Control

Control. Conceptually, it is something I struggle to comprehend at the best of times. Insofar as the esoteric angle, we have fate/predestination versus the idea we are in control of our own destiny. Then there is control in a practical context as observed in the world around us.

Control is manifest in two differing forms and a distinction is in order at this point. There is first control in the ‘restrictive’ sense as it alludes to containment: “we need to control the blast.” Second, there is control in the ‘directive’ sense as it alludes to power: “we have gained control of the company.” This distinction is important given the implications for interpretation.

Restrictive Control

Restrictive control is one of the rudimentary attributes that separates man from beast. When a wild animal is provoked, it will react, and the response will be taken from the general fight or flee dichotomy, depending on the nature of the provocation. Slap a bull and you’ll get the horns – aggression is the bull’s instinctive response to being incited.

By contrast, humans have the ability to control their reaction by virtue of their ability to think and reason, which provides for a disconnect between the incitement and subsequent feedback. By way of example; imagine someone arbitrarily stops you and verbally abuses you while you’re walking down the street. If we were to make some coarse assumptions on raw, animalistic human behaviour, then the requisite reaction would be to either smack the person or return fire with your own barbs of discourse.

However, because we are not (well, most of us and for the most part) animals, the reaction described above isn’t hard-coded to the extent there is an intermediary between stimulus and feedback, which we know more commonly as evaluation. Evaluation is the conscious processing and assessment that occurs (or should occur) before we react to stimulus. Complex cognition is the unique human capacity that allows us to assess the factors of a situation, apply an overlay of values, reason and knowledge, to determine a course of action.

So, when the random person verbally abuses you, the ‘animal’ response of instantaneous retaliation is but one of many options. Among the alternatives would be to ignore the person, smile at them, feign offence, approach them with friendly words, and the list goes on – we are not constrained with possibilities. How this relates to restrictive control is evident in the nature of reaction. Obviously, in retaliating (swearing back), one regresses to the easy, animalistic response. The failure to exhibit civilised restraint displays a lack of control. A point common to all the other options described above is control because they involve restraining oneself from impetuous action, which necessarily means following a processing route which gives one a degree of control over one’s reaction.

It fascinates me how people who do not have restrictive control in good measure behave. One such example occurred one evening several weeks ago, after I was distracted by something and absent-mindedly neglected to wipe the kitchen counter after cooking dinner. The following day, one of my cohabitants approached me in the kitchen and proceeded to have an almost paroxysmic tantrum, chiding me like an irate parent would a child for taking the family car joyriding, and throwing in an assorted basket of expletives I have never heard from the mouth of a young woman. Admittedly, I was in the wrong for forgetting to clean, which happens on the odd occasion, and she had every right to respond the way she did, though it is debateable whether her response was a ‘correct’ or productive one. Customarily, whenever I see that someone has left something dishevelled; I’ll either leave it, or clean it up and forget it. If the unkemptness becomes a chronic issue, I’ll talk to the offender so they’re aware of it. Here, a control circuit is being employed to underpin a course of action that I’ve evaluated to be the most productive for that particular situation.

Avoiding an animalistic response is an exercise in restrictive control. In reacting the way she did, the control circuit was bypassed, the end result being my complete loss of respect for her. Had she let me know in a more refined manner, I’d have wiped the bench, and probably felt enough culpability to do something by way of recompense. It is worth noting that proper restrictive control isn’t habitual – we do not possess it by simple virtue of being human. Rather, it needs to be conditioned or learnt.  The layer of assessment or contemplation that interposes itself between stimulus and reaction is a process that becomes more sophisticated as we build upon experiences.

Restrictive control is important not only for its own sake, but also because people judge us on how we react to situations and occurrences. If we overlook a green light for a few seconds, and the driver behind simply waits, we form no impression. However, if they were to blast the horn repeatedly, then overtake and project their middle finger, we would likely class them an idiot.  In virtually any social context, restrictive control is an asset, from avoiding getting into an altercation by not retaliating to knowing when to stop drinking. The ability to restrain ourselves allows us to avert potential adverse outcomes and conveys a positive external impression. The inability to restrain ourselves has the opposite effect: it will oft precede trouble and communicates a negative impression to the outside world.

Directive Control

Having scrutinised the entrée, we now move onto the main discourse: the interminably compelling minutiae of directive control. Compelling purely because it is the essence of raw power – to possess absolute directive control over something is akin to the position of a God over a devoted subject who blindly acquiesces to commands.

The innate need for directive control stems from a deep-seated, subconscious feeling of helplessness. Helplessness from knowing that we are not in control of our lives, but rather at the mercy of external forces. No person possesses the amount of faculty, be it mental, physical, economic, spiritual or otherwise, sufficient to claim complete control over their life. Randomness and external forces are pervasive in effect and there are no exceptions to this rule. All we can control is how we react to them.

Determinism (the idea we are masters of our own destiny) is distorted because the control over one’s path through life as it is generally perceived is illusory. Increasingly, emphasis is placed upon external control: over one’s environment, the people around us, and that which exists outside the self. I contend true control is internal in nature. What gives us command over our own life is not our ability to exercise influence upon people or what happens around us. It is our ability to choose how we see, feel, react, respond and interpret – capabilities governed by internal control.

Humanity’s incessant failure to understand this crucial point leads to the dominance of external directive control, to the point it undergoes a metamorphosis from a diversion to an addiction. External directive control helps us to assuage the heavy encumbrance that comes from knowing that there is one thing which we have absolutely no control over – the inevitability of our own death. A point I have laboured previously, its pertinence cannot be overstated; for wherever it is taken to account, there is no limit to the measures instituted to divert one’s conscious awareness from the fact.

So there is an innate need to be in control. At the core, uncertainty concerning death predates anxiety, and to fill the abyssal void left by not having control over this imperative matter, we seek alternative ways to feel in control and compensate for death anxiety. Directive control becoming an addiction is a forgone conclusion because it is the metaphorical equivalent of pouring water onto an oil fire – it doesn’t matter how much you throw at it; an oil fire cannot be extinguished with water.

More often than not, the addiction will manifest itself as the two most prominent worldly pursuits of man: wealth and power, behind which lie external directives over money and people respectively. Interestingly enough, it seems that the lust for external directive control is most vicious among those who have the greatest subconscious deficit of internal control (though it isn’t amenable to easy observation).

Conclusion

Clearly, the possession and maintenance of control are considerations central to the human psyche. Without some measure of control over something, feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability would quickly permeate the consciousness and adversely affect our ability to function psychologically. Extrapolating the logic, this may tentatively explain, in part, why cases of breakdown and psychosis are noticeably more prevalent among people who are incarcerated compared to general society – they are relieved of almost all aspects of control.

For all its allure however, control subsists as the quintessence of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we have an innate need to be in control. Uncertainty predicates a requirement to feel assurance, and control over something is one way of fulfilling this requirement. Yet on the other hand, we are seduced by the notion of losing control, and there are countless instances where we relinquish all desire to maintain control. Getting intoxicated to the point where critical thinking, inhibitive propensity and control over psychomotor ability is lost, is a popular and dare I say ‘fashionable’ example. We can lose control in any number of ways, be it on the dance floor, with a lover, or even ‘drifting,’ as is popular with male youth these days. Despite the fact it evades all attempts at logical explanation, under high-level analysis, it would appear that many people need to break internal control to afford respite against their feeling controlled by the external world.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that in a society whose constituents are placed under intensely oppressive expectations, those constituents will feel like somewhat puppets below the surface. Where one cannot physically escape slavery, one must resort to esoteric escapism, and maybe, just maybe, by ‘losing control,’ we actually experience a strange sensation of being in control because for that short interlude of lunacy or losing oneself, we do not feel subject to the external forces which control our lives.

P. X. Waterstone, a.k.a. ‘The Fat Controller’

~ by X on March 10, 2008.