A lot of this discussion seems to get down to what precisely is manipulation. A few definitions have been provided, and I'll repeat a few of them, but in a scan these are the ones google offered that seem relevant to the psychological process I think is being discussed:
exerting shrewd or devious influence especially for one's own advantage; "his manipulation of his friends was scandalous"
manipulate - influence or control shrewdly or deviously; "He manipulated public opinion in his favor"
manipulate - control (others or oneself) or influence skillfully, usually to one's advantage
Control or influence seems essential.
The OP described
attempts to control the variables in our environment. I think this is a key distinction. One can be skillful or clever or devious or shrewd in
attempts to control or influence, but I don't believe it is ever certain that the desired outcome will be achieved. Control speaks to me of certainty of outcome.
If we are talking about attempts to control then, or influence, what makes the outcome uncertain? How the recipient of the attempted manipulation will ultimately
choose to react. That choice may be based on a shrewdly constructed presentation by the manipulator, or on outright deceptions, but something in the presentation will have inspired the recipient of the manipulation to respond in a certain way and that choice belongs to the recipient.
I think part of what makes manipulation so scary is that is often plays to parts of our self that we do not want to acknowledge, but that the one manipulating is somehow aware of and taking advantage of. So when we have chosen to respond to a manipulation, we may be uncomfortable with what ends up feeling like a breach to our sense of control over our self. It feels like a violation. The manipulator has often broken into and entered our experience of self through avenues we've stopped looking at because they don't fit with our self-constructed sense of self. When we see those parts of self choosing to express through the manipulator's finesse, we often have difficulty incorporating what we have chosen to participate in with what we would consciously choose to create as our self-expression. That expression seems not us--not our choice, and so must be the result of something bad and out of our control...the manipulator. The thing is I don't think we do anything psychologically that we don't choose to do.
Just because manipulation is done to the manipulators own advantage, often targets parts of our self that we choose to close our eyes to, and involves some degree of shrewd or even devious presentation, does not, in my mind, make it bad. It just makes it clever, shrewd, devious attempts to influence others or control variables to the manipulator's advantage. If we choose to engage, then I think it reveals something about what we wanted to believe. Rather than devote energy to condemning the manipulation, it might be wiser to devote energy to integrating whatever the manipulation revealed that left us uncomfortable, so that we have a stronger presence the next time we engage with someone manipulative and we can choose with more of our conscious power in play.
