Sometimes it is necessary to conceal your own intentions, especially if your intent is to gain more power. By keeping people off-balance and never revealing your true intentions, you can guide people down the wrong path so far that when they realize you have fooled them, it will be too late. Essentially, to do this is to use decoys.
As a disclaimer, the purpose of these posts is to discuss the ideas portrayed in Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, in this case the Third law: Conceal your intentions. This post is meant to make you think about deception in a different light, from a different point of view. This post is written with the context that you are concealing your intentions to gain some form of power; this doesn’t necessarily have to be malignant.
There are two major ways to conceal your intentions: use decoyed objects to throw people off your track and using smoke screens to camouflage your actions. Using decoys, whether this be false signals or goals, makes it difficult for others to know your real goals. Smoke screens are the most effective strategy to disguise your true intentions. When you lead someone down a path they are familiar with, they are less likely to believe you are leading them into a trap.
Ninon de Lenclos
A notorious courtesan of 17th century France, Ninon de Lenclos was known for her numerous affairs with well-known, prestigious officials. With that experience, some believe she was a master of the art of seduction. Being the expert she was, she was unable to handle the ineptitude of a young man named Marquis de Sevigne, who struggled with his pursuance of a countess. So, Nino helped Marquis in seducing his crush.
First, she had him put some distance between himself and his target, and when they were able to interact, he was to treat her as if she were only a friend and show no romantic interest. This was to throw her off his scent by making her no longer able to take his interests for granted. Once confused by this, Marquis would appear at major functions with other beautiful women to make her feel jealous and show that he is desirable to other women.
The point of the jealousy is making her intrigued. Once intrigued, she was giving Marquis more attention and he was then able to charm her. He went on to be unpredictable, showing up in places where she did not expect him to, but not showing up to places that he was expected. Everything was going well; Marquis was invited to her home where they were to be alone.
Disobeying the third law of power, and Ninon, Marquis caved in and confessed his love for the young woman. From that point on, she avoided him, and their encounters were awkward. He had broken the spell he had on her by revealing his true intentions, and he forever lost his chance to be her lover.
Scrambled signals: a type of decoy
To Ninon, seduction was a game, an artform to be performed. She believed that people were able to tell, deep down, when they were being seduced. However, they enjoyed being led along for the ride, so they would give in. “Everything in seduction, however, depends on suggestion.”[1] This gives reason to concealing your intentions, for in concealing, your true intentions can only be communicated through suggestion. Once Marquis explicitly stated his love for his hopeful countess, he was no longer seducing her through suggestion, and therefore no longer concealing his intentions. This caused the woman to lose interest and Marquis had forever lost his chance.
This is why you must scramble your signals. It keeps the game going, further drawing the other person further and further into your “trap”, in the case of Marquis, a romantic relationship. By confessing his love, Marquis had ended the game.
Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what looks like cunning
Baltasar Gracian, 1601-1658 [2]
Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck was the mastermind behind the reunification of Germany in 1871 and became its first chancellor. However, for our purposes we are looking at how he got to the position of power he was in. In 1850, the Prussian states were trying to unify, but the Austrians would not allow it. The Austrians would declare war on the Prussian states if they were to attempt unification.
The next in line for King of Prussia, Prince William, was all for going to war with Austria. Bismarck himself, a former soldier, dreamed of fighting the Austrians and unifying the Prussian States, for he saw glory in warfare.
However, Bismarck gave a speech to parliament given the name “Woe unto the statesman”, in which he praised Austria for their actions against the Prussian states and talked about the madness of war. This is completely out of his character.
Members of parliament believed that Bismarck had undergone a change of heart, believing that he was now against going to war with Austria, some of them changed their vote. Enough changed their vote that the war was averted. This is important because the reigning king at the time was against going to war and wished to appease the more powerful Austria.
In gratitude towards Bismarck for preventing the war, the king appointed Bismarck to the role of a cabinet minister. For years Bismarck worked his way up until he was the prime minister. Now given the power to increase the military and other relevant powers, Bismarck strengthened the Prussian state’s military and fought a war against Austria. After winning the war, he was able to unify the Prussian states.
Power of Sending Mixed Signals: common decoys
Knowing that the Prussian military was not ready to fight a war against Austria, Bismarck decided not to support the war because if they lost, his career could be over. Instead, he exposes support for a cause that he despised: peace. Due to this decoy with his intentions, he was made a minister by the reigning king where he would move up the ranks and eventually be able to strengthen the military. By sending mixed signals, Bismarck was able to mislead parliament and others to believing he was against the war, therefore concealing his true intent; a move that would eventually give him exactly what he wanted in the first place, power.
The keys to power using decoys
Concealing one’s intentions can be rather difficult at times. It is natural for a person to want to talk about their feelings and plans for the future. Some people give into this urge because they believe that honesty will win other people over to their cause or at least make them sympathize with it. However, this isn’t the case. “Honesty is actually a blunt instrument, which bloodies more than it cuts.”[3] A lot of the times when a person is honest, it can offend the people they are trying to win over.
Also, to trust appearances is a natural instinct. This is usually easier than the alternative, doubt everything and believe everything has ulterior motives, and this tends to terrify those who follow this line of thinking. This is why portraying decoys of your intentions can be so effective because others can take the goal you seem to be following as a reality. Also, it is not normal for a person to play with their beliefs so lightly, leading others to believe you have had a change of heart as we saw in the story of Otto von Bismarck.
However, you must be careful not to appear secretive when you are concealing your intentions, as this will have a negative effect on your progress as it makes people suspicious. This is why it is important to send misleading signals. If you do not send out any signals, people tend to view that as secretive and will become suspicious. On the other hand, if you are sending out signals by talking a lot about your “intentions”, this will be prevented, just do not talk about your real intentions.
A final tool in the arsenal that is able to throw people off your scent is false sincerity. You must appear to truly believe what you say, otherwise very few people will actually trust you, and others will scorn you. False sincerity can be so effective because people can mistake it for honesty, but again, only if you seem to truly believe the sincerity you are attempting to falsely portray. One downfall of this is that you cannot seem to be over passionate, as this will also make people suspicious.
You must appear honest in front of the public. As Greene states,
The best deceivers do everything they can to cloak their roguish qualities. They cultivate an air of honesty in one area to disguise their dishonesty in others. Honesty is merely another decoy in their arsenal of weapons.
Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power, pg. 22
Conclusions
Again, to be explicit, this pertains to positions of power. It could probably be argued that it could apply to anyone outside of your immediate, most intimate circle of people. Your relationships between your spouse and family members should be based on a foundation of truth, at least I believe it should be. Outside of that, the argument to conceal your intentions grows significantly as you move further and further away from those closest to you. For example, some stranger doesn’t really need (or care) to hear about your life story and what your future plans are. This law is applicable to competitors and most obvious (at least to me) politics. With politics, it is what it is. That is where (unfortunately) the most power is held.
The biggest reason for these posts is to pose philosophical questions. I try to focus on presenting the argument as the author presents it, saving most of the commentary for the end. This is something that is meant to spark discussion and continuous thought. Remain open-minded, understand the context in which the argument is made, and try to understand how the argument will change as the context is changed.
Constant Learning. Constant Improvement. That’s the point.
To your wealth and future,
James Forsythe
The 48 Laws of Power on Amazon
For more philosophy and personal development related posts
https://jamesdforsythe.com/category/personaldevelopment/
[1] The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene pg. 18
[2] Quoted from Ibid. Pg. 19
[3] Ibid. Pg. 20
[4] Ibid. Pg. 22
