Winter Patriot Community Blog

Very good points, WP! They deserve an essay in themselves

I'll try and write a fuller explanation of my views later tonight. But briefly-
1) you're right, WP. Medvedev is threatening the EU and the US regarding the proposed airspace restrictions. I would not do that and neither would Putin, in my estimation. But Medvedev is made of different stuff. He probably still thinks he can reason with the EU with words. His is an explicit threat and is counterproductive for the reasons I mentioned previously.

2) a distinction needs to be made between an explicit threat and an implicit threat. One allows for face saving sometimes but the other never does. In chess, the moves and threats are implicit within an explicit context - there's no pretence at co-operation. It's open war. So, in chess, are the threats implicit or explicit and does the difference matter? The difference can sometimes matter a great deal in life. As you say, the chess analogy is valuable but it is always an analogy.

Face saving as a concept is important because it involves 'honour'. Honour is not just about 'culture', ego, pomposity or even integrity. It is the basis of a practical survival strategy in dealing with psychopaths. But more later . . .

I used Don Corleone's advice to his son in my support of Russia's sanctions against the EU farm products because I agree with his conclusion that it is not wise generally to tip your hand to your opponent. However, I do not agree with his reasoning. I use the example often because people can relate readily to the reasoning and this is sad because the Don is instructing his son in how to deal with psychopaths in a psychopathic manner. People relate to it because we are all schooled in a psychopathic culture. The object of the Don's instruction is to destroy the family's opponents. But a reasonable man wants to win his opponent over so that both may prosper. And usually better together than separately.

Putin has been trying to win the Europeans over to his side but the last round of sanctions against Russia have had the support of the same Europeans that he has been negotiating with. So the distinction has to be made now that the Europeans, if not unreasonable themselves, are acting at the behest of those who are unreasonable. So words are a waste of time and actions now are the order of the day. The farm produce sanctions from Russia are in accordance with that. The talk of possible future sanctions against US and EU in regard to air routes is no longer appropriate because it is more talk after talking has been shown to be ineffective.

Force can be offensive or defensive and is called violence when offensive and self-defence or protection when defensive. Violence provokes more violence and protection diminishes violence. Russia wants to diminish violence so the sanctions it imposes on the EU and US should be protective of Russia in the first instance. The farm produce sanctions fit the category of protection because a country facing the prospect of an economic siege must be able to feed itself and not be dependent on the very people who would put them under siege.

The air route sanctions, if enacted, may be protective economically of Russia's airlines and those of their allies, particularly Malaysian Airlines which has been singled out for violence by the US. In which case, they would minimize further sanctions. If, on the other hand, they are retributive over Dobrolet's troubles at the hands of the Europeans, then this will exacerbate the situation together with the prospect of being viewed as equally vindictive and psychopathic as the US is. This has further implications.

Giving advance notice of probable or certain actions to be taken if demands are not met can be viewed as either threats or as warnings. The difference is largely semantic but I need terminology to make a distinction between offence and defence. So I'll define a threat as notice of an action that is intended to exploit another; offensive, in other words. A warning, for the purposes of my argument here, is notice given that you will protect yourself against aggression i.e. defensive.

A threat therefore will lead to more violence whether complied with or not (submission to exploitation is accepting and validating violence and encourages more violence). A warning, being defensive, will not lead to more violence. It may lead to the use of force to repel physical violence but either way it will lead to a reduction in violence as opposed to counter threats and counter offensives or, on the other hand, passivity in the face of threats.

I do not have enough familiarity with the airline situation to know whether Medvedev's talk of air route restrictions constitute a threat or a warning; whether it is offensive in nature or defensive. I suspect it is offensive but because we have established that we are not dealing with reasonable people (i.e. the US behind the EU heads) in any case, talk is at best a waste of time. So I think Medvedev would have advanced Russia's interests by keeping his mouth shut in regard to the air route restrictions.

So the question now is how do you deal effectively with an unreasonable person? It is wise, especially if the downside is large, to assume an unreasonable and unreasoning person you are dealing with is a psychopath. The first thing is to really understand what an unreasonable person is telling us through their behaviour. What this behaviour is telling us is that they are unreasoning. It sounds circular but the point needs to be made explicit; they are not reasoning like you or I.

Psychopaths cannot learn from their mistakes because they cannot accept responsibility for their actions when the consequences do not align with their perception of what should have happened. In other words, they opt for their own perceptions or image of reality over what objective reality is telling them. They retreat into denial. So, you cannot reason with them because they cannot see what you are getting at; that reality imposes costs when you break certain natural laws. Therefore it is a waste of time reasoning or negotiating with them. They think they can control all consequences.

So if psychopaths do not respond to reasoning, what do they respond to? Another way of putting the question is, what do they understand? They understand force and coercion because that is what they base their whole strategy in life on; violence and the threat of violence. The violence may be physical, verbal or economic or may take some other form. When they act with violence, the appropriate response, one which they will understand, is return defensive force (passivity invites more violence).

In game theory experiments, the most effective strategy in dealing with “a rational actor” (which is code for a psychopath i.e. someone who acts purely out of self interest) on a repetitive basis is called “tit for tat” and is pretty self explanatory. There are two 'tricks' to it, though. One is to respond with force that is slightly less than the violence perpetrated against you. This says that you will defend yourself (which imposes a cost) now and in the future but are not interested in escalating the situation. In other words, “back off and we can continue to live in relative peace and you don't have to worry about me attacking you in return later”.

The second 'trick' is to respond quickly. This is how we train animals and young children (not with violence I hasten to add). Animals, very young children and psychopaths all share a limited capacity to reason but we are all hard-wired to learn causation through correlated events close in time. This learning does not require reasoning ability.

The above strategy all depends on a commitment to defend one's interests so I'll add some reasoning to do so.

In dealing with threats of all sorts from bullies and psychopaths, I have found it very effective to call the bullies on their threats straight away especially if the threats are explicit. If the threat is implicit, I will voice it as explicit and ask the bully if that is what they mean. Usually at this point the bullies' retreat and say “No, that is not what I meant”. If they do make it explicit then, again, I challenge them to carry it out. Nine times out of ten, they back down because of two things. First of all, they are cowards. Secondly, the threatened action is not their preferred course for you. They want their demand met (or else). The 'or else' is not really what they want.

In the case of the one time in ten that the bully follows through with their threatened action, you still win because you have not buckled to the bully and you have maintained your self respect which is crucial to your quality of life. Even if the bully wins that first fight, he will not come back again if he knows he is going to get himself into another one.

When you fight back you always impose a cost on them. It is worth bearing in mind that violence is a tool in the hands of a bully or psychopath to achieve psychological dominance. When you fight back, win or lose, you deny them their goal of psychological dominance and they will look for someone else to bully next time.

In any case, we can't know the future in most instances so we have to develop a strategy that will benefit us most of the time. 'Calling' bullies works 9 out or 10 times and that is a winning strategy in anyone's language.

If a culture has learned this lesson well, how does it pass it on to the succeeding generations effectively? This is where the concept of 'honour' that I mentioned in my previous comment comes in. We have within us a sense of the preciousness of our freedom of choice. When that is violated we are being exploited and almost always through violence or the threat of violence. If you teach the next generation to view this impingement upon their freedom of choice as an impingement of their dignity (which it is), then you have inbuilt a winning strategy against bullying and psychopathy. The culture will survive against attacks from psychopaths.

I could go on, as is my want , but I had better end there and I hope I have answered the questions in all those words!