A flower opens up and an insect is attracted to it. As soon as the insect lands the flower closes and the insect becomes protein. The story in the village is that a fox would open its rear-end in the vicinity of chickens feeding themselves. A chicken gets attracted to the red-looking aperture and attempts to peck at it only to have its head closed and locked in with nowhere to go but become a delicious meal for the fox. Cunning, guile and deception are at work.
As it is with plants and animals, so it should be with us humans. But with us, it becomes tricky and complicated with no clear biological rules---courtesy of the added bonus we have of conscious self-awareness. Even if so, there are rules as was demonstrated by Odysseus.
Effective use of deception presupposes what Sun Tzu called using the Ordinary/Orthodoxy and the Extraordinary. The ordinary is conventional and mundane. You can say and do things to make people believe you are a good person or a very dangerous person. Once a mind assassin has induced the desired state of mind in the subject, then he uses the extraordinary, the unconventional and the unexpected to score. Little sweat and not much blood is shed---winning the war without going to war!
In matters of the heart, boobs are propped, manners are observed and, boom!---like a fly, a boy is trapped and can't sleep until he sees his beloved.
In business we see many instances of bait and switch, or bait and run away with someone's money.
It is in politics where we have all the fun in deceptions. Ronald Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union and shattered its empire to pieces by a false claim that United States was working on a space defense system. Our own dictator has mesmerized the world ever since he was a bandit in the bush and emerged victorious by cunningness, guile and deceptions not unlike of Odysseus. Many young people staked their lives for his supposed cause for freedom and liberation. It turns out it was a bill of goods.
In the end deception is deviousness meant for survival. We all use it at one time or another. Even the smartest amongst us has been taken for a ride and lost a shirt or two. So, what to do?
The first step to minimize the chance of being a sucker is to understand how humans communicate. It is in communication that con artists could be a step ahead of us ordinary folks. Being aware at least gives us a fighting chance of shifting the wheat from the chaff or the real from the fake.
There are three main channels of communications:
---The Intellect or the Conscious by words
---The Unconscious through feelings
---The physical by body movements
Here are some classic use of words to bamboozle by some famous mind assassins:
---You are either with us or with the terrorists
---I think the problem of Africa are leaders who overstay
---I think we are bringing a fundamental change
---Let them get rich
---The NRM is against sectarianism
---I did not have sexual intercourse with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky
The unconscious is usually reflected in body movements without any control of ours. For example, a person verbally says "yes" while shaking his head sideways. That is a tell that he is probably lying.
Overall, we need trusting relationships so that we don't need to deceive or be deceived in order to survive. But it is a dog-eat-dog world yet. Beware!
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