical. One person not only has power, but uses it to gain selfish and onesided benefits from another person, who is helpless, powerless and unable to impede being coerced under domination.
Egalitarian relationships can only work, when reciprocal influencing makes them symmetrical. Influencing means to be able to get one's own needs met while being fully aware of and considering also those of the other, without refusing, ignoring or denying them.
In entry 593 I mentioned, that control and trust are mutually exclusive. But it is very important to distinguish between control and influence. While control destroys a relationship, reciprocal influence is needed.
Control means, that the relationship is asymmetrical. One person not only has power, but uses it to gain selfish and onesided benefits from another person, who is helpless, powerless and unable to impede being coerced under domination.
Egalitarian relationships can only work, when reciprocal influencing makes them symmetrical. Influencing means to be able to get one's own needs met while being fully aware of and considering also those of the other, without refusing, ignoring or denying them.
Having influence includes to be heard, taken for serious and rationally convinced in a process of constructive communication.
Being influenced requires more than just listening, but also recognizing the other as the only reliable source for information to be learned by active interest and asking.
Reciprocally influencing partners never do anything, which has any impact upon the partner, without first having reached an agreement. They only act based upon shared decisions.
It is the commodifying and not trusting man's fallacy to believe, that he cannot get a fair deal without control. In reality, control serves him to usurp more than what is fair. His fallacy is confounding his selfish benefits with what is fair.
A genuinely fair deal requires reciprocal influence, because a deal is only fair, when it is fair to both, not only experienced as fair for oneself but also knowing this being the same for the other.
A commodifying and controlling man experiences a relationship only as satisfactoy and functional, as long as the commodified woman does not make any attempts to influence him. When she shows passive compliance, he confounds this with her alleged consent with his entitlement delusion.
Being influenced requires more than just listening, but also recognizing the other as the only reliable source for information to be learned by active interest and asking.
Reciprocally influencing partners never do anything, which has any impact upon the partner, without first having reached an agreement. They only act based upon shared decisions.
It is the commodifying and not trusting man's fallacy to believe, that he cannot get a fair deal without control. In reality, control serves him to usurp more than what is fair. His fallacy is confounding his selfish benefits with what is fair.
A genuinely fair deal requires reciprocal influence, because a deal is only fair, when it is fair to both, not only experienced as fair for oneself but also knowing this being the same for the other.
A commodifying and controlling man experiences a relationship only as satisfactoy and functional, as long as the commodified woman does not make any attempts to influence him. When she shows passive compliance, he confounds this with her alleged consent with his entitlement delusion.
Influence as a reciprocal process of sharing decisions is unknown to him. All he knows is either the security of having power or else distrust and the expectations of unavoidable doom under her alleged power and usurping of control. He misinterprets any of her attempts to influence him towards a fair deal as if she were taking control. Therefore this functions as a trigger to enhance his own use of power as his method to prevent her alleged harming him.
