addressee was to do what was ordered, Braun was likely to fire you because Braun

well knew that ideas got through best when reasons for the ideas were

meticulously laid out.

 

In general, learning is most easily assimilated and used when, life long, people

consistently hang their experience, actual and vicarious, on a lattice- work of

theory answering the question: Why? Indeed, the question “Why?” is a sort of

Rosetta stone opening up the major potentiality of mental life.

 

Unfortunately, Reason-Respecting Tendency is so strong that even a person’s

giving of meaningless or incorrect reasons will increase compliance with his

orders and requests. This has been demonstrated in psychology experiments

wherein “compliance practitioners” successfully jump to the head of the lines in

front of copying machines by explaining their reason: “I have to make some

copies.” This sort of unfortunate byproduct of Reason-Respecting Tendency is a

conditioned reflex, based on a widespread appreciation of the importance of

reasons. And, naturally, the practice of laying out various claptrap reasons is

much used by commercial and cult “compliance practitioners” to help them get

what they don’t deserve.

 

Twenty-Five: Lollapalooza Tendency—The Tendency to Get Extreme Consequences from

Confluences of Psychological Tendencies Acting in Favor of a Particular Outcome

 

This tendency was not in any of the psychology texts I once examined, at least

in any coherent fashion, yet it dominates life. It accounts for the extreme