Provocation Games
Mutually Destructive Games
Situation
Both sides engaged in a mutually destructive game. No-one is, or could be, the winner.
Data On Games
There is a vast amount written about games theory. In Supernoetics® we have accrued some revolutionary material which has an important psychological (actually spiritual) slant.
In former times, logicians, mathematicians, philosophers and psychologists used to consider human interaction in terms of good and bad, right and wrong, valuable or not so useful. This approach was often known as “ethics”, though that has lately become a vast and indeterminate (fluffy) academic topic.
Today, all this is often re-worked in terms of games theory and an action is rated as “good” (correct, proper, best) which wins the game. This takes no account of the damage to the loser, or the damage to the playing field, or the negative interactions with onlookers and other participants.
It is naïve and simplistic. It violates the principles of natural justice. It is a kind of psycho-Darwinism—meaning the triumph of the mentally most agile. This presupposes that the person with the highest IQ is necessarily the fittest, which is not a given. It also ignores the fact that “winning” may have negative impact on the winner. This is never even considered in games theory.
Well, life isn’t just a game, though it’s often dismissed as such. Life is a vast experience of being, with many factors and channels, in which no one person is the leader; no-one is independent of others; and the highest imaginable standard of achievement is a game in which everyone wins.
Games theory never even considers such games.
Rules Of A Game
Playing the game, in life as in recreation, means to be engaged in an activity for which there is a stated aim (goal) and rules (or barriers). The barriers can be hidden or open.
There also needs to be some resistance or opposition, to create variability and interest.
If there is no purpose or aim, whether to learn to fly or win at cards, there is no game. When there are no barriers or restrictions, nothing prevents instant success and so there is no game.
If you can’t see this last point, imagine yourself all-powerful and able to conjure up anything you wanted, anything at all. It sounds like a dream but you would soon go mad with boredom. The notorious way lottery and pools winners fall apart is a good example of this no-game condition.
If you have no game, you have no purchase on life at all.
Our Failed Purposes and Lost Universes Project is dedicated to the deep psychology of rehabilitating the game in Man, as the spirit. If consciousness was once the omnipotent and omniscient creator of all, it no longer is so. We have lost the game.
But equally, it would be pointless to search for total freedom of the soul. There would, by definition, be no game and pretty soon consciousness would start inventing problems. We would end up in a mess all over again.
In fact the FP-LU Project shows us that this is how we lost our power in the first place and came to believe we are nothing more than meat bodies or, even more demeaning, an electro-chemical event in a meat body.
More of that another time.
Types Of Game Theory
There are zero-sum games, in which one person’s gain is equivalent to another’s loss, so the net change in wealth or benefit is zero. This is the classic win-lose game. A zero-sum game may have as few as two players, or millions of participants.
However, this hardly represents the conflicts we face in the everyday world. Problems in the real world do not usually have straightforward results. Non-zero-sum games, so-called, differ from zero-sum games in that there is no universally accepted solution. That is, there is no single optimal strategy that is preferable to all others; nor is there a predictable outcome.
But there is still an assumption of “winning”.
This piece is to introduce the little-described topic of mutually destructive games. In these “games” nobody is a winner. These games are, in life, very common indeed.
Mutually-destructive games—which we also call provocation games—since one side or the other is generating a deliberate conflict—we define as a games condition in which the outcome is destructive to both sides and where whatever stands to be achieved is more than cancelled out by what is being destroyed in trying to win.
In the conventional nomenclature, we could also call this a minus-sum game.
Simply put, there is nothing gained by a “victory”. You may know the expression a “Pyrrhic” victory, named after King Pyrrhus who sustained such heavy losses against the Romans in the battle of Asculum in 279 B.C. that he lost almost his entire army in “winning”.
War actually is probably the best example of the mutually destructive game. Very few conflicts on such a scale have ever been fought on the basis of positive gain. Usually what happens is that both sides wipe themselves out. The story of Lebanon in the late twentieth century is a perfect example of this folly.
Beirut was once a marvelous international garden city. The food was good; wine was grown locally; the nation prospered. The city functioned as the principal banking hub of the eastern Mediterranean. But as Lebanon was dragged into the Arab-Israeli war, conflict grew and grew, leading to Muslims slaughtering Christians and assassinating successive elected Christian leaders. The country simply fell apart.
Lebanon ended in ruins and became one of the most dangerous territories in the eastern Mediterranean. 60,000 people “vanished” and over a million refugees fled the country. The Lebanese Pound, once 3.43 to the US dollar, is now 1,506.89 Lebanese Pounds to the US dollar (2016). So who won?
On a far smaller scale, consider how proverbial it is that people often let themselves to be seduced into litigation where the only winners are lawyers. For some curious reason, individuals allow themselves to be deluded into the belief that the lawyers they hire are working for their clients. It is assumed that advice on how to proceed is made only in the client’s best interest.
In fact this is the case only in situations where the lawyer’s interests are served by the same path as the client’s; otherwise the client is led into bigger fees but not better litigation or “rights”.
Both sides engaged in this activity can end up broke, while the lawyers get rich (if you still persist in thinking of lawyers as adversarial, see how much hostility you can find at dinners at the Bar or in chambers).
The point is that mutually destructive games happen at all times and places, if you allow them to develop. Divorce, neighbors’ quarrels, fights at work, battling with children or trying to evade the law are all examples of destructive games.
Provocateurs
It’s an observable fact that people get into confrontational roles by living out needless and non-serving patterns. Each person in the drama is driven more by emotional charges than by intelligent reason. You will see people pressing each other’s buttons. Some women will complain about their husband being abusive but the objective observer will notice these “victim” women work hard at provoking the attacks of which they most complain.
Men are just as bad and a man who was once a loving suitor becomes an aggravating monster that is both unlovable and unreasonable. He comes home reeking of drink; she whines and provokes him, so he strikes her. This is marriage for some folks, people!
We meet the same thing at work. We don’t like a colleague, go out of our way to be provocative or snide. But then—horrors!—he or she gets promoted past us. Now the return fire is unpleasant. We are told to do things which demean us. We know that we are being singled out for aggravation but what is there to do: leave? Fight back and get fired?
Some time ago I coined the expression “conflict pantomime”, which just about sums up the whole nonsense.
Be very careful when you think of engaging in these behaviors, thinking you are immune from retaliation. People are incredibly versatile and ingenious when it comes to playing provocation games.
In a sibling context, it is very common for an older sibling to harass a younger brother or sister into a reaction. This is a similar form of provocation as a bully. In fact, it is a lesser form of bullying. But it is not done with as much negative intent (although it might build depending on the home situation).
Those that desire this form of control, but either never had that chance growing up or got addicted to that behavior torturing a younger sibling, will try to take it out on others. These provocateurs are living in a constant state of stress and look to inflict stress on others. When they achieve the desired reaction, they become satisfied. It’s kind of an addiction.
The Victim Game
Eric Berne MD, the originator of Transactional Analysis, was particularly adept at spotting the games people play. In fact he wrote best-selling book of that title. [Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships, 1964]
For example, Berne described the look-what-you-did-to-me game. A person exaggerates his or her grievances to make an effect and then cries “look what you did to me,” with the implication that you—the perpetrator—should feel guilty. Moreover, this game is played very publicly, making sure that you are the target of the onlookers’ scorn and disapproval.
It’s part of a key pattern we recognize in Supernoetics®: the destructive game of “Make Wrong” or making others feel guilty. A person will take on some hurt—accept it or actually create it—in order to complain that the opponent is rotten or wicked. The aim is to make that person feel bad, or to make them look bad to others, in order to “win”.
Of course there is no real winner. It’s a foolish self-serving pattern.
The bigger version of this very destructive game is one of manufacturing victim status. The victim game is quite dangerous to others around the player: he or she wants bad things to be very visible (and again will create suffering, if it’s otherwise lacking), in order to hit back at someone.
Playing victim is actually a mechanism that a lot of people use to control those around them. They sigh, mope, throw a fit, get the “vapors” and otherwise create hysterics, in order to gain pathetic control over someone. They hurt themselves deliberately and create the pain or negative circumstance that makes them a victim but they are sly and clever, making doubly sure that their target (the real victim in this) gets the public blame.
Berne went further and described a victim triangle: victim-oppressor-rescuer. The victim plays their part, greatly exaggerating their distress. They elect their own “oppressor” who is supposed to be very bad to them; along comes a convenient “rescuer”, who is really being drawn into another’s game, rather than really rescuing the “victim”.
All this is orchestrated or running with a life script, that plays over and over. The irony in this destructive game is that, as Berne pointed out, the rescuer eventually becomes the new oppressor. As someone who has been elected an oppressor in the past, it was grimly amusing to watch the rescuer become the new oppressor (or swindler in this case).
You would do well to avoid a victim personality; give them a wide berth. They are serial destroyers. I am thinking particularly of a woman I met, who tormented lover after lover, driving them to absurd acts of love in the expectation of reward. In fact they were soon elected oppressors and each time a stormy relationship ensued. She actually got a restraining order against one man.
But then the game came to an end. So she had the restraining order cancelled! Why would you do that, if you really were threatened? Answer: to torment the man to despair once again.
I met her when she was in a relationship with a man more than twenty years her age. My wife and I watched her torment him, pushing him away but not telling him it was over; letting him into her bedroom repeatedly but then refusing active sexual relations; allowing him to run the children backwards and forwards to school but not giving the poor man the satisfaction he desired.
She told us many unpleasant “facts” about him, behind his back, but would then smile sweetly whenever he came into the room and ask him to do yet another chore.
I’m serious: these people are bad news wherever they go.
Borderlines
There is a full-blown medical condition, called Borderline Personality Disorder. A difficult person in your life might not be a full-blown Borderline; maybe he or she just has related traits that surface from time to time. Let’s call these people “unreasonable”. It still takes a toll on your well-being and self-esteem to be around them.
Here’s a short list of the types of people I would lump into the “unreasonable”:
- Those you can’t have a reasonable conversation with; they somehow twist your words or totally confuse you and then tell you that you’re the one who doesn’t know how to communicate
- People who make cutting “jokes” which are subtly or overtly demeaning comments in disguise
- Those that don’t respect boundaries and seem to enjoy stepping all over one after you’ve placed it
- The types that aren’t willing to consider your point of view or listen to your side of things (or just stare at you blankly, or laugh, or go ballistic with rage, when you try to explain how you feel)
- Verbal or emotional bullies (these can also range from subtle to overt)
- Manipulators
- Liars
- People who leave you feeling bad, sad, shaky or feeling sick in the pit of your stomach
- People who provoke you into acting rashly in ways you regret, simply because they are treading hard on your buttons
- Those who love making you feel like there’s something wrong with you, when your usual behavior in life is proof that you’re just fine
- The excessively charming who are too good to be true and have an ulterior motive. We call those “Slys” and they are bad news.
Unreasonable individuals will draw you into provocation games time and time again. Avoid them, as you would avoid borderlines, narcissistic and antisocial types.
Action (Life Rehearsal)
Remedying destructive and aberrative games is a whole-life project you will have a great time with in the Failed Purposes and Lost Universes Project.
Meantime, at the everyday level, the simple remedy for provocation games is STOP! Just back off. Have the guts to recognize the situation you are in and try to find a better path or behavior.
Admire yourself for being the more developed personality and recognize you ultimately win, big time, because you grow in stature and wisdom.
You can hope the other party will see sense and do the same. Try showing him or her a copy of this Ex-Press.
- Forget about winning (you’re certain to lose in this games condition).
- Start negotiating (swallow your pride but save your soul).
- Find a better game (life is full of many wonderful options. Why bother with a game that has no gain, only pain?)
A good tip is to take the higher or “Third” point of view. If you can look down and see yourself part of a scenario, looking from the Higher Third point of view, you may be wiser to the nature and the outcome of the game as a whole, instead of just serving the interests of the “you down there” committed to and involved in the game.
Seeing from a higher, observer, viewpoint puts you in a no-game status of serenity and control. Deeper knowing and being without interest (in the outcome) are useful no games conditions. Being calm, disconnected and objective are other useful no games conditions to find yourself in!
Work at this. There’s little better a wise man or woman could be doing than defusing worthless and destructive games.
Play the good games, like: “Loving Relationships”, “Happy Families”, “The Road To Prosperity” and “Spiritual Freedom”! These are much more fun.
Keith Scott-Mumby
Creator of Supernoetics®
Copyright © 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Issue #: GR-061016
History of this document:
Originally written 12 Aug 1999, revized and re-issued 25 Nov 2011
Re-titled “Provocation Games” 6 Oct 2016
