“How are you today?” I asked the salesman in the usual ritual of pleasantries before the warfare began. “I’m doing great now that I know you’re going to drive home with a new car.” Pleasantries be damned, the fight has already begun. This greeting is canned and corny, of course, but I immediately recognized that it was well-rehearsed and strategic, both planting the idea of buying a car today and communicating the apparent ease of the purchase. But he also wasn’t wrong; I would be driving away with a new car that day.
Sitting down, the twenty-two-year-old salesman quickly turns to espionage, asking broad questions about car makes, desired accessories, and budget. He scribbles everything down on a yellow legal notepad, information that will soon turn into pressure points. He offers water or coffee, and I accept, a gesture of a gift designed to place the customer in a position of indebtedness. I’m not necessarily looking to buy a car now, I tell him feebly, I’m just “doing more research.” This half-truth was received with warmth and quickly swept aside. I had, in fact, already done my research. He asks if I have any color preferences, which I don’t, so he grabs the rockwood green one for a test drive, parking it next to the white one for comparison.
Color, it turns out, quickly becomes a repeated theme in his sales pitch as we drive down the road. Had I mentioned the need for a safe car, he would have talked about airbags and blind spot notifications. If I emphasized the need for a zippier car, he would have encouraged me to floor it at the stop light and feel the thrill of all that horsepower. Withholding from the salesman the usual talking points that strike a strong emotional chord (fear and joy), color was all he had left in his arsenal. Colors are diffuse with meaning and sub-rational associations. White evokes the modern sleekness of the iPhone, red suggests the childlike abandon of a sports car. I cannot say why I preferred the “rockwood green” to the “serenity white pearl” — some would say it has to do with my personality — but set against the black trim and modern design, it just looked cool. As practical as I tend to think of myself, the salesman found a winning argument.
The car drove well enough, and we returned to the sales floor. While I sipped from my debt-inducing bottled water, the salesman arrived, proclaiming “Great news!” and proposing an offer that was shockingly 40% over my expectations. Shocking enough that I instinctively grabbed my bag, but delivered with enough enthusiasm to keep me sitting there. By design, the two numbers written down on his yellow legal notepad withheld the many cost levers at his disposal: trade in value, financing APR, fees, and even the cost of the car itself. Each presents the dealer different avenues for profit, but no war is ever won by opening multiple fronts. For their part, customers are ill-equipped to crunch numbers, and this obfuscation only aids the dealer. What ensued was a real-life game of Deal or No Deal via that yellow legal notepad. The baby-faced salesman turned negotiations over to the stern, imposing manager, who then repeatedly left to consult with his department head. This good-cop, bad-cop routine is well known, but it doesn’t mitigate the feeling of powerlessness it conveys to potential buyers. As multiple “final offers” came and went, exhaustion crept in.
I realized this shakedown was happening, but nevertheless felt the unbidden disquiet of urgency. I recognized all the tricks that were being deployed in real time, only to see all my cool-headed research slowly melt away. Walking into the showroom, I knew I had to crunch numbers to see through the deception, but didn’t account for how stressful it would be to do so. I understood that seeing the car on the lot would pull the heartstrings (if it didn’t at least a little, then did I even want the car?), but I didn’t foresee becoming attached to something as trivial as the color green. I was on the brink of financial ruin, but somehow felt as though it was the only good option.
If anyone believes they have a free will, I suggest an extended trip to the car dealer might change your mind. Not that you will necessarily end up with a new car after a test drive, but you’ll quickly find yourself caught up in something far greater than sheer willpower can combat. From the lighting of the showroom to the firmness of the salesperson’s handshake, the entire experience is designed to alter your desires and perceptions.
Far from being an outlier of human experience, the car dealership is a perfected microcosm of life. That a can of water fancy with branding might cost twice as much, but you’re a sucker for a fancy label. You first heard your favorite song of all time on the soundtrack of a movie. You still eat McDonalds because it tastes like childhood happiness. Your quirky personal style reflects your anti-conformist beliefs, yet your favorite cerulean blue sweater was selected for you by the fashion industry. However much one’s preferences, ambitions, or aversions might seem to be freely chosen, they are simultaneously the product of upstream influences that often lie beyond our consciousness. In his book, Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely reviews a number of studies in behavioral economics and comes to a startling conclusion:
We are pawns in a game whose forces we largely fail to comprehend. We usually think of ourselves as sitting in the driver’s seat, with ultimate control over the decisions we make and the direction our life takes; but, alas, this perception has more to do with our desires — with how we want to view ourselves — than with reality.
As if in rebellion against the obviousness of Ariely’s diagnosis, today we expend an enormous amount of effort maintaining the illusion of a buffered self, that there is an impregnable boundary between our rational will and the external world. We negotiate with our surroundings in a kind of zero-sum game between our sense of self and personal identity on the one hand, and involuntary manipulations on the other. And understandably so, at least to a degree. In view of the innumerable malefactors vying for our attention — desires, dollars, and votes — the old Stoic ideal of pure freedom from the world has some appeal. If only such self-mastery and cool-headed reflection were possible. If only it were possible to not fall victim to propaganda, algorithms, that gaslighting coworker, or a car salesman.
When someone turns the screws on us, we like to think we’d be able to resist it. We are, after all, the ones in the driver’s seat of our lives. We believe that knowing we are manipulated is enough to break the spell. I was once in a bookstore paging through a potential purchase when a store clerk began pointing and yelling that I had stolen a book. As heads turned to see the culprit, my own disbelief quickly gave way to guilt — so much so that I instinctively began to scour my bag in search of stolen merchandise. The knowledge of my innocence was nothing compared to an accusatory index finger and I was relieved to find the bag empty.
However much we might think of life as an epic struggle within ourselves for greater mastery, discipline, or wisdom, our actions are guided not primarily by our decisions, but by whom we are held, whose voice we hear ringing in the back of our heads. It is by one’s ears they are led to righteousness or unrighteousness. We hear songs that make us dance, threats that make us fear, condemnations that bring guilt, and ultimately good news that brings joy.
By perhaps some miracle, I didn’t overpay for my new car. The salesman pulled at the levers they had at their disposal, but I managed to escape their trap. As I stared at a yellow legal pad that was now filled with numbers and dollar signs, a voice in the back of my head reminded me that there would be other cars to buy. They might not be rockwood green, but they would be enough. Standing up to shake their hands and leave, the bad cop of the duo did not release his grasp. Another trick in the playbook. But this time, he told me an offer that was precisely what I was willing to pay, far better than anything written down.
Driving my new car off the lot, I turned on music that mirrored the joy and relief of an exhausting ordeal that didn’t end poorly. The sound system was better than expected, and the rockwood green shimmered with every passing street light.
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