# 16. Rigging the obvious ## 16.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species ### 16.5.2. Concept manipulation In concept manipulation, the manipulator sets out to "fit" their preferred choice into the victim's moral or philosophical concept of order. The victim must feel that the "obvious choice" is part of a "greater truth", which he already has a "gut-feeling" about. It has to seem self-evident. If a victim's concept of what is philosophically obvious is not suitable, then the manipulator must impose a new interpretative framework onto the victim, with the "obvious" policy at its centre. This latter involves discrediting those aspects of all those alternative scripts which reject the manipulator's "obvious" choice and substituting them with "respectable" standards which favour the manipulator's option. The ultimate objective of this manipulative technique is that the victim will actually make the decision entirely alone, apparently unaffected by external influences. For instance, the technique is in continuous use when trying to reconcile concepts like racism and gun-ownership with fundamentalist white Christian beliefs in the United States.