A selection from pages 201-204, which seemed particularly important to my 'mission':
What concerns me in this chapter, however, are tricky audience situations and, in this case, I am thinking about the many times when you are trying to persuade someone in a straightforward way but actually you are wasting your time...
If your readers have a stake in what you are arguing against, you cannot talk straightforward persuasion as your goal. You must resist your impulse to change their beliefs. You have to set your sights much lower. The best you can hope for--and it is hoping for a great deal--is to get your readers to understand your point of view even while not changing theirs in the slightest. If you can get readers actually to entertain to experience your position for just a moment, you have done a wonder, and your best chance of getting them to do so is not by asking them to believe or adopt your point at all.
In short, stop trying to persuade the enemy and settle for planting a seed. If you think about the way people do change their beliefs--which is rarely--it is usually a gradual process and depends on a seed lying dormant for awhile. Something has to get them to a position where they might say, "Imagine that. He actually believes this stuff and he's not crazy... Of course they are all wrong deeply misguided arguments, but now I can see why they appeal. It's interesting to know what it's like for a person to actually see things that way."
If you can get a reader to take your point of view for just that one conditional moment--to inflate your words with his breath--then future events will occasionally remind him of the experience. Contrary views are inherently intriguing. And if your position has any merit, your reader will begin--very gradually, of course--to notice things that actually support it... A seed is the best you can hope for.
So how do you plant a seed? You do it by getting the person actually to see through your eyes. There are many ways of doing this, but I think they all depend on one essential inner act by you: seeing through his eyes. And it's not enough to just do it as an act of shrewd strategic analysis: "Let's see what actually passes for thinking in the minds of those rednecks." For them to experience your point of view even for a moment, they must let down their guard. You can't get them to do so unless you let yours down, too: actually experience their point of view from the inside, not just analyze it. Though persuading can employ the doubting game, planting a seed calls for the believing game.
What does this mean in practice? If you relinquish your effort to make readers change their beliefs and settle instead of trying to get them merely to entertain yours for a moment, and if you start with an honest attempt to see thing through their eyes, you will find a whole range of specific skills to write your letter, article, or report--depending on your skills and temperament. You can trust your instinct once you understand your goal: somehow to persuade readers to work with you rather than against you in the job of breathing life into your words. For example, if I were writing a short article or leaflet to readers with a stake in what I'm trying to refute, I wouldn't say, "Here's why you should believe nuclear power is bad." How I can get them to invest themselves in words which translate "Here's why you've been bad or stupid"? I would take an approach which said, "Here are reasons and experiences that have made me believe nuclear power is bad. Please try to understand them for a moment."
What concerns me in this chapter, however, are tricky audience situations and, in this case, I am thinking about the many times when you are trying to persuade someone in a straightforward way but actually you are wasting your time...
If your readers have a stake in what you are arguing against, you cannot talk straightforward persuasion as your goal. You must resist your impulse to change their beliefs. You have to set your sights much lower. The best you can hope for--and it is hoping for a great deal--is to get your readers to understand your point of view even while not changing theirs in the slightest. If you can get readers actually to entertain to experience your position for just a moment, you have done a wonder, and your best chance of getting them to do so is not by asking them to believe or adopt your point at all.
In short, stop trying to persuade the enemy and settle for planting a seed. If you think about the way people do change their beliefs--which is rarely--it is usually a gradual process and depends on a seed lying dormant for awhile. Something has to get them to a position where they might say, "Imagine that. He actually believes this stuff and he's not crazy... Of course they are all wrong deeply misguided arguments, but now I can see why they appeal. It's interesting to know what it's like for a person to actually see things that way."
If you can get a reader to take your point of view for just that one conditional moment--to inflate your words with his breath--then future events will occasionally remind him of the experience. Contrary views are inherently intriguing. And if your position has any merit, your reader will begin--very gradually, of course--to notice things that actually support it... A seed is the best you can hope for.
So how do you plant a seed? You do it by getting the person actually to see through your eyes. There are many ways of doing this, but I think they all depend on one essential inner act by you: seeing through his eyes. And it's not enough to just do it as an act of shrewd strategic analysis: "Let's see what actually passes for thinking in the minds of those rednecks." For them to experience your point of view even for a moment, they must let down their guard. You can't get them to do so unless you let yours down, too: actually experience their point of view from the inside, not just analyze it. Though persuading can employ the doubting game, planting a seed calls for the believing game.
What does this mean in practice? If you relinquish your effort to make readers change their beliefs and settle instead of trying to get them merely to entertain yours for a moment, and if you start with an honest attempt to see thing through their eyes, you will find a whole range of specific skills to write your letter, article, or report--depending on your skills and temperament. You can trust your instinct once you understand your goal: somehow to persuade readers to work with you rather than against you in the job of breathing life into your words. For example, if I were writing a short article or leaflet to readers with a stake in what I'm trying to refute, I wouldn't say, "Here's why you should believe nuclear power is bad." How I can get them to invest themselves in words which translate "Here's why you've been bad or stupid"? I would take an approach which said, "Here are reasons and experiences that have made me believe nuclear power is bad. Please try to understand them for a moment."
Comments