I will make a claim and then attempt to persuade you to believe it. I can’t make you believe me, but I hope to do so.
What's lovely about persuasion is I get to express myself while allowing you to maintain your own opinion. Occasionally, when I use coercion instead of persuasion (or when someone points this out to me), I feel bad because I don’t want to be insufferable.
Here is my claim:
Central to all human interaction
is persuasion.
It is my observation that persuasion is everywhere around us. Just how ubiquitous is persuasion?
Teaching anything involves persuasion.
Asking a girl out on a date is an act of persuasion.
A baby’s cry is an act of persuasion for food or comfort.
Interacting constructively with coworkers is an act of persuasion.
Providing required services to keep a job is an act of persuasion.
All TV newscasts, news periodicals, and documentaries are acts of persuasion.
All fiction is a persuasive act of getting the reader, viewer, or listener to believe a story at some level.
When we smile at someone we don’t know, aren't we trying to persuade the person to believe that we acknowledge and perhaps even appreciate him or her?
When interacting with people, is it possible not to persuade? Imagine entering a supermarket, doing some shopping, standing in the checkout line, and finally leaving the store. Is there any point in that experience when you’re not persuading someone?
What about when you're alone but don’t return a product where you found it?
What about when you pick up a piece of trash so the next person who enters the aisle finds it clean?
What about when you’re alone and reading a book? A-hah! Finally, an action that doesn’t involve someone else. But the person who authored the book is attempting to persuade you.
Artists and sculptors use paint and marble to persuade onlookers that they’re looking at a woman, a village, or a bouquet of flowers instead of paint on a canvas or a piece of marble.
How better off would you be if you had the ability of great persuasion?
If people like you, then you have won 80% of the battle. – Johnny Carson
My day job requires convincing a fair number of people to spend a portion of their workday helping me. Many employees where I work are in my position, where they must solicit the help of others on a regular basis.
How to persuade?
I don’t want to turn this into a “how-to” manual, but when you’re trying to persuade someone of something, you must consider the following:
Show confidence.
Flattery will get you far.
Choose your words carefully.
Exercise both patience and persistence at the same time.
Make the request/issue seem beneficial to the other party.
I don’t advise you to read books on how to persuade people. I’ve never read one. Instead, try to be lightly persuasive with people about simple issues. No book can tell you how to do this because what works for one person won’t work for another. We’re all different from each other. Learn why certain attempts fail, then alter your approach the next time.
Non-detectable persuasion
As wonderful as persuasion is, non-detectable persuasion is even more incredible—which is like a superpower. What if we could persuade people without their knowing it?
For those of you who are writers, that's precisely what fiction is: non-detectable persuasion. Good fiction shouldn’t feel persuasive. The reader doesn’t want to know how he or she believes the story. Once the reader detects the trick, or worse, realizes he or she is being preached to or coerced, the magic vanishes, and the story becomes distasteful.
No one likes to be lectured when they want to be entertained. Yet, this is happening more and more in movies and TV shows, making me like them less. Maybe this is why I’m learning how to write my own stories.
The opposite of persuasion
If persuasion allows for the free expression of ideas, what is the opposite of persuasion? You may think that the opposite of persuasion is coercion, belittlement, and bullying. However, coercion, belittling, and bullying aren't the opposites of persuasion because they also persuade.
Where in society do we find the “opposite” of persuasion? Such is found in the evolving “Cancel Culture” spreading nationwide.
Liberty: Freedom to express ideas
Cancel culture: Prohibition of ideas
I disagree with many policies, events, and products in this world. The public routinely buys, supports, watches, and votes for people and principles with which I strongly disagree. They’re everywhere around me. But I've never thought of engaging in “cancel culture” behavior.
People have been arguing over principles and ideas for thousands of years. Sometimes, one side wins, and sometimes, the other. The public must understand that “not getting your way” is a part of life.
Those who support groups who are disadvantaged are to be commended. Those supporters should honorably do their best to persuade governmental leaders to establish laws to protect disadvantaged groups and then urge political leaders to enforce those laws consistently once they're enacted.
The following table summarizes the differences between healthy persuasion and unhealthy coercion, bullying, and cancel culture:
Persuasion | Cancel Culture |
Hope | Lack of Hope |
Respect | Disrespect |
Trust | Distrust |
Love | Hate |
Acts of persuasion require at least some degree of hope that the interaction will yield results. A healthy discussion also requires a minimal level of respect and trust between participants.
Those who engage in cancel culture behavior believe that the opinions or positions of the recipients of cancellation are not worthy of even existing in the public square, that the influence of such people, positions, or products should simply not exist at all, that their side of the story should never be heard. I believe "cancel culture" is the opposite of hope, respect, trust, and love.
Love
I believe that healthy persuasion is a manifestation of love. Someone who is loving can go anywhere in the world and, regardless of language and culture, be able to express love in some fashion that the people in those areas can feel. I believe that deep inside, we are the same and feel the same things.
Getting down to those deepest feelings requires love. Perhaps some people in this world are untouchable. But I’ve yet to know anyone who cannot be affected at some level by patient, heartfelt persuasion over time.
The ability to patiently persuade is a skill we must develop over our lifetime to really help those around us. While we're trying to become better, we need to give other people that same opportunity to develop through patient persuasion.
Persuasion before the modern age
I believe our loss of civil persuasion can be partly blamed on our ability to shout at each other from great distances. By that, I mean with the use of television and radio. In the past, we were limited to writing the best and most effective words possible to convey our message. This was because back then, the reader got to decide how long he or she wished to read the material and how much thought he or she wished to put into it.
Now, generally, whoever shouts the longest and hardest in front of a camera wins.
Compare modern-day arguing with the except below, written in 1788. Whether you agree or disagree with the sentiment, note how packed the wording is with persuasive words and phrases.
To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquility would be to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.
— Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 34, January 5, 1788
Maybe someday, when it isn't all about volume and force, we can get back to exchanging ideas in a more reasonable, thorough, and instructive manner.
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