15 Common Defense Mechanisms/Intellectualization

Intellectualization is used to suppress emotions when someone is being confronted with a difficult situation. It is as much a mouthful by pronunciation as it is by definition, and it is extremely difficult to detect if the person deploying this tactic is commonly reserved by nature. We commonly see this defense mechanism used in popular political debates, news interviews, and highly controversial subjects (such as abortion, capital punishment, immigration), because people who exhibit emotions during these events are often immediately discredited.

Intellectualization: Intellectualization is the overemphasis on thinking when confronted with an unacceptable impulse, situation or behavior without employing any emotions whatsoever to help mediate and place the thoughts into an emotional, human context. Rather than deal with the painful associated emotions, a person might employ intellectualization to distance themselves from the impulse, event or behavior. For instance, a person who has just been given a terminal medical diagnosis, instead of expressing their sadness and grief, focuses instead on the details of all possible fruitless medical procedures. (http://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-defense-mechanisms/)

Have you ever seen Harry Potter and watched as a character insults or frustrates Professor Snape (Alan Rickman R.I.P)? He does show a minimal level of emotions at time, but often he will counter with a cold calculated and overly accentuated response. He uses intellectualization, because he does not know how to channel his frustration in a more regularly recognized emotional outburst. Intellectualization is also commonly seen with the stereotypical math teachers, and it is an internal response to discomfort rather than an external response.  

Does intellectualization exist in MLMers??? Absolutely, especially when it is an upline talking to a downline at any part of the chain. Upline will always strive to show some sort of mental superiority over downline because of their edification. This means they cannot show any form of emotion, other than a false smile and pleasantness, because that would be discrediting themselves and/or bringing them down to a lower level of being. It is a philosophical ploy to ensure downline never questions their advice, and comes to them whenever they have a comment or concern.  They are constantly training themselves and their downline to refer to the same, canned, repetitive discussion points whenever a controversial point is brought to their attention, and as they get more practice with these responses, they become more and more cold to the subject matter. An example of this is, if someone asks if the MLM is a pyramid scheme. They will already have a reply designed to confuse or sound unquestionable and they will deliver the response with little to no emotion. This will intellectualize the concern and usually dissuade the other party from continuing to pressure on the subject. 

If you feel upline has all of the answers and is delivering them to you in rapid succession, then you should take some time to research exactly what they are saying, and why it seems to make sense. There are many resources to disprove the intellectualizations, and if you continue to pressure them on certain points, then the cracks will begin to show. You will start to see upline regress through the other defense mechanisms until they reach denial. Once they have gone back to denial, then the point is moot and should not be pursued further, because you cannot be rational with the irrational.