Thursday, August 19, 2010
And the winner is...
The winner of the Seventh Generation "Back-to-School" kit is... Betty K!! Stay tuned for more giveaways!! :-)
Monday, August 16, 2010
"Are you embarrassed?"
That line came up in a scene from the movie "The Box"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362478/
and was used in the same way little kids use that old familiar phrase "what are you, SCARED?"; to manipulate a weak-minded person into taking the action the speaker wants to push them into. It's quite brilliant, really, because with an adult a wild accusation of FEAR can be extreme enough to get a disgusted negative as a reply, and any listeners can be expected to agree that fear wouldn't apply. But embarrassment, on the other hand, IS believable as a reason an adult might not want to do a given thing or reveal certain info; we're social creatures, and avoidance of embarrassment and anything that might cause it is as automatic as breathing for us. And, while we might have sympathy about valid fears, we don't have much where embarrassment is concerned; we see it as foolishness, childishness, a weakness to be overcome, or, just as bad for the victim, something that we feel like we should encourage them to overcome... we might even believe that the victim is faking the embarrassment because they WANT to be coaxed, since plenty of people do just that. The "accuser" can thus be fairly certain that peer pressure can be brought to bear if the victim resists, just as kids understand that once the "afraid" label is tossed out everyone within earshot will take up the cry.
Powerful stuff...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362478/
and was used in the same way little kids use that old familiar phrase "what are you, SCARED?"; to manipulate a weak-minded person into taking the action the speaker wants to push them into. It's quite brilliant, really, because with an adult a wild accusation of FEAR can be extreme enough to get a disgusted negative as a reply, and any listeners can be expected to agree that fear wouldn't apply. But embarrassment, on the other hand, IS believable as a reason an adult might not want to do a given thing or reveal certain info; we're social creatures, and avoidance of embarrassment and anything that might cause it is as automatic as breathing for us. And, while we might have sympathy about valid fears, we don't have much where embarrassment is concerned; we see it as foolishness, childishness, a weakness to be overcome, or, just as bad for the victim, something that we feel like we should encourage them to overcome... we might even believe that the victim is faking the embarrassment because they WANT to be coaxed, since plenty of people do just that. The "accuser" can thus be fairly certain that peer pressure can be brought to bear if the victim resists, just as kids understand that once the "afraid" label is tossed out everyone within earshot will take up the cry.
Powerful stuff...
