the many psychological corollaries that constitute such things.
Chiefly, we see here the element of role-playing: the moment the passerby donated to the beggar, a miniature drama unfurled, in which each player assumed a role in their respective mind. The beggar became, rather, The Beggar, and the passerby, The Samaritan, with a profound psychological change accompanying the shift. So powerful is this effect, it would likely induce distinct, measurable effects in the role-players, bringing about an altered state of consciousness in the way of a drug, as to be seen in bearing and gait and facial expression. When it comes to such radical psychological shifts, the line between fantasy and reality is blurred, so that, in some small way, The Beggar and The Samaritan are truly real, if only in the role-players’ heads.
Once the roles are assumed, the hidden emotional transaction occurs. Here, the role-players exchange eye-contact and something passes between them, and that’s when the magic truly begins. You’re okay, The Beggar’s eyes and body language say to his donor. I’m okay, The Samaritan thinks in response, and actually feels okay (because, after all, giving to the poor must indicate a good, upright person, correct?). And so we see what has really transacted: not some money, but approval, which is every bit as valuable (if not far more so). And, more important is what wasn’t transacted: the beggar’s disapproval, that intangible poison leveraged against civilized man for time out of mind. Had the passerby not opened his wallet, what foul things might the beggar’s nonverbals have implied? Then, might The Samaritan have instead been cast as The Villain? And how much was it worth to avoid that judgment ...?
When the beggar set out his hat and donned a woebegone expression, he was, really, setting up shop: selling approval and reassurance (and the withholding of disapproval). And, with enough discretion, no one is the wiser in this trade, buyer and seller alike.
As it were, such subtle, psychological incentives are present in most any transaction, these days.
From business to love to politics, transactions are rampant, and often as clandestine as that described above. Some situations are more inclined in this direction than others, and some people are more inclined; but, in one way or another, transactions are almost always active in our affairs. Because our world currently operates primarily on a brute-force system of incentives and punishments, it’s only natural that we would conduct ourselves in this manner, transacting various hidden, psycho-emotional “goods” beneath the surface of our actions. And, because we have largely abandoned honesty and accountability (yet have not admitted this condition), there are efforts to keep our transactions beneath the surface of things, as to maintain our illusions of a sound, sensible society, where no such illogical head-games take place. For these reasons, our hidden transactions will often be disguised by elaborate means, as to conceal the true nature of what is actually occurring, especially for those most offending to our beliefs of who we really are and what we’re really about. In today’s world, the truth wears a veil of acceptability.
When palms are greased with a bribe, it’s never in so many words, but instead in “fees” or “considerations” or other euphemisms. The same goes for the psychological equivalents, so that a beggar’s vending of approval is shrouded in charity and goodwill.
Hidden transactions are not limited to the large-scale, being just as relevant on the individual level. They frequently filter into our daily routines and affairs, and even our relationships—especially relationships. The most obvious are the romantic, as with the classic “marriage of convenience” in which spouses transact with one another various services and benefits under the guise of “love.” However, friendships and acquaintances are just as viable for transacting invisible “commodities,” as with the beggar and the passerby. We offer one another utility, as it were, and in ways that might be so subtle and obscure that we remain unaware of them even as we engage in them.
This pattern repeats itself in the macrocosm, right up into our industries, governments, and institutions.
Were appearances to be believed, we operate on patently upright causes: the humble, world-bettering civil servant; the selfless, sacrificial laborer striving to put food on the table; the scientist working for the betterment of mankind—people doing Good Things, under the banner of Good Causes. Sometimes these appearances are accurate; others, however, not so much, for surface appearances can conceal a great many things, usually rather contrary to observed behavior or stated goals—things such as psycho-emotional transactions and the incentives they run on, for instance. That’s not to say that appearances and intentions never factor into it; rather, they might not be the primary incentives, instead being secondary to some deeper drive or desire (perhaps of a somehow offensive or unacceptable nature). To know the actual reality of ourselves and the seen world, we must take such hidden components into question.
Examples surround us. Consider the statesman who primarily holds office not to serve the public, but to gratify an emotional need for power and stature. Or, the police officer who desires a license for punishment of others, rather than reducing crime or protecting communities. Or, the soldier who goes to war not because of patriotic duty, but to gain the admiration of their peers (while simultaneously avoiding their disapproval). Even some charities engage in such transactional doublethink, going so far that their humanitarian goals are completely secondary to catering to the emotional and psychological desires of their contributors. I certainly don’t mean to imply that everyone chooses their jobs purely in pursuit of these spurious transactions and their emotional payoff (or that there is even something inherently wrong in doing so). Rather, I just use these as examples to illustrate the subtle, perhaps odd-sounding incentives which can lie right under our noses, in even the most seemingly respectable circles. And, make no mistake: no circle is immune to such incentives and their transactional drama. That spurious element resides everywhere, as much we might like to think otherwise.
Some transactions are more obvious than others, but they are almost always there. And, furthermore, they can be to ill effect, for they naturally involve unreality and self-deception in some measure, such as the role-playing between the beggar and the passerby. And therein lies the potential for unhealthy consequences, for behavior of this sort gives way to illusionary thinking, as to distort our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world at large.
At this point, you might be thinking, “So life is riddled with transactions and other hidden rigmarole—what of it?” A good, valid question, and an understandable one, for many of the transactions in question might appear rather benign. After all, isn’t it The Samaritan’s right to get off on playing The Samaritan, if he so chooses? Or, maybe the approval-seeking soldier is fighting the war for the wrong reasons, but the war will still be fought, no? In regards to the latter, this line of reasoning is not wrong, and it crosses into the territory of philosophy, raising age-old questions such as whether the act or the intention matters more. However, this reasoning is shortsighted, for it doesn’t take into account the big picture and long-term consequences.
Ultimately, this essay’s point is twofold. First, it seeks to simply acknowledge our many hidden transactions, as, given their spurious and often undesirable nature, they can all too easily be missed (especially with so much vested interest in their being missed). Then, the second point is that our transactions have consequences, which goes double considering our tendency to pretend that neither transaction nor consequence exist. Make no mistake: despite any surface appearance of harmlessness, our transactions can and do exert a great effect on the world at large, in ways that their participants might be fully unmet by.
Of these consequences, the most prominent is the most silent: that our hidden emotional transactions are hidden, and that we actively try to keep it that way—that we try and suppress actual reality, as it were. Nothing is more dangerous than a society which actively denies reality and gravitates towards illusions of various effect, as has been repeated many times in my writings. And, by regarding our tran
sactions in such there-but-not fashion, so that they reside in that netherworld of things which are winkingly ignored and elided, illusionary thinking is precisely the effect we exert on ourselves and one another, eventually shaping greater society and, in time, the world.
This unreality is best seen in our general psychological and social ecology. When we encourage a mental landscape of distorted perceptions and their accompanying behavior, it often gives way to confusion in thought and action, thus translating into a nominally confused state of things, where our hidden transactions and incentives work invisibly, there but not there—the fabled “tangled web” that we collectively weave. This effect varies between different people and circumstances, of course; for one aware of their transactions on at least some level, in some terms, their thinking will be less distorted overall than for, say, one totally unaware of this hidden economy active within society. Dangerous is such innocence, for such a person might not think of transactions period, in any terms whatsoever, accurate or not—caught up in the “web,” as it were. For these folk, their