Manipulation is the ability to use unrelated comparisons to motivate people to carry out a predetermined goal. Manipulation works best when you can tie someone’s belief system or behavior to a title that has strong negative connotations.
For example, if a person micromanages their environment, you can call them a Nazi. Of course, micromanaging, or even controlling leadership, has no direct connection to being a Nazi. Yet the word Nazi has such strong negative emotional connotations that many will react out of fear and alter their behavior (whether or not they were doing anything wrong).
The same tactic is being employed with many social issues of our time. Those who disagree with a certain behavior or core belief system are labeled as bigots or haters. The goal of this kind of manipulation is to scare people into silence, to mute their perspectives, so as to keep their opinions from influencing the mindset of society.
Entire populations are often intimidated into becoming politically correct. You must conform or be shouted down by the radical, yet incredibly small percentage of society.
In fairness, there are people on both sides of these social and moral issues who refuse to employ these tactics. They are honorable people who have learned to love people with whom they passionately disagree. They are so confident in their perspectives that they don’t feel the need to strong-arm people into agreeing with them.
Manipulation is always rooted in fear. People who employ it are terrified of the truth, but knowing the truth sets you free.
Truth refuses to be silenced. If you persecute it, it grows. If you oppress it, it multiplies. If you muzzle its audible discourse, it screams conviction inside of your heart. If you wall it off it seeps through the mortar, and if you run from it, it’s hunts you down.
You can change the laws of man, but the laws of God remain written on the hearts of every person. You can’t silence the inner voice of truth. Truth is like a virus in which there is no inoculation.
