I am curious about your expanded take on Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People.
I believe that with particular behaviors and communication strategies, there is a tradeoff between likability and respect. Typical female communication is optimized for likability and not respect (the main reason why less women become senior managers), while the narcissistic and/or autistic (hyper-male) communication is all respect, no likability.
The advice in Carnegie's book is heavily biased towards likability. This works in many social contexts as you noted ('Win Friends') and in some business context (it seemed to me like Carnegie wrote his book for traveling salesmen, but I don't think it works in a cutthroat corporate rat race to the senior manager position). However, I don't think its best for seduction. All likability and no respect is what puts you into friendzone, all respect and no likability usually doesn't get you far either unless it's in a BDSM context or the girl has some sort of personality disorder. Obviously there is no rule that works with every woman and you need to calibrate, but overall I believe it should be more leaned towards respect, as this gets recognized as high status. And this is different from most advice from Carnegie's book, so I think a distinction should be made here.
The book is basically good but it is a tool and not the only tool one should have. In dating and women it's useful to have some edge, to know when to break rapport, etc. Carnegie is a little too focused on agreeability as you identify, but there is a time and place for it, and many of his insights, like people preferring to talk about themselves, are good.
Most guys never really manage to get out of the basement insofar as social skills are concerned...
I am curious about your expanded take on Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People.
I believe that with particular behaviors and communication strategies, there is a tradeoff between likability and respect. Typical female communication is optimized for likability and not respect (the main reason why less women become senior managers), while the narcissistic and/or autistic (hyper-male) communication is all respect, no likability.
The advice in Carnegie's book is heavily biased towards likability. This works in many social contexts as you noted ('Win Friends') and in some business context (it seemed to me like Carnegie wrote his book for traveling salesmen, but I don't think it works in a cutthroat corporate rat race to the senior manager position). However, I don't think its best for seduction. All likability and no respect is what puts you into friendzone, all respect and no likability usually doesn't get you far either unless it's in a BDSM context or the girl has some sort of personality disorder. Obviously there is no rule that works with every woman and you need to calibrate, but overall I believe it should be more leaned towards respect, as this gets recognized as high status. And this is different from most advice from Carnegie's book, so I think a distinction should be made here.
The book is basically good but it is a tool and not the only tool one should have. In dating and women it's useful to have some edge, to know when to break rapport, etc. Carnegie is a little too focused on agreeability as you identify, but there is a time and place for it, and many of his insights, like people preferring to talk about themselves, are good.
Most guys never really manage to get out of the basement insofar as social skills are concerned...