Et tu Neural Linguistic Programming?

Is Neuro-Linguistic Programming Illiberal?

Kant advised that we should cultivate the capacity to act in freedom by applying the courage and determination required to use one's own intelligence rather than relying on the guidance of others. Mill thought life was best lived in a path of reflective self-direction.

As scholar David Johnston puts it

The perfection of our capacities as agents capable of shaping our own lives by pursuing projects and attempting to realize values that we conceive for ourselves is a task of first importance for human beings.

Let's examine this quote in comparison with Neural Linguistic Programming. NLP is a method for success in dealing with others or in accomplishing your goals. It teaches tactics and mindsets to employ or inhabit that will allow you to achieve your goals more successfully. One such tactic is to read people's body language accurately. If we can get an accurate reading of person X with body language X, we can speak in jargon Y that is purported to be psychologically proven to allow us to communicate with person X.

Simply as a tactical approach, NLP does not seem to be illiberal. NLP allows us to autonomously form our goals and than simply use the suggested tactics to achieve them.
The danger of NLP being illiberal comes from the tactic becoming a mindset. Let X be what I really believe. If I always alter X when communicating the content of X with person of type Y or Z or C .... personality, then I am failing to act autonomously. I am unable to speak clearly and directly on a given issue, and to choose words and body language based on their veracity to Belief Set X. My expression of my ideas are over burdened by the need to have them conform to a given situation.

NLP teaches a hyper-awareness of the social or inter personal environment at the risk of intra-personal development and integrity. In a way, it teaches Westerners to be a little bit Japanese.

Now some may argue that we must not always alter X when communicating with others. But, that does not ring true with the psychology of tactical learning. When one learns a tactic, it becomes habitual. Habituating a process is a step in learning. We have learned the tactic of writing the alphabet, its very difficult after the fact to go back and forget that we know it. Same with someone who knows how to return a tennis serve. It is a game of acting to return to a lower level.

But knowing how to return a tennis serve could never be called mindset and therefore it it just a means to the end of playing a good game of tennis. (though I suppose when we play a game of tennis we do enter a mindset). Mindsets are things we enter in for extended periods of time that affect our decisions and formulate our ends rather than just serving as means as tactics do. Returning a serve is a single action that is too brief to affect our autonomy. Is practicing NLP just a series of habits not amounting to much with regards to autonomy?

Playing a game of tennis is a set of actions occupying an extended period. A mindset applies here. This mindset may guide decisions not only on the court but also off-court. We may begin to formulate ends about tennis which serve not our initial pre-tennis mindset interests; but our current tennis mindset This is natural. For example, we may eat healthier and do cross training to nurture our burgeoning game. There is nothing illiberal about this.

But with the mindset-tactic distinction in mind, let's look at NLP. NLP is used in social situations; which, unless we are Robinson Crusoe's, are the most extended aspects of our lives. In this way, the tactic becomes a habit which becomes a mind-set that we inhabit when we are in social situations – which is the vast part of our lives. Now inhabiting a tennis mindset is in no way illiberal. But what about inhabiting an NLP mindset? Instead of relying on our own beliefs and integrity, we are now adjusting set X to become a better communicator. Initially, this effects our external behavior. Does it effect our internal behavior? I suspect most likely. People who are committed to tennis may engage in behavior they would otherwise not like, such as dieting. Likewise people engaged in NLP may begin to alter their belief-set to deal with the contrast with their hyper-socially conforming behavior. People find contrasts between external behavior and internal behavior to be psychologically troubling. Hence, the negativity poured into terms like “faker” and “insincere”.

Further, we have often heard that the best way to convince people when communicating is to truly believe that you believe what you are saying - even if you don't really believe it. People can spot liars easily, and the best way to convince someone of something is to convince yourself that you have no doubt in what you are saying. If you have to alter the content of your expression to suit others, eventually, the best way to come off convincingly is to act like you believe it. Your brain does the rest of the work for you. Eventually, you don't just believe that your believe X. Your always-streamlining brain just begins to believe X.