Meddling Manipulators Aren’t Just Nuisances. They’re Dangerous

Almost everyone has heard of Socrates’ famous dictum “Know thyself.” Less well-known, however, is his dogged insistence that the key to wisdom and healthy human relating is to “mind your own business.”

After many years of studying philosophy and psychology, I still think his admonition to “mind your own business” is one of the greatest philosophical reminders of all time. However, we can be sure that his statement is not about the everyday notion of “minding your own business” — or rather, our everyday notion is just the tip of an immense and portentous iceberg.

In Socrates’ view, the “business” of a healthy, evolving human being revolves around personal awakening, learning, and informed communication. He was also a master psychologist who was way ahead of his time in his emphasis on self-knowledge and strong — yet flexible — personal boundaries.

Socrates didn’t suffer fools gladly. Yet, he also knew that directly opposing and “trying to change” fools, manipulators, and meddling busybodies was a fool’s errand. It simply doesn’t work. Ever. Instead, he chose to engage with them without surrendering to them or letting them influence his words and behavior. He was respectful, but simultaneously piercing and relentless in his questioning and famed Socratic dialogues.

In this way, Socrates modeled healthy self-awareness, strong boundaries, and respectful interaction with others — even those who hate, despise, or oppose you. In a sense, he embodied a complete, compassionate expression of love in action.

Who are all these intrusive meddlers and manipulators?

To better understand what Socrates was driving at, it may be helpful to contemplate the opposite type of human being: those who have little self-awareness, no desire to become more self-aware, and instead experience unending desires and an endless “need” to manipulate reality and meddle in others’ lives.

These folks are the ambitious go-getters that we tend to admire in our frenetic, capitalist culture. But they also include all sorts of “control freaks,” busybodies, and religious “true believers” who are intent on controlling, manipulating, or “converting” others. The overall result is endless, pitiless, and even vicious meddling.

The one thing these folks can’t and won’t tolerate is the idea that we can just accept others and live in peace. In other words, they utterly refuse to follow or abide by “live and let live.” Rather, they — even many so-called “loving Christians” — want full control and have no interest at all in supporting others’ freedom to do and live as they wish. These folks are all supreme meddlers, and their self-worth is totally wrapped up in the effectiveness of their intrusions and overt (or covert) meddling.

Put differently, these intrusive meddlers are in it only for themselves, no matter what they say or how they posture otherwise. They do not have others’ best interests at heart, and thus cannot be trusted. Not with anything — and especially not with governing and running our societies.

Yet who do we find running things and “governing” us? Usually, it’s exactly these people — the precise ones we should run from in horror and refuse to let anywhere near the reins of government. Instead, we grovel, prostrate ourselves, and meekly offer them even more power. We buy into their self-serving “altruistic” disguise, over and over again, and keep electing them and subjecting ourselves to grotesque violation and abuse.

That’s the sad bottom line, folks. These intrusive, manipulative meddlers are all, deep down, major and unrepentant abusers — who flourish as they delight in oppressing and abusing their victims, namely us.

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A helpful continuum of consciousness

Of course, the more centered we are in our true selves and the more self-aware and “grounded” we are, the less susceptible we are to the lies and manipulations of these meddling hypocrites. And these meddlers and manipulators are everywhere! If we imagine a continuum ranging from consciousness/acceptance on one end to total non-self-awareness and continual meddling/manipulation on the other, the vast majority of humanity falls somewhere in the middle — though often much closer to the “continual meddling/manipulation” end.

Throughout history, only a tiny minority of humans has ever embodied the full “consciousness/acceptance” end of the spectrum. Likewise, only a tiny minority inhabits the full-scale “non-self-awareness and endless meddling/manipulation” end of the spectrum. (This continuum looks like the famed “bell curve.”)

Yet these full-time, intrusive, and destructive meddlers are often the people who most influence our societies and do the most damage. We need only think of Donald Trump, Putin, and Israel’s Netanyahu to see the vast extent of the damage and social and international craziness this type of person can instigate. Trump, in particular, seems to thrive on a steady diet of meddling, insults, abuse, personal attacks, lawsuits, and other vicious control tactics. (He is even known as “the king of lawsuits.”)

Overall, these folks are among the most selfish, greedy, narcissistic, and abusive humans on the planet. Yet we let them take power — and then bend the knee while they oppress and abuse us. How crazy is that?! Yet in our current societies, these horrors are considered “normal” or “just the way things are.”

NO! They are not “normal,” and they are NOT “just the way things are” — unless we ourselves allow it and set ourselves up to be oppressed and abused. We the people have allowed these human monsters to take control and flourish — and only we can take our power back. They certainly won’t relinquish their power voluntarily.

Minding our own business is the ultimate, loving gift to humanity

This giant dilemma brings us right back to the issue of “minding our own business.” How? Well, such tyrannical “control freaks” are always going to be with us, apparently, as are the vast multitudes of semi-conscious “sheeple” who willingly allow themselves to be controlled and abused.

Neither way of being is at all satisfactory, loving, or caring — since both lead only to more and more “empty (human) vessels.” Neither one is in any way enlivening or empowering, though tyrannical meddlers like Trump and Putin always imagine they are all-powerful and in total control.

No, the only path to real, healthy empowerment and deep self-awareness is through “minding your own business.” Paradoxically, when we truly and deeply mind our own business, we get far more centered in ourselves and our empathic hearts, and in effect “become someone” — for real. We’re no longer just empty, needy vessels.

We become real. Then, we can truly care for and about our fellow humans — perhaps for the first time — since we are already fulfilled and inwardly “satisfied.” Then, we no longer have to invade, intrude, meddle, or manipulate others to get what we want.

The ultimate solution for human misery and conflict, paradoxically, is for people to “mind their own business.” That way, though it may seem selfish, we can give others the space to be themselves and be both non-judgmental and magnanimous.

Minding our own business, properly understood, is perhaps the ultimate gift we can give others — and ourselves.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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