>I was heavily indoctrinated in the language of self-control, responsibility, and accountability, and these made me easy to exploit. My own "red pill" moment involved understanding these as tools of power rather than facts of the world, thereby freeing myself to better represent my own interests.
Can you give some clearer examples? I am curious how this is done in those circles.
Having self-control can give a false sense of self-righteousness, and if you're not careful, this will lead to you eventually caring about how you look and you will do whatever it takes to maintain the image of self-control/responsibility. If you carefully analyze this, you are now basing your self-worth on external appearances, therefore you are giving your control away to anyone who can see this projection. Anyone experienced with controlling others can sniff out this projection and then use it against you in this way: "We need to think about the importance of handling this (X) responsibly. What do you think we should do?". Now they are telling you they think you can make responsible decisions on an important decision, stroking your projected ego, and they've activated your want to act responsibly to do something for them.
Now, it doesn't always mean that this is a way someone is manipulating you. Self-control is realizing that this ego-stroke feeling of making you feel important does not mean to need to involve yourself or act. You need to separate the emotion from the decision-making process and realize that others can use your emotions to manipulate you. It's up to you to decide whether you can trust this person or not, you just need to be aware that the emotion could have been intentional or unintentional.
I grew up in central Pennsylvania farm country. This is a conservative area that has voted republican in every presidential election since Lincoln. The area is also rich in both Amish and Mennonite families. When a whole area is so packed with conservative ideas and individual it has a strong effect on what is "common sense". Common sense is not generally universal it is culturally based.
The best example I can think of is that 85% of the kids in my High School had the same haircut and rarely left the area. Suddenly mTV arrived on cable and the kids and hairstyles went wild. I know of parents calling the cable company to get mTV removed from the home(unsuccessfully).
Can you give some clearer examples? I am curious how this is done in those circles.