Here’s one that’s been on my desk too long: How does humanism judge modern manipulation and what role does manipulation have in a humanist ethics? Can humanism enlighten manipulation with ethical limits? Is humanism a sensible philosophy in a world of manipulation?

The humanist worldview is from a simpler time, before existential power games, mass media advertising, human system dynamics, cognitive science, and analysis. A basic tenant of humanism is rational self-creation. But naive self-creation is a myth, and a poisonous one. From soul to sole, we’re products of our culture, our peers, our privileges, and the deepest quirks of our individual complexes. There’s still a powerful role for a kind of free will, but not– for lack of a better term– Christian freedom.

Manipulation– the subverting of self-determinism– is a constant fact of modern life. It comes in two distinct forms. Micro manipulation– between two people– is the art of management, seduction, and psychology. Macro manipulation– moving a population– is the science of politics, business, and culture. In recent years, both branches have been honed to lettersharp points.

George Lakoff is a cognitive linguist whose Don’t Think of an Elephant brought to the left what Jerry Falwell did for the right. He showed that the battleground of politics is in authoring the public discourse. If people are arguing for or against tax relief and partial-birth abortion, the public mind will reach predictable conclusions; if they hear about clean sky bills and public protection attorneys, they’ll reach others.

Lakoff attacks the enlightenment myth that “the truth will set us free.” Humanism claims that “if we just tell people the facts, since people are basically rational beings, they’ll reach the right conclusions.” But facts alone are inert. People make decisions based on emotional appeal, conceptual framing, and social perceptions. Lakoff’s human is a thermometer in a soup of cultural memes.

Our mechanism for choosing between conflicting truths transcends reason. Reason only works within the context of a consistent frame of meaning. Since every idea comes with its own frame, conflicting ideas can seem internal reasonable. Even our ability to choose a single frame for judging ideas is questionable: if you activate a frame enough in someone’s head by speaking from it, and it will naturally become their default frame.

Classical humanism excuses a piece of the human creature from its context. Humanism says that we are capable of creating in ourselves and the world a utopia of free actors. It’s not clear, however, that we want such a utopia, even if it’s possible. Manipulation is useful, and can be used for good as easily as for ill.

Certainly some manipulation is necessary and helpful for children, to keep them safe and nurture self-awareness. Plus, without being indoctrinated into a culture, the human animal cannot grow. The idealist humanist transcends culture, but culture is a necessary and irreversible step in that path.

In moderation, manipulation is a powerful tool in psychology and education. People get stuck in ruts, develop ill-founded conceptions of the world, and forget to use the full extent of their abilities. External intervention is caring.

The world is too full of facts and opinions and options that political and cultural expression is necessary, and all expression is manipulative. Without loud and repeated expositions on the situations in Darfur and Iraq, or of gay rights and art expositions, people forget.

Everything we say and do contains an unavoidable element of manipulation. Our privileged role as Sartrian Others infuses every action and inaction with meaning. Every relationship has an element of power struggle, each of us trying grapple others into acknowledging our existence as free-willed, indefinable beings.

The pervasiveness and necessity of manipulation demands that we use it consciously. The potential for hurting others by its unacknowledged use is enormous. Refusing to acknowledge manipulation is disavowing responsibility for it. Good people have a responsibility to develop their powers of manipulation, micro and macro.

But necessity is not a justification for unhindered use. There are ways to manipulate more and less, and more and less appropriate situations, approaches, and responses.

One possible principle is that manipulation must be used in the service of providing for free choice. For example, the purpose of education is to raise people who have the background and skills necessary to teach themselves. Manipulation in psychotherapy should be limited to making clients more capable of making choices in their lives.

Troublingly, this conception of manipulation is always as a means to an end, with the end being the only justification for the means. Moreover, it’s the particular Kantian evil of making another person into a means to one’s own ends. How much manipulation is allowable for how lofty of ends? And if 50’s era housewives delude themselves into being mostly happy, who’s to say their lack of choice is wrong?

Another solution is to respect a kind of anarchy, in honoring the right to refuse. If everyone can start life as independent and free and with 50 acres and a mule surrounded by high walls, any connections they choose to make are a consensual invitation to be manipulated. But that is a fantasy world. We are not free in that way, we cannot live independently from society, and there is no exit from our fellow human beings.

We need a new conception of humans and humanity for the modern world. Human choice is a medley of manipulation, and manipulation is a prerequisite to choice. Manipulation is not the Schopenhauer’s beastly exertion of power—it is amongst the highest and most noble arts of which humankind of capable.

Manipulation is a fundamental relation between people. The myth of the rugged individual disconnects our selves from our framing, the manipulative relations that constantly create us.

We need Martin Buber’s gestalt shift to the supremacy of the relationship. Buber says that there is no “I”, only sides of the “I-It” and “I-You” relations. To be the “I” in an “I-It” relation is to manipulate. For Buber’s, the “I-You” relation was one of passive appreciation, but that is exactly the attitude of openness to manipulation.

We have freedom and choice, but it is a free-will negotiated in concert with Others. The ethics of manipulation are reflected back on us immediately, because they define us. To manipulate another as a means to an end is to oneself become a means. To subvert another’s humanity—even in the service of helping the rise more powerfully from the ashes—is to become an accessory to that process.

Humanism holds that self-service is a natural good. Because of our rationality, our humanity, the fact of our social existence and the goodness inherent in free choice, the path to utopia is in our ability to improve our own situations. If ever more powerful modes of manipulation seem to sour self-service, the problem is not in manipulation, but in our selves.