Following my email yesterday about a new 2-star review of my 10 Commandments book, a bit of a discussion developed inside my community, Daily Email House, around the topic of:
“How do you deal with trolls, critics, and know-it-alls in your audience?”
One House member replied that she “stopped caring and installed a ‘mean’ part of me that can trigger people.”
To which another House member replied with some interesting historical context:
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The Internet has been like this since the age of the dinosaurs (the 1990s) when all we had were chat room and Usenet lists to abuse each other.
Back when everything was anonymous I did the same thing: develop a “mean” persona to play online because that’s the only way to survive a forest of predators.
After online turned social [sic] and we gave up on privacy, the urge to be a jerk behind a screen never went away.
It’s convinced me that a good portion of the public suffers from some kind of mental or emotional disturbance.
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But if a good portion of the public has a mental or emotional disturbance… is it a disturbance any longer?
I’m not trying to be cute or contrary.
Rather, I think the House member above is on to a key insight about human nature.
It’s not that people are brutes by nature. But they do have a core human drive — let’s call it Drive X for the sake of mystery — which can turn them brutish.
Drive X is not the drive for sex, the way that Sigmund Freud taught.
It’s also not the drive for meaning in life, the way Victor Frankl taught.
Rather, Drive X is something entirely different, which permeates all our interactions with other human beings, online as well as offline.
When left unsatisfied, Drive X gives rise to brutish behavior.
But when Drive X is satisfied, people become open and relaxed and even compliant.
Which is why the world’s top influence professionals — from con men to copywriters to screenwriters — appeal to this Drive X and promise to satisfy it in their marks, prospects, and audiences, first and foremost, above all other considerations.
And that’s why, in my 10 Commandments book, I make Drive X the topic of the very first commandment, because it is PARAMOUNT.
If you have my 10 Commandments book already, you know what Drive X is, or you can look it up easily, at the end of Commandment I.
And if you don’t have my 10 Commandments book yet, you can find it below, and catch up to everyone who is clued in already: