Interpretation Marie Mancini played the seducer's game to perfection. First, she took a step back, to study her prey. Seduction often fa...
Interpretation Marie Mancini played the seducer's game to perfection. First, she took a step back, to study her prey. Seduction often fails to get past the first step because it is too aggressive; the first move must always be a retreat. By studying the king from a distance Marie saw what distinguished hirn from others-his high ideals, romantic nature, and snobbish disdain for petty politics. Marie's next step was to make a mirror for these hidden yearnings on Louis's part, letting hirn glimpse what he hirnself could be-a godlike king! This mirror had several functions: Satisfying Louis's ego by giving hirn a double to look at, it also focused on hirn so exdusively as to give him the feeling that Marie existed for hirn alone. Surrounded by a pack of scheming courtiers who only had their own self-interest at heart, he could not fall to be touched by this devotional focus. Finally Marie's mirror set up an ideal for hirn to live up to: the noble knight of the medieval court.
To a soul both romantic and ambitious, nothing could be more intoxicating than to have someone hold up an idealized reflection of hirn. In effect it was Marie Mancini who created the image of the Sun King-indeed Louis later admitted the enormous part she had played in fashioning his radiant selfimage. This is the power of the Seducer's Mirror: By doubling the tastes and ideals of the target, it shows your attention to his or her psychology, an attention more charming than any aggressive pursuit. Find out what sets the other person apart, then hold up the mirror that will reflect it and bring it out of them. Feed their fantasies of power and greatness by reflecting their ideals, and they will succumb. Observance IV In 1538, with the death of his mother, Helena, the eight-year-old future czar Ivan IV (or Ivan the Terrible) of Russia became an orphan. For the next five years he watched as the princely dass, the boyars, terrorized the country.
Now and then, to mock the young Ivan, they would make him wear a crown and scepter and place hirn on the throne. When the little boy's feet dangled over the edge of the chair, they would laugh and lift him off it, handing hirn from man to man in the air, making hirn feel his helplessness compared to them. When Ivan was thirteen, he boldly murdered the boyar leader and ascended to the throne. For the next few decades he struggled to subdue the boyars' power, but they continued to defy hirn. By 1575 his efforts to transform Russia and defeat its enemies had exhausted hirn. Meanwhile, his subjects were complaining bitterly about his endless wars,
his secret police, the unvanquished and oppressive boyars. His own ministers began to question his moves. Finally he had had enough. In 1564 he had temporarily abandoned the throne, forcing his subjects to call hirn back to power. Now he took the strategy a step further, and abdicated. To take his place Ivan elevated a general of his, Simeon Bekbulatovich, to the throne. But although Simeon had recently converted to Christianity, he was by birth a Tartar, and his enthronement was an insult to Ivan's subjects, since Russians looked down on the Tartars as inferiors and infidels. Yet Ivan ordered that all Russians, including the boyars, pledge obedience to their new ruler. And while Simeon moved into the Kremlin, Ivan lived in a humble house on Moscow's outskirts, from which he would sometimes visit the palace, bow before the throne, sit among the other boyars, and humbly petition Simeon for favors. Over time it became clear that Simeon was a kind ofking's double. He dressed like Ivan, and acted like Ivan, but he had no real power, since no one would really obey hirn. The boyars at the court who were old enough to remember taunting Ivan when he was a boy, by placing hirn on the throne, saw the connection: They had made Ivan feel like a weak pretender, so now he mirrored them by placing a weak pretender of his own on the throne. For two long years Ivan held the mirror of Simeon up to the Russian people. The mirror said:
Your whining and disobedience have made me a czar with no real power, so I will reflect back to you a czar with no real power. You have treated me disrespectfully, so I will do the same to you, making Russia the laughingstock of the world. In 1577, in the name of the Russian people, the chastised boyars once again begged Ivan to return to the throne, which he did. He lived as czar until his death, in 1584, and the eonspiracies, complaining, and second-guessing disappeared along with Simeon. Interpretation In 1564, after threatening to abdicate, Ivan had been granted absolute powers. But these powers had slowly been chipped away as every sector of soeiety-the boyars, the church, the government-vied for more control. Foreign wars had exhausted the country, internal bickering had increased, and Ivan's attempts to respond had been met with scorn. Russia had turned into a kind of boisterous classroom in which the pupils laughed openly at the teaeher. If he raised his voice or complained, he only met more resistance. He had to te ach them a lesson, give them a taste of their own medieine. Simeon Bekbulatovich was the mirror he used to do so.
After two years in which the throne had been an object of ridicule and disgust, the Russian people leamed their lesson. They wanted their czar back, conceding to hirn all the dignity and respect that the position should always have commanded. For the rest of his reign, Russia and Ivan got along fine. Understand: People are locked in their own experiences. When you whine about some insensitivity on their part, they may seem to understand, but inwardly they are untouched and even more resistant. The goal of power is always to lower people's resistance to you. For this you need tricks, and one trick is to teach them a lesson. Instead of haranguing people verbally, then, create a kind of mirror of their behavior. In doing so you leave them two choices: They can ignore LAW 44 385 386 LAW 44 you, or they can start to think about themselves. And even if they ignore you, you will have planted a seed in their unconscious that will eventually take root. When you mirror their behavior, incidentally, do not be afraid to add a touch of caricature and exaggeration, as Ivan did by enthroning a Tartar-it is the little spiee in the soup that will open their eyes and make them see the ridiculousness in their own actions.
No comments