So manipulation is a bad thing, right? But only immoral people do that, right? I had envisioned manipulation as something only Iagos did to Othellos. So were my thoughts on the first days of class when thinking about manipulation.
If there's one thing this class has done well, it has made me more aware of manipulation. Simply put, everything exerts some sort of manipulation on a person, including themselves. It can be positive, or negative, incentivized by business (I'm looking at you fushigi ball) but I think at this point we can all define many influences exerted on us. I don't think I really wanted to think about manipulation at first. There's a popular ideal that there's one "true" you and you just are "yourself". Enter the concept of manipulation. That's honestly kind of scary for someone to think about, to actually think and define the forces in your life and then possibly discover something....ugly about what it does to you. But instead of growing increasingly more and more cynical as time went on, I'm growing to accept it, to identify it, and to act upon it. To quote Arcade Fire, (I'm taking such a cue from Emily right now) "Sleeping is giving in / no matter what the time is". We can close our eyes to the manipulation around us and live our "true" selves, or acknowledge it. Which is more rewarding?
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