Anti Vampire Center

The Vampire's strategic use of handicaps

In the short story The Excavator, a high school drawing teacher, Gerardo Accardo, besides having more serious shortcomings which will emerge in the course of the story, has deficient knowledge of the correct use of the Italian language. It's nothing serious, after all: he teaches drawing, not literature. The problem lies elsewhere: in the 'strategic' use he instinctively and unintentionally makes of his errors.

"So", began Mr. Accardo, "Attention to what I’m about to tell you. You too, Cremona, stand to attention, and above all you, Santovito, stand to attention. Zorzi! Attention, you too!"
Mr. Accardo often addressed his pupils in that way, since he firmly believed […] that "to pay attention" and "to stand to attention" could be used synonymously. This blunder of his, however, even though it was noticed by everyone […], didn’t fully reach anybody’s conscience. Indeed when one spoke about Accardo, and made a fool of him for some defect or bad habit of his, as they did of all the teachers, never hinted at that obvious flaw (and at the others, maybe less manifest than that, populating his speech); and, for that same diabolic commingling of dread and piety that every good despot is capable to stir up in the uncertain consciences, it was completely passed over in silence. Or, even better, the expression ended up penetrating hiddenly and ambiguously into the same pupils’ verbal thought, though never completely replacing the correct one; and thus one day when the Letters teacher had rebuked Silvestri (who had A in Italian and graduated parents) for being distracted, the latter had readily and promptly replied that he had always "mmm… attention", fading on the beginning to not displease Accardo’s ghost in a possible conflict of authority with his colleague.

"… For that same diabolic commingling of dread and piety that every good despot is capable to stir up in the uncertain consciences…". Here is one of the distinctive signs of the Vampire: he presents us with a slight handicap, an almost imperceptible defect in a way of speaking or reacting or behaving. That handicap adds a kind of pity to our natural human respect, and in this case to the fear of authority: a pity that compels us to rise to the defense of the bearer of the handicap, as though it were a physical handicap for which we should rightly feel solidarity or compassion. But it is not a physical handicap: the teacher, in this case, has every opportunity to correct it. Nor does his persistence in making those errors have anything to do with the acceptable, worthy ignorance of one who truly does not have either the means nor the prospect of improving his language: he is neither a cart pusher nor a digger; he's an evolved man, a teacher, he associates with literary colleagues, he reads the newspapers, listens to the radio and watches television. Yet, he remains anchored to his error. His instinct suggests to him that it is precisely that evident flaw that did not fully come to anyone's awareness which will assure him special attention, an almost hypnotic attention, on the part of his student audience. And that at the right moment, the class will be ready to take sides in his favor, not only because it considers him "a good authority figure", but also because of a kind of "pact of solidarity" toward his presumed handicap.

The power of the tactical use of a handicap emerges in a very evident way in the short story Samuel Serrandi. Serrandi, the vendor of fake multimedia encyclopedias on CD-Rom, is the prototype of the total liar, who manipulates reality for his own exclusive advantage. He talks, talks, talks continually, drowning the speaker in chatter in order to weaken his resistance and stick him with worthless goods. Serrandi doesn't demand that his lies be believed; on the contrary, in his ritual of circumvention it is almost fitting that the customer understand that he is a liar. The main thing is to communicate the substance of his fundamental handicap, that of being a totally immoral and completely dehumanized individual, dedicated exclusively to swindling his fellow man. He boasts of having "two degrees, almost three", he continually praises the solidity and reputation of his firm, which naturally no one has ever heard of, and offers his customers the guarantee of an insurance policy "Loi/Dilondra" so that they will sign up for multimillion lire subscriptions for the next dozen years. He claims to be working only in the interest of his customers, and naturally he warns them not to miss the opportunity of the big, special offer.

"Well, then. Let’s cut it out, and don’t miss this opportunity. I’m only defending your interests. And I don’t even want to insist more than this."

When Serrandi finally meets Massimo, a fierce customer determined to give him tit for tat (Serrandi's swindle has caused the suicide of Massimo's best friend, Luigi), he finds out that Massimo, in the past, had worked on a study of the techniques of persuasion used by people like him, and had reached disturbing psychological conclusions. Here is part of Massimo's talk with Serrandi in which he reports to him the results of the study he worked on. (Massimo, incidentally, according to a practice typical of Mario Corte, is a character who also appears in other stories, such as The Building Manager, some passages of which have already been cited.)

The inquiry had established that most of the customers bought products or subscribed to insurance or subscriptions because the agents were ‘good’ in convincing them that they needed them, when they, in fact, could do very well without them. After signing, they were intimately convinced of having no need for the goods or service purchased, yet behaved with everybody as if they had done something wise. But up to here we are in the field of normal psychological dynamics typical of the advertisement. Anyway, studying thoroughly, on a very wide sample, the most peculiar psychological aspects of these kinds of transactions, the inquiry had established that this being ‘good at’ consisted in having a power of conviction based on four fundamental topics: 1) ‘I’m looking after your own interests’; 2) ‘your fears on the investments of your money are groundless, and you’ll realize it’; 3) ‘your scarce trust in our organization is due to the lack of information: we are a renowned as well as a solid firm’; 4) ‘if you miss the special offer, prices will increase and you won’t be able to afford this luxury anymore’. And here were already emerging quite deep differences in comparison with the traditional advertising message. Entering even more thoroughly the folds of the mechanism of conviction in question, they had realized that the salesman exercised quite a real ‘personal power’ on the customer. A peculiar power, and extremely different from the power that the testimonial of a successful product can exercise. What was this power based on? The most common answer was quite surprising: on the salesman’s ability to transfer the customer an anxiety you could summarize with the idea: ‘if you miss this opportunity, you’ll cut a very poor figure’. But to cut a very poor figure with someone you must have a very high esteem for his authority. And what was this formidable authority founded on? And here the people interviewed, by now put in the corner, finally furnished the most liberating and incredible answers, a confession in perfect order: ‘I feel sorry for him. With all his gifts of the gab, with all his promotional materials, with all his categorical statements, with all his slogans, I FEEL SORRY for that man.’ Someone, once the cap is taken off, was starting to experience feelings of rebellion and of deep aversion against that unsuspected conspiracy of piety which produced turnovers of millions of dollars. Feelings were summarizable in the antithesis to the four fundamental subjects on which the power of conviction was based; those same things people would have wanted to tell the salesmen and had not succeeded in saying, finishing to yield to a self-injuring piety: 1) ‘when did you ever see that someone goes to others’ house, without knowing them, for the only pleasure to look after their interests?’; 2) ‘my fears for the investment of my money are more than well-grounded, considering that the money is mine’; 3) ‘but who knows your organization; and then, if it’s so large and renowned, why does it send its own errand boys around to houses?’; 4) ‘if I lose the opportunity of the special offer, it will be bad for me; and for me this choice is all right’. This is what they would have said, but had not said. For fear to offend the interlocutor. For fear to hurt someone that has come to your house to tell you that you are not informed, that you cannot look after your interests, that you have groundless fears, that his firm is very large, and that you are so stupid as to lose the special offer then you’ll repent it… Do you understand, now?"

Naturally Serrandi doesn't understand, or rather, he doesn't want to understand. He cannot admit what he already knows very well: that it is the very pity that his handicap (a deadly mixture formed by his total dehumanization and by the systematic use of lies) gains for him that assures him his success. But Massimo goes even further, finally forcing Serrandi to sign a "release" in which his perverse psychological strategy is ruthlessly revealed.

"Everything is regular, I told you. Be quiet. Don’t you trust? All right. I’ll read it to you: ‘With the present acquittance I declare to accept the indisputable fact that the subscription to the 15 updating CDs to the Data Bank on CD-ROM, for an total value of £56,309,100, has been subscribed by you exclusively for PITY FOR ME. […] Moreover I authorize you to make this declaration of mine public and confirm, upon my honor, to accept as an integral part of the transaction just happily brought to an end this exact statement of Yours: I FEEL SORRY FOR YOU AND ONLY FOR THIS I PAY YOU and the concept contained in it. Signed…’"