Of Captatio

As far as I could notice, the origin of all hate and despise seems to originate from the feeling of being threatened by something. It was an important realization for me, as I could protect myself from waves of hate by analyzing why such things were menacing to me. The realization then helped me being more aware of incoming waves of mindtraps common to a threatened mind. Distrust usually is followed by Polarization and other kinds of mindtraps. There's also the matter of Petty Realization, which, as said before, comes from lack of respect, which we, most understandably, don't have for things that we feel that threaten us.

It's important for me to minimize any unnecessary motif of threat to others, as it brings unnecessary troubles, plus it's noticeable in their behavior when your presence doesn't quite bring comfort. It's quite complicated for me, because I always felt I lack the charisma to win other's estimation, so I always distrust the effectiveness of my communication skills (which involves all means of communicating things, so I'm talking about physical appearance and all).

This is, after all, an important matter for me, as I have problems feeling I ever stablished any successful communication with others (and when I did it was always mere luck, I don't want luck ruling my success). So, as far as I could notice communication seems to occur more smoothly when a common frequency is stablished between both ends. The lack of such a frequency is what creates misunderstandings, mistakes and unnecessary disagreements. Sympathy is its name.

The lack of sympathy will make you struggle to prove your point with a  violent effort, while the other end constantly struggles against you. But achieving it will make their minds work to make an effort to understand your point. Gaining the audience's sympathy is a matter of shifting the audience's orientation from outwards to inwards (and for some reason my sociality has always been ruled by this outward orientation, as I feel I have to make the greatest effort to not let people go away from me, which simply seems to be their natural inclination - it's revolting to say the least, as I can't seem to think of a way to make them stay close to me simply by their own will).

Apparently, sympathy is nothing short of being the Holy Grail of communication. And then I've learned there are literary and rethorical techniques to create a sympathetic audience. One of them is called Captatio Benevolentiae, which is to gain the reader/viewer's grace at first impression. It's a technique to attain the audience's respect, thus protecting yourself from petty realizations. Some will go wrong by putting all the effort in the first sequence. All movies, books, games and music (and all forms of art and expression that feature sequentiality) in which their intro is the best and by far the most (and usually only) impressive part I see as an example of a badly implemented Captatio Benevolentiae. This is the reason why I prefer an opposite form of Captatio, which I'll just call Captatio Malevolentiae.

I've noticed in a few rare works of art that the first impression is boldly made to lower expectations of the audience by making things look awful, or, more accurately, remarkably unimpressive. This is what makes it a risky bet, because you start by making purposeful mistakes that will create the very opposite frequency you want to achieve, and you have to be double-skilled to regain their sympathy. By lowering their expectations, you lower their guards against the Awesome you're preparing. If the audience's estimation is regained, the effort pays off with more impact than mere benevolent methods.

As an ending note, I want to add a Fire Extinguisher, as I feel threatened by potential readers and therefore I distrust their possible interpretations of things I said. This is by no means a form of manipulation, at least not by itself (it's a technique with political potential to it, pretty much like religion). Sure we see people who use this technique to deceive us and alienate us, but this is just a polarization and refusal of a very important technique for those interested in rethorics as a mean of simply achieving an effective form of communication.