“Being forced to submit to someone else’s will is the same. It makes people try to justify themselves. In order to avoid acknowledging one’s impotence, one’s abject weakness, people try to find some reason. They think, this person must be something really special to beat me so thoroughly. Or, anyone would be
powerless in this situation. This gives some small satisfaction. The more confidence and self-regard someone has, the more they need to tell themselves something like this. And once they do, the power relations are set in stone.
Then all you have to do is say two or three things that stroke the person’s ego and they’ll do whatever you tell them.”