1st Guest Post!

Our first guest post! Thank you Poor Richard, for heeding the call. Enjoy another flavor of Thewster:

The Art of Persuasion

Just about everyday we find ourselves in an argument of some kind, trying to persuade your interlocutor to change their mood, mind, or desire to act. Notice, though, that we argue to achieve agreement and we fight to win. Fighting never persuades, it only inspires aversion or retreat.

We must identify what we want out of the argument. Do we want our spouse to just close the shower curtain when he/she is done showering? Do we want our son or daughter to put on a coat for school? Or do we want our sibling to take the garbage out this week? In scenarios akin to these we must refer back to what we want our audience to do, change their mind, mood, or desire to act. More often than not if we’re dealing with a choice, we want to focus on the future. This is what is called the deliberative argument, by which a wife tries to persuade her husband to go to her parent’s for Thanksgiving. If she explains to him that “we should go to my parent’s this year because we went to yours last year”, she is focusing on the past which logically might make sense but may not be enough to persuade. Instead, if she looks to the future with “we should go to my parent’s because you know how much my parent’s love having you for company”, she has hit what can be the most important factor in persuasion, emotion. Most arguments not only take place in the wrong tense, but are used with a wrong choice of form.

Using the knowledge we have of our audience, we can then choose our weapon (form). For example, if we are trying to convince our young child to wear a coat to school we have our choice of ethos (argument by character), pathos (argument by emotion), or logos (argument by logic).

Ethos- “You have to wear a coat and that’s final”

Pathos- “Look at me off to work shivering in the cold. Don’t I look stupid?”

Logos- “Not only will the coat keep you warm but it’ll keep your skin from chapping. You’ll feel a lot better."

Once we’ve chosen the line of argument that best suits our child, we should transform ourselves into an emotional role model and therefore show our audience how it should feel.

As this is only the silverware for the cake of rhetoric, this advice may help the next time you find yourself trying to persuade. If you’re interested in going a little deeper, I should suggest “Thank You For Arguing” by Jay Heinrichs. An easy read, without all the overwhelming detail. So remember, identify what you want (mood, mind, or act), use the correct tense, and identify with your audience.

Poor Richard

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LINKS
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- Whaaaatt?!! You mean I don’t have to put my bluetooth on my EAR anymore?
- Yeah let’s not only fight over there, but let’s fight each other over HERE.
- Music composition of the 21^st CENTURY.
- Grab a CALCULATOR.
- COOOL. Annnnd the point is??

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Badly Drawn Boy
The Shining