Intimidation and Power: Games Losers Play
lgnatius, David
Intimidation and Power: Games Losers Play by David lgnatius “Indeed I live in the dark ages,” wrote Bertolt Brecht, and after perusing Some of the new’bestsellers on power and intimidation, I...
...and is understandably convinced that his good fortune illustrates the truth of his success techniques...
...Toughness is all...
...so, Dr...
...Maybe I’ll be seeing you around the jungle from time to time and we might even have a go at a game of intimidation together...
...To do that simply state, ‘I am in God‘s hands...
...do it themselves...
...or without some talentless author camping in the office (with his back to the window, if possible), tirelessly promoting the merits of a manuscript with a title like “The Federal Home Loan Bank BoardAnother Watergate...
...The distinguishing feature of the new books is their nihilism, and that is what makes them interesting-as documents of the demoralization of our culture...
...So the LC success” book is, by definition, a con-game...
...David McKay, 1974...
...Also, when speaking to old people, lower your voice...
...The somewhat slicker aggression manual, Michael Korda’s Power...
...At best I ended up with a handful of air...
...Let us, charitably, say nothing more about Korda or his book and instead focus our attention on Ringer...
...It will give me the greatest happiness to know that the book has helped you...
...We live in a new age of secularism, cynicism, and all that...
...In all shoe-wearing cultures, and in every age, a dirty shoe is a sign of weakness...
...It will survive as a reminder of that moment-and of the poverty of imagination and, sometimes, the meanness of thought, that settled over the country as it struggled, like the narrator of the book, to come to terms with its first real experience of failure...
...Casual empiricism suggests that the number of practitioners of the new toughness techniques is far higher...
...Despite the realistic tone of the new books, the actual advice they offer-Ringer’s five-dollar calling card or Korda’s well-shined shoes and corner offices-is no more likely to secure power than the repetition of Peale’s Christian homilies...
...He writes on the last page: “Oops...
...or without countless strangers attempting to crush the tiny bones of my hand in affirmative greeting...
...Are they afraid of me...
...I have plans for the future...
...Intimidation and Power: Games Losers Play by David lgnatius “Indeed I live in the dark ages,” wrote Bertolt Brecht, and after perusing Some of the new’bestsellers on power and intimidation, I am inclined to agfee with him...
...or Aims and Aids to Success and Happiness, published in 1876 by Thomas L. Haines and Levi W. Yaggy, sold nearly a million copies...
...We have no altemative to present apotheosis...
...These secret fears may be petty, but versions of them seem to dominate the thoughts of those who already have power-our Presidents and Secretaries of State, our union bosses, our celebrity-journalists and our corporate executives-no less than they do those of the poor jerks on the bottom who want to take their places...
...In my office, hardly a day passes without a telephone caller demanding money or attention in the rudest, most overbearing manner (and sounding ‘immensely pleased with himself if you tell him so...
...Remember to carry around a little card with the following poem on it: With a written agreement You have a prayer With a verbal agreement You have nothing but air...
...He says that he is at work on another book (“I consider myself a philosopher...
...This may ultimately be our plight...
...This will remind you to obtain a written agreement specifying your commission so that you will "GET PAID," which is rule number 5 of how to be a real estate salesman...
...Yes, bo...
...Grinding Teeth Winning Through Intimidation has now sold 250,000 copies...
...is not only troublesome to fake-all that plaster-but is generally taken as a sign of good health and sporting enthusiasm It evokes no sympathy...
...I feel at least one Other has really screwed me up...
...The second characteristic of these books is that they always seem to include, somewhere, a disclaimer...
...Ringer’s is tucked away on page 97: “Before getting into Section IIIwherein I describe the specific techniques I used in applying my philosophy...
...I haven’t voted in years...
...Are they impressed by what I do...
...How to Get It, How to Use It, has sold 115,000...
...Time magazine reports, for example, that sales of Winning Through Intimidation are especially brisk at the Globe Bookstore in Washington, which caters to White House staffers...
...The field was ably surveyed by Dwight Macdonald in a 1954 New Yorker article entitled, “Howtoism...
...In an absurd world, the best substitute for meaning is pleasure-in particular, the pleasure of intimidating others on your way to the “top...
...etc...
...Power anxiety is universal, because the attributes of the “power personality” are so nebulous and the process of dominance such a mystery...
...In his summary of early success literature, Macdonald noted the contribution of Benjamin Franklinprobably the Aristotle of how-to authors-in such works as The Art of Making Money Plenty, In Every Man’s Pocket...
...The real pains and pleasures life-which teach us what we truly know-are irreducible...
...Many of these were rather specialized how-to’s, on the order of The Baton: Twirling Made Easy...
...He seems not to realize that the tale he is telling is a tragedy...
...If you have circled any yes or no answers, you are a “loser...
...I don’t know why this hasn’t been taken off the cover, but the reader cannot help but imagine a serene J. Edgar clutching The Power of Positive Thinking to his heart as he mails off blackmail letters to Martin Luther King...
...stripped of our uniqueness as human beings by Darwin, exposed to our own inadequacies by Freud, compelled to live with the knowledge of our immense potential for violence and irratioflality by history itself, we are left to fabricate our own subsitute for immortality...
...Finally, on the subject of “foot power”: “One thing is basic: power people have their shoes polished, or...
...Now, in the depression of the 1970s, there are a lot of desperate men out of jobs...
...How many people are coming to talk to me...
...we also live in the midst of the most discouraging economic climate since the Great Depression...
...I did one good deed after another-concentrating on the other person’s best interest-naively believing that my good deeds would be appreciated and that I’d be commensurately rewarded...
...No More Mr...
...But until then, the way we carry ourselves will continue to shape our life chances-insuring a continuing market for power and intimidation books...
...Yes, No...
...These are just hardback sales...
...The general public-its economic worries and competitive zeal relaxed by a generation of prosperity...
...The illusions created by the oftentimes flowery and enthusiastic wording are exciting, but the reality that confronts a man when he goes out into the business-world jungle and gets clawed and kicked is quite another thing...
...Ringer agrees...
...There is, unfortunately, nothing at all lovable about poor Korda, who suffers from an English public-school/Oxford education without the usual compensating features of whimsy, irony, and perversion...
...or without some talentless author camping in the office (with his back to the window, if possible), tirelessly promoting the merits of a manuscript with a title like “The Federal Home Loan Bank BoardAnother Watergate...
...How toism’ “Making It” is one of our most venerable cultural themes, and the new tough books can be considered in the context of a well-established literary genre...
...These secret fears may be petty, but versions of them seem to dominate the thoughts of those who already have power-our Presidents and Secretaries of State, our union bosses, our celebrity-journalists and our corporate executives-no less than they noisseur, who knows...
...Are they afraid of me...
...Grinding Teeth Winning Through Intimidation has now sold 250,000 copies...
...A Period Piece If this book had actually been a novel called The Education of Robert Ringer, several critical comments would be in order...
...and that Francis C. Haddock‘s 1907 how-to, Power of WilZ sold 750,000...
...Finally, on the subject of “foot power”: “One thing is basic: power people have their shoes polished, or...
...is less interested in success than in peace of mind...
...He managed to weave his advice’ about how to screw the other guy and get to the top (for that is of course the true subject of his book and the reason why it has sold over two million copies) with Christian theology, which, in its usual versions, goes to some pains to argue that the rewards of this life, all things considered, are not worth the trouble...
...It certainly is Robert Ringer’s...
...How do I look...
...To put it bluntly, he seems a somewhat precious barbarian: a well-favored product of the American middle class who found himself in a bit of difficulty and decided, petulantly, that life is nasty, brutish and short-and that intimidation was his only salvation...
...at worst I got a slap in the face...
...To a Young Man-How to Choose a Mistress...
...Reverend Pede was very big on lists, as are most “success” authors...
...Positive Thinking From his vantage in the 1950s, Macdonald thought he detected “an interesting shift from the ‘success’ book to the ‘inspirational.’ The former persists but is read only by the most consecrated salesmen, the most ambitious young tycoons...
...Now circle the answers which bother you...
...Even the archly sophisticated Korda condescends to offer in his final chapter four “rules,” which he seems to have picked up from a man who lived his life among Eskimos...
...These are just hardback sales...
...should anyone care about achieving anything...
...Perhaps you find yourself selling real estate, like Robert Ringer, author of Winning Through Intimidation...
...Seizing the historical moment, a combative Robert Ringer opens Winning Through Intimidation with a thinly veiled attack on Norman Vincent Peale...
...Yes, No...
...The whole system is absurd...
...How to Get It, How to Use It, has sold 115,000...
...Unfortunately, the reviewer would continue, there are a number of serious problems...
...I don’t vote...
...Yes, No...
...Some of Pede’s other lists in The Power of Positive Thinking: Ten Ways to Stop Worrying, Eight Ways to Stay Healthy, Twelve Ways to Avoid Anger, Ten Ways to Get People to Like You, Seven Ways to Have New Thoughts...
...This book,” Hoover says, “has furnished me great spiritual strength and peace of mind...
...Los Angeles Publishing Co., 1974...
...Take the test again in a week...
...If life is just a game of screw your buddy-if it’s all really that meaningless, in other words-then why in the world...
...The narrator has discovered that the world can be divided into three types: those who are totally ruthless and make no effort to hide it...
...Success, he says, came when he began to think of “the earth as a giant poker table upon which the game of business is played, with only a fixed number of chips on the table...
...Random House, 1975...
...This “inspirational” classic by the Reverend Norman Vincent Beale taught a generation of failures that the way to success was to mumble positive things about Man and God...
...those who are totally ruthless but pretend they are not, to trick you into letting down your guard...
...or How to Make a ‘Stradivarius” Violin...
...Ringer sees his primary task as “shattering...
...The somewhat slicker aggression manual, Michael Korda’s Power...
...which will have “far greater impact...
...For many years I accepted the traditional brainwashing of society and confused the way I would have liked things to be with the way they really were...
...And even if a real “power person”-a John Connally or a Clark Clifford-could distill the lessons of his life into a manuscript of between 200 and 250 pages, the act of reading it would not in any way correspond to the process which made the powerful person powerful...
...David Ignatius is and editor of The Washington’ Monthly...
...Therefore, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the exact same techniques will work for...
...There is a perverse love in this country for the guy who can sell the Brooklyn Bridge, and Ringer calls forth a bit of it...
...myths that have been used to brainwash people for generations...
...One somewhat humorous indication of just how out-of-date Peale’s book is can be found on the back cover of the current edition, which prominently displays a testimonial from, of all people, J. Edgar Hoover...
...Are they impressed by what I do...
...Louis, where he earned a commission of only $20,000 instead of the $200,000 he expected...
...or without countless strangers attempting to crush the tiny bones of my hand in affirmative greeting...
...Facial power problems include: “licking the lips and biting them, any twitch of the mouth, particularly at the corners, blinking and excessive eye movement (EEM...
...Even away from work there is no respite...
...It apparently will be a political book-in an odd way, in fact, it sounds like a manifesto...
...Each player gets to participate for an unknown period of time, and the name of the game is for him to see how many of the chips he can pile onto his stack...
...Rule 9. “Put yourself in God’s hands...
...In an everexpanding economy, it was possible to believe that “Positive Thinking” would bring automatic success...
...As long as we go on jerking each other off, believing we’re doing things for each other, asking not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country, we’ll be intimidated-by the government, by our friends, by the church, by society...
...Already this fantastic new approach has made countless converts...
...Large nostrils are “a good sign of power in both people and horses...
...Named for what the earth will look like when the sun bums out, the Ice Ball Theory holds that “the reality is that there’s no way you’re going to get out of this thing alive, anyway, so why play a conservative game...
...Even away from work there is no respite...
...In all shoe-wearing cultures, and in every age, a dirty shoe is a sign of weakness...
...Macdonald surely had in mind The Power of Positive Thinking, which had been published two years before his essay appeared...
...In the process he made much money and (he doubtless believes) stacked up a huge pile of chips outside the Pearly Gates...
...So are IBM Selectric I1 typewriters with Bookface Academic type...
...Electronic calculators are too...
...To save you the trouble of actually reading these dreadful books, I have prepared a condensed, multi-purpose power and intimidation manual...
...But never mind, Peale managed it...
...The primary setback seems to have come on a real estate deal in St...
...Like most everyone else,” he writes, “I too went through all of the normal idealistic phases...
...90 you worry whether you are a “winner” or a “loser...
...Yellow legal pads are “in...
...I watch TV a lot...
...neither book has come out in paper yet...
...Macdonald analyzed some of the 3,500 books which had been collected by a New York City librarian in a 200-page bibliography, HowtoDo-It Books: A Selected Guide...
...How can I make his acquaintance...
...The nostrums of the 1950s go down a bit rough...
...This sort of thing just won’t do any more...
...Always go for the corner office . Feigning illness is often a good power tactic, since it arouses considerable sympathy, but “a broken leg...
...How many people are coming to talk to me...
...I found three such characteristics in every book I surveyed-from Positive Thinking to Power...
...I assume that the reason for such disclaimers is to minimize the author’s legal liability for the actions of fanatical readers...
...Because he is so crass, and so totally American in his crassness, Ringer comes across as something of an anti-hero...
...I intend to write many books...
...is all we have left...
...The chapters he described each seem to express a facet of what is today politely called the politics of “lowered expectations...
...Everybody (most of all White House staffers) knows examples of people who seem ordinary in every respect except one: they have something, a presence, an aura, a way of speaking, which generates fear, trust, warmthand ultimately, power over others...
...Yes, NO...
...But the largest and most interesting category were the “success” how-to’s, in which the author presented a simple philosophy of life, usually emphasizing the fundamental importance of making a great deal of money...
...How do I look...
...But it seems odd to rejoice about it...
...Lowered Expectations There is an intriguing paradox here, avoided by the authors, who retreat from the existential brink with their lists of power rules in hand...
...Nice-Guy By the 1970s, the time had clearly come for a new generation of “honest” success books, which treated power and money not as manifestations of God’s grace, but as things to be prized for themselves and gained by absolute ruthlessness...
...neither book has come out in paper yet...
...Are my shoes shined...
...Winning Through Intimidation can, in fact, be read as a modern Bildungsromana novel of one man’s education about life and society...
...After cutting away the fat,” he writes, “the overriding message in many ‘success’ and ‘how to’ books is: If a person has a ‘positive mental attitude’ and works ‘hard, long hours,’ he will ultimately succeed...
...While somewhat extreme, this is a clear statement of an important tendency in our political culture, and I have a feeling that we ought to take Robert Ringer seriously, as one of the few representative figures of the 19 70s...
...This will make them uncomfortable and enhance your power...
...I don’t believe in government at all,” Ringer confided...
...At cocktail parties these days, you can almost hear the teeth grinding...
...The very most it can teach you is how to maintain the appearance of power, which may or may not be a compensation for not really having any...
...How to Get It, How to Use It...
...First, all success books have lists of “rules...
...These are the games played by the middle managers, the GS-15sYw ho are going nowhere, who are losers...
...Lest we take Ringer’s iconoclasm too seriously, it is important to note that the new “success” books retain certain basic features of the genre...
...do it themselves...
...The reason for the rule making is commercial: they make the book seem like a practical fix-it, an investment in the same way that “Learn to Repair Your Car in Three Easy Lessons” or “Five Ways to Unclog Your Sink” would be...
...Perhaps someday we will all walk around in gunny sacks, with our IQ scores stenciled above the eyeholes...
...Rule 8. “Make a true estimate of your own ability...
...The third characteristic shared by all success books is the utter fatuousness of their advice...
...Korda says the same thing, but in language that reads like a badly translated French novel of the inter-war period...
...It is possible to prevent involuntary twitching at the corners of the mouth by applying Xylocaine anesthetic ointment before an important meeting, but the effect is temporary, and if too much ointment is used, the lips become numb and speech is slurred...
...That way, when people wish to speak to you, they will have to look into the light...
...let me first emphasize that these techniques were not only developed specifically for real-estate selling but for a specialized area of real-estate selling...
...The narrator of the tale is a chastened, embittered salesman, who has passed through his education at what he calls “Screw U. ” and learned that no matter what anyone tells you, no matter what ideals he may profess, all he really wants from you are your “chips...
...Macdonald found that The Royal Path of Life...
...Gotta be running along now...
...Some weeks ago I spoke to Ringer on the telephone, He has now made well over a million dollars on his book (“It did as well as I expected...
...To get the flavor of Reverend Pede’s method, consider several of his basic “Positive Thinking” rules: Rule 5. “Ten times a day repeat these dynamic words, ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’ Stop reading and repeat them NOW slowly and confidently...
...Corner offices are more powerful than those in the middle of the corridor...
...What this means is that there will soon be, at a minimum, half a million Americans engaged in earnest study of how to be a shit...
...Peale, of course, was a fanatical list-maker...
...The Penultimate Paragraph of The Power of Positive Thinking: “I wrote this book out of a sincere desire to help you...
...What this means is that there will soon be, at a minimum, half a million Americans engaged in earnest study of how to be a shit...
...I have absolute confidence and belief in the principles and methods outlined in this volume . . God will help you-so believe and live successfully...
...The crass Ringer gives the most honest answer...
...Here are some questions: “I wish I were someone else...
...The injuries to his pride and income described in the book seem rather trivial, and it is not clear what it was that drove him to reject morality, faith, trust, honesty, and all the other values that mark civilized life...
...Ringer even has a theory of absurdity-his “Ice Ball Theory...
...Thanks to the spread of literacy, the writing of such books had itself become a way of making money by the mid-19th century...
...and those who are not ruthless by nature, but will still grab for your chips if they have to...
...Now you can join them in discovering how easy it can be to lose crippling hang-ups and to experience the exciting joys of winning at everything...
...Are my shoes shined...
...At a meeting, try to sit with your back to the window...
...This may convince them that they are going deaf...
...then raise it 10 percent...
...Who’s the most powerful person in the room...
...I suffer from minor ailments (colds, headaches, etc...
...In its usual versions, the novel of education ends with the hero-clothed at last in the impenetrable armor of cynicism and power-achieving success in the terms of the world, but a tragic failure by any other definition...
...The narrator confesses that he was not always so cynical...
...For a brutal world has destroyed all his finer qualities, leaving him with useless, contemptible success...
...As for watches, “the status watch is still the old Cartier tank watch, with one of those Cartier hinged gold buckles that is almost invisible except to the connoisseur, who knows...
...In my office, hardly a day passes without a telephone caller demanding money or attention in the rudest, most overbearing manner (and sounding ‘immensely pleased with himself if you tell him so...
...For starters, the actions of the narrator are not very well-motivated...
...Yet, for some strange reason, at the close of the book the narrator’s tone is smug...
...Korda accurately states the basic assumption common to all of them, namely that life is absurd: “All life is a game of power...
...Howard M. Newburger and Majorie Lee, authors of Winners and Losers,” have devised a .true-false test...
...This is a theme that everyone can read with some understanding and empathy...
...The object of the game is simple enough: to know what you want and get it...
...How can I make his acquaintance...
...The real elements of power (things like connections, charm, great wealth, high competence at an uncommon skill) can’t be picked up from a book...
...Who’s the most powerful person in the room...
...Peale’s book is a gem-the ultimate in hucksterism...
...Casual empiricism suggests that the number of practitioners of the new toughness techniques is far higher...
...In this sense, the book is a marvellous period piece, perfectly shaped by the extreme disillusionment of a particular time and place...
...Here's another tip: The way to intimidate someone in the beginning stage of a real-estate deal is to send him a $5hard-cover calling card which has a picture of the earth on the front, a telescopic view of metropolitan Chicago on the first page and the fllowing words on the inside front cover: Earth To Life...Support To the Explorer...A Base To the Wise...An Investment Nostrils, Watches, and Shoes For ambitious executives, who wish to combine ruthlessness with a certain sense of style, here is some useful information from Michael Korda’s Power...
...and Way to Wealth...
...At cocktail parties these days, you can almost hear the teeth grinding...
...The approaches of the authors often border on mysticism rather than reality and logic...
...but Ringer has, by my count, 16 different “theories,” with names like “Uncle George Theory,” “Makable Deal Theory,” “Fiddle Theory,” and “Ice Ball Theory...
...Tuberculosis and the social and contagious diseases are also out...
...First, a reviewer would observe that the author has chosen a good theme-perhaps the most reliably successful theme in the history of English and American fiction: the story of a bright, decent young man with his head full of fluff, who gets battered about in the world until-illusions shattered-he begins to take up the weapons of the world to protect himself...
Vol. 8 • March 1976 • No. 1
