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Joy in the Present
      

21st April 2000

Metaphoric Entrapment in Time

avoiding the trap of Project Logic

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Introduction
Four possibilities of metaphoric entrapment?
Detachment from embodiment within traps
Varieties of trap
Challenge of recognizing traps of different order
Traps as attention sinks
Designing "better" attention traps
Designing arrays of traps
Attitudes towards entrapment: entrapment policies
Project Logic: an undetected policy trap?
Entrapment and comitment
"Tao" -- the "way" between traps?
References

Introduction

We are all exposed to a variety of conceptual frameworks and beliefs, as well as to a wide range of designed physical environments. The arts provide us with cultural analogues. The academic world provides us with conceptual analogues in the form of models and theories. Spiritual leaders provide us with ethical and mystical variants. We are variously entranced by these and may creatively use our capacity to engender our own, possibly to entrance others. International initiatives endeavour to persuade people of the unquestionable merit of particular ethical or explanatory frameworks -- as a basis for particular patterns of action into which most will be hopefully mobilized.

This paper is concerned with the ways in which we are entrapped by the metaphors that underly such patterns. It is concerned with clarifying the nature of the entrapment process and how it helps to understand who we are as the entrapped -- or as the entrappers. The term "entrapment" is used to provoke recognition of the extent to which people are trapped, or endeavour to trap others as part of their working mandate or their interpersonal dynamics. But this exploration is also designed to highlight how some form of "entrapment" seems to be a necessary in order to constrain and discipline our physical, social and conceptual behavior. There is thus an ambiguity to appropriate understanding of entrapment as a characteristic of civilization as currently understood.

This exploration derives its inspiration from four observations:

  • Personal violence is for the amateur in dominance; structural violence is the tool of the professional. The amateur who wants to dominate uses guns; the professional uses social structure. The legal criminality of the social system and its institutions, of government, and of individuals at the interpersonal level is tacit violence. Structural violence is a structure of exploitation and social injustice. It seems to survive very well the changes from a slave society, via a feudal and capitalist order, to lodge in a socialist society. (Johan Galtung)

  • A trap is a function of the nature of the trapped (Geoffrey Vickers. Freedom in a Rocking Boat : Changing values in an unstable society, 1972)

  • The world we inhabit is abundant beyond our wildest imagination... Still many are bothered...and they react accordingly -- they try to "block off" what disturbs them. For them the world is too complicated and they want to simplify it further... The search for reality that accompanied the growth of Western civilization played an important role in the process of simplifying the world... What we find, with very few exceptions, are intellectual leaders repeating slogans which they cannot explain and which they often violate, anxious slaves following in their footsteps and institutions offering or withdrawing money in accordance with the fashions of the day... (Paul Feyerabend. Conquest of Abundance, 1999)

  • In contrast with what is commonly assumed, a description, when carefully inspected, reveals the properties of the observer. We observers, distinguish ourselves precisely by distinguishing what we apparently are not, the world. (Francisco Varela)

Galtung's identification of structural violence may be extended to include the many invidious forms of easily deniable conceptual violence that justify and reinforce the attitudinal traps into which people are forced. Vickers suggests the extent to which entrapment is an unrecognized function of attitude and comprehension -- and possibly self-imposed. Feyerabend clarifies how such conceptual constraints reduce the richness of an abundant reality. Varela points out the self-reflexive consequences of this approach -- and the extent to which such traps are not the world.

Four possibilities of metaphoric entrapment?

It may be useful to distinguish the following situations in which metaphoric entrapment occurs:

  • Entrapping others: In this mode, individuals or groups, whether intentionally or inadvertently, set up a dynamic that entraps others within a particular metaphoric framework. This is most clearly seen in modern advertising campaigns, whether for commercial, political, or other purposes. It might be considered an important skill of leaders and intimately related to any charisma they may possess -- notably in the case of leaders of religious movements, and especially cults. In all these forms, the process may be described as "manipulative" -- as exemplified by the current visibility of political "spin-doctors". In interpersonal situations, it may be described as "doing a number" on someone, or using "a line". Much sales training is concerned with developing this facility. But any effort to "market" a perspective, including that of a particular academic school of thought, is a variant of this form -- including many aspects of courtship processes. Consultants may be considered successful to the extent that they can entrain clients into use of their favourite model. Of course there is also the form of entrapment associated over the centuries with witchcraft and sorcery, if only in folk tales. In this case it is named as spell-casting, and it continues to be practised both within groups in western society as well as in traditional societies. But story-telling and spinning tales are appreciated for the pleasures, insights and nourishment they bring.

  • Entrapping oneself: In this mode, a person cultivates a pattern of belief or enthusiasm by which he or she effectively become entrapped. Unlike the previous case, it is not necessary that the person become subject to some pattern deployed by others. Rather, through their own life experience and proclivities, a belief pattern takes form and acquires increasing coherence. In its pathological forms this would be labelled as delusion, and can acquire cumulative power so that the person is "sucked into" it, as with a whirlpool or blackhole. However, the process of developing a romantic attachment, or falling in love, might also be seen in this light. But so would the inordinate desire for a particular experience -- an addictive habit. Clearly entrapping oneself can be facilitated by interaction with others in which case the entrapment process is reinforced by such interaction -- possibly through a form of co-dependency.

  • Being entrapped by others: This is the counterpart to the first form, and some measure of the second. In this case one is subject to an entrapment process, or "buys into it" in some way. At a material level, this is perhaps most clearly seen in the case of a design produced by others that one finds pleasing or appropriate, or at least tolerable. In contemporary society product branding ensures that consumers are entrapped with little freedom to escape -- as in the environments created by restaurant and hotel chains. People are conditioned to accept the aesthetics of such designs. Expressed in the language of folk tales, one becomes entranced through appropriate enchantment. Legitimacy is occasionally given to it by mainstream preoccupation with "de-programming", or even "exorcism". Again, however, the courtship response to a suitor may be seen in this light.

  • Developing a framework: Without seeking to question the merits of the previous forms, there is a sense in which each of them depends on a measure of lack of awareness, whether on the part of the entrapper or the entrapped. In this form, however, although a kind entrapment takes place, it is consciously accepted as a necessary behavioural constraint -- a platform or base from which other concerns can be explored. This is most clearly seen in the construction of a shelter, a house, or a base camp. It is necessary for protection against the "elements", or possibly against theft or attack. One may have privileged access to it, in the form of a key, a password, or qualifications. But inhabiting it is a form of entrapment by choice. Another example is a monastic rule that provides a discipline within which people choose to function, and which may be the basis for the construction of a closed monastery within which people live out their lives -- although for particular individuals this example may be tainted by the previous forms. In this form the "entrapped" have the key to the framework by which they are entrapped. They are not imprisoned or incarcerated by it. It has been consciously chosen. At best this is the nature of an explanatory model. However, the owners or inhabitants may develop a degree of attachment to the model such that they effectively lose the key, or the ability to use it. They are then unable to leave the framework and reframe themselves, notably into the second form.

Detachment from embodiment within traps

The previous section endeavoured to show the ambiguity of entrapment in practice. People may indeed be entrapped in a manner that can only be described as incarceration, even though they may not be aware of it. But, as with story telling, the entrapment may be a gentle, instructive form of enchantment. Or it may imply all the learnings of romantic attachment, or embodiment of a profoundly held belief. And it may be a provisional model of reality, a stepping stone to further understanding.

In this light, "freedom" from any form of entrapment could easily be understood as simply another form of entrapment -- an entrapment in trap avoidance. A subtler form of freedom would be the freedom to choose to be entrapped, knowing that one could escape from the trap at any time. This implies an attitude that resonates with the Buddhist understanding of detachment. Such detachment is tolerant of being entrapped for a while -- until it is time to move on. This offers the larger freedom of entering into the experiences associated with different traps, experiencing them from within.

There is therefore a sense in which reality can only be experienced through embodiment in the framework offered by a trap. However it is the attitude to such entrapment that is the key to being able to switch into experience through other frameworks -- through other traps. Each trap is effectively a kind of discipline. The attitude to that discipline determines whether it can be set aside to escape that trap. But such escape is seldom an escape into "traplessness", rather it is an escape into another form of entrapment. This is perhaps most charmingly illustrated by Konrad Lorentz's experiment with ducklings which, on escaping from their eggs, "imprinted" themselves on the first moving object they thereafter encountered -- namely his boots, subsequently followed as their mother. There are many situations, whether political, romantic, academic, or spiritual, where the escape from one trap into a larger reality is accompanied by some analogue of such imprinting. It throws a harsh light on "conversion" and other forms of "breakthrough".

The "meta-discipline" that governs the attitude, and the skill required to set aside any discipline, has no name. Detachment is one of its qualities. It may perhaps be understood through metaphor. A good example might be a person's attitude to choice of clothing. Equipped with a varied wardrobe, a person may choose to wear one garment rather than another, to wear a particular combination of garments, or to change any one of them. In this sense each garment is a trap and wearing any combination is a form of entrapment that may be appropriate to the challenge of the environment or the occasion. The person has no need to feel entrapped in any permanent way, but a choice has to be made to wear some combination of garments -- or none at all. Of course, if the person has an absolutely minimal wardrobe, the choice is extremely limited and the lack of choice may be experienced as a much more permanent trap. But even with a more extensive wardrobe, the person may also get into the habit of wearing one combination of clothes and be unable to act otherwise -- as with grey-suited officials, and others working in uniform.

With respect to behavior and beliefs, people seldom have the same detachment that they do with respect to clothing. Some form of "uniform" is the rule -- as is evident in the enthusiasm of academics and consultants for particular models. Switching attitudes would appear to be a mark of inconsistency. It is very challenging for a scientist to switch between models -- despite the archetypal complementarity between the wave and particle theories of light. Some understanding of the skill is offered by the way in which people gifted in interpersonal relations adjust their behaviour when encountering others, notably parents or children. For then the dynamics required may in each case be understood as a trap -- possibly to be avoided on occasion.

Varieties of trap

Property and possessions as traps

Possessions offer a variety of learnings into the nature of entrapment. They clearly evoke desire in many cases and as such are used as bait for many kinds of trap. People may struggle over many years to acquire them. The struggle itself may be come to be experienced as a trap, whether or not the goal is achieved. This trap is typically named the "rat race".

Once acquired, possessions have to be protected and maintained. The relation of "encryption" to such protection (with its connotations of "burial"), and the trap it constitutes, merits further consideration. Leaving them for any time may be a cause of anxiety. Certain kinds of possession may have a pattern of behavioral constraints associated with them that is experienced as a trap, whether or not the possession itself is considered a trap. Thus possession of a dream house may create pressures to conform to the social patterns and expectations of others in the neighbourhood with similar houses. Aspects of this are labelled as "keeping up with the Joneses".

Having experienced this kind of trap, people may make radical attempts to "downscale" their lifestyle against expectations of their peers. However there is a Hindu tradition that men of a certain age should indeed lay aside their possessions and become a sanyassin – thus escaping this trap.

People may be entrapped not so much by ownership of property but by the responsibilities that come with it. This is typically the case with hereditary estates where there is a responsibility to tenant families or a clan. It is intriguing that evolution of notions of property in relation to corporate ownership and intellectual property have significantly diminished, if not eliminated, any associated sense of responsibility. It is only in recent decades that corporations have endeavoured to recognize some degree of social responsibility – for which, however, they only have moral, not legal, obligations. Owners may experience these responsibilities as a trap in their pursuit of profit. However such "good neighbourliness" does not extend to responsibility for misuse of intellectual property, such as patents licensed to others for the manufacture of dangerous or exploitative products.

These essentially western notions of property are radically different from those of indigenous peoples who do not necessarily have this relationship to land or to other possessions. And to that extent the trap may be of quite a different nature. For peoples such as the Australian aborigines, so much of their culture is embodied in the actual landscape of the area where they live that they are effectively "trapped" there -- even though traditionally they have never owned it in any western sense. Leaving that area is tantamount to depriving themselves of their cultural identity. It is a form of cultural suicide with severe personal consequences. The trap in this sense is a nurturing womb. Westerners with strong links to a village or neighbourhood may be trapped in a somewhat similar way, even though they too do not own the features of the village to which they are attached.

Relationships as traps

People often recognize a relationship to be a "trap" prior to leaving the parental home, opting for divorce, or placing an elderly parent in a nursing home. This view is sustained by certain forms of New Age philosophy that encourage people to "move on" and focus on their own individual development -- even "dumping granny" in the process. Some spiritual paths, and their cult variants, even require that such relationships be terminated because of the manner in which they detract from the primary spiritual relationships to be subsequently developed. Understanding this, others seek to avoid permanent relationships in the belief that this will ensure their freedom. But, as pointed out earlier, traplessness is not a sustainable condition and the result is that some people then come to recognize the nature of the "singles trap" and to be challenged by loneliness.

Much effort is devoted to trapping people into relationship. This is most clearly seen in the soft selling techniques of commercial representatives who recognize that relationships must be established before there is any possibility of a sale. Diplomats may use similar techniques in establishing a basis for negotiation (cf the Harvard study on Getting to Yes). Both may use "courtship" and "seduction" as a metaphor to describe their initiatives. Of course there is a long tradition in efforts to obtain a suitable marriage partner that is based on some form of entrapment. Women may speak of "hooking" or "netting" a man, using fishing metaphors. Men may use herding metaphors to describe the process through which a woman is finally "corralled". With similar slills, spiritual mentors may cultivate potential disciples. More dubious entrapment examples are associated with practices of counter-intelligence and professional blackmailers who seek to obtain a hold over people.

The many inter-personal games identified by Eric Berne's (1996) method of Transaction Analysis may all be considered as having the quality of traps.

Roles as traps

People are born into roles, grow into other roles, acquire other roles through marriage and parenthood, enter other roles through education and employment, and are promoted or elected to other roles by peers or acclaim.They may develop yet other roles through their own initiatives and actions or through their definition by others. Under appropriate circumstances any of these may be experienced as a trap and may inhibit other preferred behaviour through their associated obligations -- whether "silken bonds" or "bars of steel".

Models as traps

As noted above, explanatory models are increasingly offered, whether by the most qualified scientists, philosophers, gurus, management consultants, or anyone with the capacity to think. Many of these are designed to supplant previous models and exclude any reference to alternative models. They seldom account for those that will replace them. Many are copyrighted as intellectual property. Their use may be licensed or franchised. The designers of such models often have high financial ambitions.

As software, the goal for many is to produce what is termed a "killer ap", namely an application that is so effective that it is a "must buy" for computer users – slaughtering the competition. Amongst the intellectually ambitious, there are similar ambitions to produce what might be termed a "killer model". For management consultants this would take the form of the ultimate management solution through which countries or major corporations could be held to ransom -- as prefigured by pricing of special pharmaecutical drugs. For the purer scientists, the Nobel Prize is seen as being recognition of having produced such a model. For physicists, the Holy Grail is the Theory of Everything within which all phenomena would be entrapped. Of course, for the spiritually inclined, some insights gained from a spiritual experience may constitute a model that needs to be seen in this light. Unfortunately, and ironically, there is a tendency for fanatical followers to kill to ensure their acceptance – "killer aps" par excellence !

The power of models to entrap is most delightfully expressed by Evan Eisenberg (1999) who notes that scientists, like artists, tend to fall in love with their models. Ironically in this respect, the forefather of world model builders, futurist Herman Kahn, lived in Croton-on-Hudson – where the World Modelling Association was headquartered to group its member agencies. For a further irony, Croton was the base of the archetypal builder of conceptual traps -- Pythagoras.

Feyerabend (1999) clarifies how models can serve to entrap the unsuspecting:

Variety disappears when subjected to a scholarly analysis... We can occasionally explain why crude ideas get the upper hand: special groups want to create a new tribal identity or preserve an existing identity amidst a rich and varied cultural landscape; to do so they "block off" large parts of the landscape and either cease to talk about them, or deny their "reality", or declare them to be wholly evil.

Challenge of recognizing traps of different order

The earlier example of the ducklings escaping from their eggs points to the existence of traps of different order of complexity or scope. One can escape from a simpler trap, only to find oneself caught in a subtler and more complex trap. Traps may thus be understood as nested – like Russian dolls. The simpler traps are thus nested within those that are more complex and more difficult to recognize and understand. This discussion does not explore traps which are of equivalent complexity but different in kind – since supposedly one could learn how to escape them in the light of past experience of their analogues.

It may be useful to label the trap by which one is currently constrained of order N. Ability to function within that trap would then imply freedom to enter and escape from traps of lower order (without being a challenge to learning). Or at least they could be successfully recognized and avoided most of the time -- as hazards.

The trap of lower order from which one last successfully learnt to escape might be labelled of order N-1, with earlier traps in one’s learning journey experience labelled N-2, N-3, etc. "down" to those that are no longer experienced as any kind of constraint. However whilst one can recognize these traps from one’s experience, those that might be labelled N+1, or N+2, etc, must necessarily lie beyond one’s normal comprehension. It is with these that one can be most readily trapped by others. The trap may not even be recognizable, even after one has been entrapped. The research of Ron Atkin provides a systematic mathematical analysis of such nesting in terms of communication within complex institutions.

The intriguing feature of traps of "higher" order is the ease with which one can deny their existence. These are the traps associated with sophisticated sales techniques – that may with luck be recognized before the sale is closed. As with "mis-selling" of private pension plans in the UK, they may only be recognized tardily by society. More complex are those associated with entrapment by manipulative cults, especially when they have an exciting quality that distinguishes what they offer from the drabness of everyday existence and the "mainstream" alternatives. People can live within such traps for years and be enchanted by them to a degree that may not be replicable after an escape. It is for this reason that people are drawn back in.

It may be useful to see higher order traps as functioning like "strange attractors". They have no "existence" at the level at which one is capable of sensing. Charm and charisma have this quality, as does romantic attraction.

A prime challenge for marketing is to recognize when the old traps fail and how to develop subtler traps – better mousetraps -- to attract consumers to their products. Potential consumers are recognized as naturally fickle. For a while, they may be effectively trapped by traps of order N. But trapping them in this way offers them a learning experience through which an increasing proportion builds up the capacity to recognize and avoid the trap – developing sales "resistance". At some stage there comes a competitive advantage to the producer in designing and offering traps of order N+1 – exemplified by the efforts of the most creative advertising agencies. This may be framed as "scaling up" the market****. Religious and educational groups may see this as a desirable feature of their instructional processes. Is God the ultimate trap?

  • Traps as landmines
  • Traps as nourishing wombs plugin umbilical
  • Traps as prisons
  • Traps as addictions

Traps as attention sinks

For a metaphoric trap to work, it must effectively distract or divert attention without making evident the intention of doing so -- or at least avoid arousing suspicions about the purpose in doing so. But for the trap to work well, this diversion cannot simply be from A to B. The entrapped need to have their attention "grabbed" and taken "for a ride" -- the longer the better. The ultimate trap is a never-ending cycle of distraction.

The easiest traps to understand are those designed to distract children -- starting with a baby's rattle. It is easy to see how such distractions have to increase in sophistication as the simpler "rattles" lose their power. The "best" toys for children are those which distract the longest at any one time, although the most valued may be those to which the child returns time and time again. With the advent of the electronic media, many of these take the form of games that shade into those that are a distraction for adults.

The full range of entertainment may be seen as offering distraction -- now supplemented by "edutainment". It is useful to ask what cultural products should be seen in this light -- including the visual arts, drama, music, opera. This would include the participative arts such as dance and song. By extension it would necessarily include the preoccupations of the theoretical and investigative disciplines from philosophy through to entomology, as well as the experiential disciplines from sports to the spiritual. Indeed many admit to engaging in such practices through "fascination" or simply in order to occupy their minds. The prime function of spectator sports may be understood from this perspective.

In this light it is possible to envisage the future design of sustainable communities as based primarily on an array of attention traps. The community would then be sustainable precisely because it's members were individually or collectively held in relationship by the traps within which their attention was diverted. The Romans made this point with their policy of "bread and circuses" to control the population. Television, as many have remarked, is the modern equivalent to such circuses – a virtual Colisseum for a virtual civilization. Many cinemas have even been called Colisseum. There is a recognition that without the distraction offered by television, people would "take to the streets". Attention traps are therefore vital as a means of avoiding social unrest and its consequences. They are the graphite dampers of a society on the verge of criticality.

From this perspective, an important social indicator would be some measure of the extent to which people's attention was entrapped rather than free (cf concepts of "free energy" in thermodynamics) . This is a poorly recognized challenge in deprived environments, notably degraded housing estates and long-term refugee camps. The desire for "development" is in part driven by the desire for television and the continuing fascination that it provides through soap operas. The risk is that the effectiveness of the entrapment will progressively erode and society will not be able to provide sufficient distraction to keep people "off the streets". This is already the case in many deprived urban environments in industrialized countries. As in the Roman Colisseum, media are being driven to violence and perversion of greater and greater extremes in order to be able to hold attention.

For the governance of a country -- or of global society -- how many kinds of trap, and of what kind, should be embedded in the social fabric to stabilize the social system? Should social and environmental "problems" and "solutions" be cultivated to this end? Do they emerge from the collective unconsciousness for this reason? How many traps, and of what kind, should one cultivate in one's own personal behaviour to facilitate the task of personal self-governance?

Designing "better" attention traps

Is it possible to envisage a generic approach to the design of better attention traps? Is there anything to be learnt from the array of toys and games? Could the full array of cultural products be evaluated in terms of their attention trapping potential? What different qualities of attention might need to be trapped? Seemingly Wagner would serve well for some and the Beatles for others. Mozart has proved to be an extremely successful trap for some, just as technomusic works to entrap others. The same may be said of different religions (from Zen to charismatic Christianity on TV) or of different philosophies (from positivism to subjectivism).

Unsustainable traps:

Rattle metaphor: The best point of departure remains the baby's rattle and the fascination we can see that it exerts on the victim. This is achieved by occupying the visual and auditory plenum with movement and sound -- and posing the challenge of their correlation. Its fascination may be increased by occasionally hiding the rattle behind some other object and bringing it out as a surprise. The rattle metaphor is basic to the fascination of many simple "happenings". The attraction of street happenings derives its strength from this pattern of unusual movement against an uninteresting background. How many media shows might be said to follow this basic pattern -- even to the point of using the primal colours characteristic of rattles, and reinforcement with "baby talk"?
The problem with traps based on the rattle metaphor is that they are essentially unsustainable -- although this may not be a requirement in the case of a "death rattle" ! The happening may be repeated on some later occasion but the duration of its entrapment effect for any one period is quite limited. So another show in the series can be broadcast on another occasion, but at any one time it will not hold the attention of many for more than its (half-)hour duration. Media programmers are obliged to switch through several kinds of rattle during an evening or risk that audience/spectators switch to channels that do. High ratings are achjieved with "unzappable" attention grabbers. Similarly the merit of web portals is evaluated in terms of their stickiness as traps.
Unfortunately many political programs -- including those for "sustainable development" -- are designed to distract public attention just like rattles. Politics might be seen as the art of distracting the population through a succession of rattles. The challenge comes from the need to design better rattles as the distraction power of the older ones wears off. A typology of confidence tricks is helpful in this exploration ( for example).
Hunt metaphor: Another basic pattern is the hunt. This is best seen in games where a cat allows itself to be entrapped in hunting a mouse-like object pulled across a carpet. Many stories and TV dramas are based on the hunt metaphor, with the "bad guy" being hunted and caught by the "good guy" after many exciting adventures and struggles. Spectators are encouraged to identify with the hunter and to glory vicariously in his/her success.

Again, unfortunately, traps based on the hunt metaphor are essentially unsustainable. TV dramas hold attention to the extent that there is a sense of convergence. With skill a denouement can be held over to a later session, but this postponement can seldom be repeated successfully (the X-files might be considered an exception).

It could be argued that the hunt metaphor is basic to the project logic typical of international organizations. According to this pattern "problems" are identified -- as the "bad guys" -- and "solutions" are designed by organizations in response to them -- as the "good guys". Over the period of the drama, the good guys pursue the bad guys and their success in doing so is reported in the final evaluation. Projects, like TV dramas, are seldom effectively related to one another and no effort is made to do so. Advocates, supporters and funders of a project effectively "switch channels" when the project ceases to appeal.

Collection ("gatherer") metaphor: Corresponding to the hunt metaphor is that associated with gathering or collecting. This pattern identifies a set of "collectibles" on which attention can be focused. Collectibles can range from the sports cards favoured by children, through birds eggs, stamps, books, antiques, classic automobiles, autographs, etc. This collection process shades into the preoccupations of many of the disciplines. Data collection is a focus for most disciplines: astronomy, botany, psychology, etc.

This trap provides a remarkably successful device in the design of remedial programs responding to social and environmental problems. There is always an iron-clad case for collecting more data through monitoring, prior to any action that can thereby be postponed sine die.

Song metaphor: Especially among aural cultures, song is a highly effective trap. It can be used to hold the attention for long periods of time, through a succession of songs, inhibiting any focus on other forms of action. Examples include: work songs (notably amongst negro slaves), drinking songs, marching and bootcamp songs, religious ceremonial songs, team support songs, and company loyalty songs. Unlike TV dramas, songs can be "rerun" relatively frequently.

This trap is intriguing because of the way in which can be used to express, hold and manipulate emotions – for which it is a powerful vehicle. It encourages the expression of the emotions that might otherwise be focused on escaping from the trap. Song helps people to accommodate to entrapment.

It is the power of this metaphor that underlies the process of articulating global and universal declarations and credos. People may then be gathered together to rehearse and revisit the verses of such compositions. Emphasis can then be placed on affirming belief in them and offering testimony in support of adherence to them. Unfortunately it is only religious groups that have succeeded in actually embedding such compositions in songs and chants. Those formulated by international gatherings are remarkable for their lack of any aesthetic properties that would render them memorable and provide some guarantee of their coherence. As such it is difficult to "rerun" them frequently.

Partially sustainable ("endurance") traps

Soap-opera metaphor: In contrast to individual TV shows in a series, soap operas are designed to achieve a degree of partial sustainability. Some hold collective attention over periods of years or even decades (cf Dynasty, Dallas, Neighbours, Coronation Street, East Enders). The early role of morality plays in this respect is worth exploration.

There would be many critics that would have little difficulty in labelling modern politics as pure soap opera. Fewer might be inclined to see it as deliberately designed as soap opera, but those enthralled by conspiracy theories already argue that most politicians are controlled like puippets by hidden figures. Such figures would indeed have a strong motivation to ensure that the visible political process remained as absorbing of attention as was feasible. They would indeed be concerned at the effectiveness of the trap and would be increasingly preoccupied by rising political apathy. Conspiracy aside, there is a case for extending the concept of designed "photo-opportunities" into designed "video-dramas" in order to catalyze certain processes of social change. The inter-personal dramas between media stars are developed and sustained over years by their pagents through the tabloids on this basis. An interpetation of the dissolution of the USSR along these lines has been explored elsewhere (Judge, 1991). In this respect, Orrin Klapp (Symbolic Leaders, 1964) ma kes the point that: "Man's second life is now in the public drama. His dreams are taped, filmed and projected".

Multi-level metaphor: These are a more complex phenomenon especially characteristic of recent computer (video)games. They are primarily characterized by confrontation of challenges (whether conflicts or puzzles) which if successful shifts the player to a new level. Each level may be made more challenging than the previous one. Repeated efforts and acquisition of skills, over many sessions, may be required to get through to a new level. However, like the hunt metaphor, there is necessarily a convergence on successful completion -- or the player gives up in frustration.

This pattern is not used in drama. It is however widely used in many educational and training games in which people are encouraged to face challenges and acquire skills at one level before becoming qualified for those at another. In this sense it might be called the qualification or promotion trap. As implied by the expression "life-long education", it may trap people for a lengthy period of time. An interesting variant is that used in esoteric and secret societies where the "levels" may be labelled as initiations. Some branches of freemasonry have 33 such levels. People may spend considerable time at a given level before being initiated into the next level. The insights gained or required for each level may be increasingly subtle if not obscure (offering considerable scope for manipulation by insiders as part of "testing" the eligibility of candidates to higher levels). These nested traps offer a remarkable capacity to keep people patient and unprotesting over extensive periods of time, or risk being refused access to subsequent levels. The academic tenure process is a much simpler variant which nevertheless severely constrains people to orthodoxy for fear of being refused tenure or other professional offices. The British system whereby civil servants and others acquire medals and honours (signifying varying degrees of worthiness) works in a similar manner as a constraint on unorthodox behaviour.
This pattern is intriguing in the way that it works only when people attach value to the status of being at the next higher level -- within an inner trap. This is achieved by persuading them of the unworthiness of their current and earlier levels, namely of the inferiority of their current entrapment. The significance of the higher (or inner) levels is thus sustained to a large degree by the insignificance of the lower (outer) levels, which need however to be heavily populated for the system to work. There are some parallels to pyramid selling and Ponzi schemes.

Sustainable ("dynamic") traps

The challenge is to identify metaphors that might facilitate the design of sustainable traps. This implies a design in which the attention is continually held within a pattern -- a form of permanent fascination or "enchantment". The following are possibilities:

Fish pond metaphor: It has been reported that traditional Chinese farms usually had a small carp pond, often for a single carp. The problem is that a single carp in a small pond positions itself in the middle of the pond and seldom moves. Without any exercise its condition rapidly deteriorates. The simple traditional solution is to place a rock in the middle of the pond. The carp then has the visual illusion that it is in a stream and that by swimming (between the rock "wall" and the other visible "stream bank"), it is continually advancing towards some fruitful goal. This suggests that by identifying a suitable "rock" and positioning it appropriately in an otherwise static environment, an individual can be encouraged to engage in what is perpetual, and therefore sustainable, movement for her/his own health. In so doing the individual will be sustained by the illusion that he/she is moving towards some fruitful goal.
It is not obvious that this pattern is consciously used. However it is consistent with the feeling of frustration that many feel, without being able to articulate, that the socio-political system has conned them into a pattern of activity that is essentially going nowhere -- although offering insubstantial promises that things will get better. Again, the research of Ron Atkin provides a systematic mathematical analysis of how such a "rock" functions in terms of communication within complex institutions.
Pendulum/Spring ("alternation") metaphor: With this pattern a system is created in which conditions alternate between two extremes. People may aspire to A, spend time struggling against B to achieve it, then achieve it and be faced with a period in which they must live with what they desired and the problems that gradually become evident. The case for rejected condition B, in contrast to A, is made with increasing skill and credibility by B-advocates, until the situation is reversed and B is achieved. The cycle then repeats itself.
This pattern is advocated as the basis of democratic society with power shifting between opposing coalitions with different policies in response to any inability of the coalitions in power to deal with challenges effectively (the "Westminster model"). It is typical of cycles of management fads in corporations -- periodically switching, for example, from centralization to decentralization and back. It has some of the advantages of the hunt metaphor in that the challengers can frame themselves as the good guys seeking to overcome the bad guys. Then, as in any good children's game, the roles can be reversed and the other guys get to be the good guys. William Irwin Thompson has explored this reversal in his work on enantiodromia (1985).(see summary) A case for using this alternation process as ther basis for the design of development processes has been made elsewhere (Judge, 1982)
Bouncing ("plasma") metaphor: This trap is based on the containment technology for nuclear fusion. Such fusion can be achieved by confining plasma under certain conditions for sufficient time. A plasma is an electrical conducting medium consisting of positive and negative charges forming a neutrally charged distribution of matter. Plasma, as the fifth state of matter in which 99% of the universe is to be found, is unique in the way it interacts with itself, with electric and magnetic fields, and with its environment. (in contrast with the four other states of matter: reacting elements as in fire, gas, liquid and solid). Its properties depend upon on the collective behaviour of the constituent particles, as distinct from the individual. It is unique in its instability and its tendency to revert to ordinary combinations of matter and energy. In order to generate energy in a fusion reactor, the problem is to find the particular configuration of magnetic fields, values of plasma parameters and means of protecting the plasma from impurities which would quench it. This is achieved by 'bouncing' the plasma around within the configuration of a magnetic cavity (or 'bottle').
Individual attention or collective awareness (public opinion) has properties analogous to those of a plasma. The problem of a significant breakthrough in mobilizing the political will to change is comparable to that of designing a fusion reactor. The challenge is to be able to contain and focus individual or collective attention (despite its inherent instability) by a suitable configuration of psycho-social functions that can protect such attention from degenerating into normal modes. Since no one function can be used to this end, the problem is to constrain attention by all of them simultaneously without allowing reliance or dependence on any one of them. Mysticism in both Eastern and Western traditions has stressed the need for an individual to create an inner environment to contain psychic energy (cf. alchemical containers, controlling the movement of 'ch'i', and the circulation of the 'golden fire'). Of course this works best, solely as a trap, if the design ensures that the reactor never reaches citicality. In sub-critical modes, attention is simply shunted around the contained in a continuing cycle.
The operation of this trap may perhaps be explored at a much simpler level through the way an individual's attention is trapped by a mirror that reflects back a self-image that is inherently fascinating. Metaphorically one's environment can be designed to mirror back one's reality. Some people, notably leaders, are in fact considered to be trapped in patterns of reflecting mirrors held for them by sycophants.

Designing arrays of traps

Advertising agencies and marketing managers are fully aware that consumers can seldom be successfully trapped by a single message articulated through a single medium. As su