When people ask me what I learned in grad school that was actually directly valuable and useful, I tell them about transactional analysis and this book.
Get this book and learn the ten most common games (previous editions used to rank them). Learn the anatomy of each game- the moves and how to recognize when you're in one. Most essentially, learn the move that ends each game: the book details the escape move for each game.
If you can learn at least the top ten, your time will have been incredibly well spent and your life will be measurably better.
This is the sort of technology that, if mastered in your 20s or 30s, will save literally years of poorly-spent time over an aggregate lifetime.
I believe it. I've found psychology to be a valuable means through which to look back at your life and growing up, and to understand things in a new light. There's so many little power games going on, and I used to think it was stupid and i'll just opt out and try to stay above it but you really can't.
I think what you've said is incredibly powerful. There is a frustrating (to me personally in the short list of things that deeply frustrate me) tendency that is common enough to simply be part of typical human nature to assume that one's own psychology is highly exceptional or unique- that you are, for example, The One Man (or Woman) for whom addiction or lying or stress or social anxiety does not function the way it does for all those untermenschen in the textbooks. This is especially true when we've been diagnosed or self-diagnosed with a label that popular understanding has endowed with the "highly unusual" weight.
It is a valuable skill to adopt, when one is making choices about how to handle one's own brain and body, that we are overwhelmingly similar in nature to other humans. I wonder if in past ages, philosophers were encouraging the opposite in their students, rather than attempting to compensate for the runaway individualism of the modern psyche.
Imo there is sometimes a way to opt out but only if you can truly step outside the frame. Which sometimes means choosing to be an outsider. When you think about it, because games keep intimacy at bay, you haven’t really lost by exiting. The real tragedy imo is when you play with the goal of defeating the game, that is, try to achieve intimacy via winning. Playing never gets you there.
It was surprising to me to hear him interviewed by Jordan Petersen. JP had a similar take to the one I had initially: this is cold! But Greene is anything but cold, in fact he seems to have explored these topics because he had himself been blindsided by other humans.
Greene himself has said it wouldn't be at all desirable for everyone to follow every single point of his advice at once because we would all be awful. :)
I am glad you chose to write about this book. I read it closer to when it came out, and all I remember is "Let's You and Him Fight." There was a lot of resentment toward the book back then, because it sold so well. The topic of human deception and self-deception strikes me as very important and fascinating. It seems relevant to the case of Sam Bankman-Fried.
My youngest son actually had a TA class in his elementary school for kids w/learning disabilities. I think training young kids on stroking at school is a great way to train them to be better office workers. I find it very hard to imagine an office without tons of games, unless the hiring was done mastefully against a powerful, guiding vision/mission. I believe that a toxic office can turn anyone into a master games-person...
Very interesting but it feels like “game” is such an unfortunate choice to describe this behavior. The word has so many very different meanings. Too late to do anything about, of course, but a reminder of why more obscure terms are often used for new concepts.
This line of analysis seems like a classic case of taking the ordinary way too far.
Whether it's the largely tongue in cheek book "Class" or Robert Greene's cult-like teachings, social psych books that you read seem to have an undue influence on you. I'd suggest you raise your skepticism. In any case,, that will come naturally as you grow older.
I disagree completely. I have observed many of the patterns described here and in Greene’s work in real life. You seem to think that what you can’t see doesn’t exist. Perhaps it’s you who’s missing something?
Patterns of "games" exist, but writers like greene and this recent one tend to try to extrapolate from a narrow slice of life some kind of systematic explanation or guide to living. This has some of the same appeal, albeit much more mild, as does Scientology.
Transactional analysis wasn't extrapolated from a narrow slice of life: the definitions were actually developed over genuine experimental study under controlled conditions. As is detailed in the book.
It is not similar to Scientology as it does not require acceptance of magical thinking or scientifically untrue assertions.
It’s not necessary to use any psychological framework as a closed system. What is valuable is looking at your interactions through these frames to see how closely it tracks with your reality. Where it tracks there might be some useful information. If it doesn’t track, we’ll, there’s information there as well.
Everyone plays some combination of them if not all of them. Your personal psychodynamic development simply guides which games you're most likely to gravitate towards.
No one, not even a person with a unique and exceptional developmental history, does not and has not played them.
They are "games" in the sense that "money" is a game.
That's why it's worth reading the book: you don't, as you've observed, decline to play. You have to make the appropriate move that ends the game, which is a different behavior.
Playing a transactional game appropriately is not synonymous with insincerity. In fact, many games will sharply illuminate insincerity when it is present during a game and lead to the kind of "roadkill" outcomes you've described,
Interesting. I think I have tried playing a different game than the one I was in. I’m not exactly sure to what extent my sincerity was sincere, or was trying to influence the rules of the game itself. Not successful. But quitting the game would have required knowing that I was indeed playing, and winning would have required understanding what was actually being transacted.
Imo you’re assuming a level of awareness that just isn’t going to be there. Many of these games aren’t played consciously. They can be avoided only if you know what’s going on. Hence the usefulness of books like these.
When people ask me what I learned in grad school that was actually directly valuable and useful, I tell them about transactional analysis and this book.
Get this book and learn the ten most common games (previous editions used to rank them). Learn the anatomy of each game- the moves and how to recognize when you're in one. Most essentially, learn the move that ends each game: the book details the escape move for each game.
If you can learn at least the top ten, your time will have been incredibly well spent and your life will be measurably better.
This is the sort of technology that, if mastered in your 20s or 30s, will save literally years of poorly-spent time over an aggregate lifetime.
Do it.
I believe it. I've found psychology to be a valuable means through which to look back at your life and growing up, and to understand things in a new light. There's so many little power games going on, and I used to think it was stupid and i'll just opt out and try to stay above it but you really can't.
I think what you've said is incredibly powerful. There is a frustrating (to me personally in the short list of things that deeply frustrate me) tendency that is common enough to simply be part of typical human nature to assume that one's own psychology is highly exceptional or unique- that you are, for example, The One Man (or Woman) for whom addiction or lying or stress or social anxiety does not function the way it does for all those untermenschen in the textbooks. This is especially true when we've been diagnosed or self-diagnosed with a label that popular understanding has endowed with the "highly unusual" weight.
It is a valuable skill to adopt, when one is making choices about how to handle one's own brain and body, that we are overwhelmingly similar in nature to other humans. I wonder if in past ages, philosophers were encouraging the opposite in their students, rather than attempting to compensate for the runaway individualism of the modern psyche.
Imo there is sometimes a way to opt out but only if you can truly step outside the frame. Which sometimes means choosing to be an outsider. When you think about it, because games keep intimacy at bay, you haven’t really lost by exiting. The real tragedy imo is when you play with the goal of defeating the game, that is, try to achieve intimacy via winning. Playing never gets you there.
Yeah I think I have done that for the most part. But people still seem to wonder what your deal is, which is probably natural.
I feel that way about Robert Greene’s work. Lots I wish I had known about human nature earlier.
Robert Greene's writing is fascinating. He has given me a huge amount of insight into male (and, of course more broadly, human) thinking.
It was surprising to me to hear him interviewed by Jordan Petersen. JP had a similar take to the one I had initially: this is cold! But Greene is anything but cold, in fact he seems to have explored these topics because he had himself been blindsided by other humans.
Greene himself has said it wouldn't be at all desirable for everyone to follow every single point of his advice at once because we would all be awful. :)
I am glad you chose to write about this book. I read it closer to when it came out, and all I remember is "Let's You and Him Fight." There was a lot of resentment toward the book back then, because it sold so well. The topic of human deception and self-deception strikes me as very important and fascinating. It seems relevant to the case of Sam Bankman-Fried.
I confess I read the book before I had enough real life experience to understand it.
My youngest son actually had a TA class in his elementary school for kids w/learning disabilities. I think training young kids on stroking at school is a great way to train them to be better office workers. I find it very hard to imagine an office without tons of games, unless the hiring was done mastefully against a powerful, guiding vision/mission. I believe that a toxic office can turn anyone into a master games-person...
Very interesting but it feels like “game” is such an unfortunate choice to describe this behavior. The word has so many very different meanings. Too late to do anything about, of course, but a reminder of why more obscure terms are often used for new concepts.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
This line of analysis seems like a classic case of taking the ordinary way too far.
Whether it's the largely tongue in cheek book "Class" or Robert Greene's cult-like teachings, social psych books that you read seem to have an undue influence on you. I'd suggest you raise your skepticism. In any case,, that will come naturally as you grow older.
I read hundreds of books a year yet write only about a tiny fraction of them that have real world relevance based on my experiences.
This is great stuff and some of us appreciate what you do.
I think most readers and writers would say that great literature, read multiple times, contains the most valuable insight of "real world relevance."
How much fiction do you read?
Literature imo is one way to find out about the human condition. Not the only way. I don’t think the author owes you any explanation of what he does.
I disagree completely. I have observed many of the patterns described here and in Greene’s work in real life. You seem to think that what you can’t see doesn’t exist. Perhaps it’s you who’s missing something?
Patterns of "games" exist, but writers like greene and this recent one tend to try to extrapolate from a narrow slice of life some kind of systematic explanation or guide to living. This has some of the same appeal, albeit much more mild, as does Scientology.
Transactional analysis wasn't extrapolated from a narrow slice of life: the definitions were actually developed over genuine experimental study under controlled conditions. As is detailed in the book.
It is not similar to Scientology as it does not require acceptance of magical thinking or scientifically untrue assertions.
It’s not necessary to use any psychological framework as a closed system. What is valuable is looking at your interactions through these frames to see how closely it tracks with your reality. Where it tracks there might be some useful information. If it doesn’t track, we’ll, there’s information there as well.
I think Class is a great book. I never wrote that it wasn't.
I'm just amused at how some people take it as an actual serious attempt to divide America among classes.
Fussell would have been amused as well.
Everyone plays some combination of them if not all of them. Your personal psychodynamic development simply guides which games you're most likely to gravitate towards.
No one, not even a person with a unique and exceptional developmental history, does not and has not played them.
They are "games" in the sense that "money" is a game.
If you decline to play a game everyone around you is invested in, you gonna lose! I’ve tried sincerity in certain situations and become roadkill.
That's why it's worth reading the book: you don't, as you've observed, decline to play. You have to make the appropriate move that ends the game, which is a different behavior.
Playing a transactional game appropriately is not synonymous with insincerity. In fact, many games will sharply illuminate insincerity when it is present during a game and lead to the kind of "roadkill" outcomes you've described,
Interesting. I think I have tried playing a different game than the one I was in. I’m not exactly sure to what extent my sincerity was sincere, or was trying to influence the rules of the game itself. Not successful. But quitting the game would have required knowing that I was indeed playing, and winning would have required understanding what was actually being transacted.
Many of the transactional games ARE versions of "gotcha." And one of the parts to play is the one getting got.
The post you made about a month ago about the roles a group of friends play at a bar is a very good way of looking at this from another angle.
I think social media demonstrates that people love the gotcha game. I might be playing it right now!
Imo you’re assuming a level of awareness that just isn’t going to be there. Many of these games aren’t played consciously. They can be avoided only if you know what’s going on. Hence the usefulness of books like these.