The Art of Persuasion: Mastering Rhetorical Techniques
Chapter 1: The Power of Concession
Concession: Rhetorical jujitsu that uses your opponent’s move to your advantage. (Let’s tweak it)
Manipulation: Instruction
The ancients considered rhetoric the essential skill of leadership—knowledge so important that they placed it at the center of higher education.
Amplification: It’s a form of an essential rhetorical tactic that turns up the volume as you speak (infomercials).
Great argument does not always mean elaborate speech; though the most effective rhetoric disguises its art.
Argument’s Grand Prize: The Consensus. It means more than just agreement, much more than a compromise.
Manipulation: Is half of the argument, and therefore many of us shy from it.
Logic alone will rarely get people to do anything. They have to desire the act. You may not like seduction’s manipulative aspect; it beats fighting, which is what we usually mistake for an argument.
Without a pause, it does the same thing in reverse, a rendering of speech called chiasmus.
Chapter 2: Debate vs. Argument
Debate and Battle share the same Latin root.
Rhetorical Argument: Blame-shifting
The basic difference between an argument and a fight: an argument, done skillfully, gets people to want to do what you want. You fight to win; you argue to achieve agreement.
Rhetoric: Eristic (for debate)
To win a deliberate argument, don’t try to outscore your opponent. Try instead to get your way.
Concession: Concede your opponent’s point in order to get what you want.
Prolepsis: Anticipation
The playwright Aristophanes said that persuasion can make “the lesser side appear the greater”.
Set Your Goals
- Set your personal goal.
- Set your goals for your audience. Do you want to change their mood, their mind, or their willingness to carry out what you want?
Changing the mood is the easiest goal, and usually the one you work on first.
Goal Number 2: Making them decide what you want.
Goal Number 3: In which you get an audience to do something or to stop doing it.
Self-deprecating is an acceptable way to brag.
Chapter 3: Controlling the Issue and the Clock
- Blame = Issue = Past
- Values = Morally Right or Wrong = Present
- Choice = To Build or Not to Build = Future
- Present Tense (Demonstrative): Rhetoric tends to finish with people bonding or separating.
- Past Tense (Forensic): Rhetoric threatens punishment.
- Future Tense (Deliberative): Argument promises a payoff. You can see why Aristotle dedicated the rhetoric of decision-making to the future.
Rule #1: Never debate the undebatable, instead focus on your goals.
Control the Issue: Do you want to fix the blame? Define who meets or abuses your common values? Or get the audience to make a choice? The most productive arguments use choices as their central issue. Don’t let a debate swerve heedlessly into values or guilt. Keep it focused on choices that solve a problem to your audience and your advantage.
Control the Clock: Keep your argument in the right tense. In a debate over choices, make sure it turns to the future.
Chapter 4: The Three Mega Tools of Rhetoric
- Logos: Argument by logic = Logos tool of all = Concession
- Ethos: Argument by character = Aristotle called this the most important appeal of all – even more than logos.
- Pathos: Argument by emotion. A successful persuader must learn how to read the audience’s emotions = Sympathy: Registered concern for your audience and then changing the mood to suit your argument.
Logic, Emotion, Character: Mega tools of rhetoric
Chapter 5: Decorum: Fitting In to Win
Decorum: Your audience finds you agreeable if you meet their expectations = Is the art of fitting in, not just in polite company but everywhere = Follows the audience’s rules.
Deliberate argument is not about truth = Is about choices.
Persuasive Decorum: Changes to match the audience.
Aporia: Rhetorical device
Decorum: Argument by character starts with your audience’s love. You earn it through decorum, which Cicero listed first among the ethical tactics.
Chapter 6: Persuasive Leadership
Cicero said: “You want your audience to be receptive, attentive, like and trust you” = The perfect audience.
Three Traits of Persuasive Leadership
- Virtue or Cause: The audience believes you share their values.
- Practical Wisdom or Craft: You appear to know the right thing to do on every occasion.
- Disinterest: This means not a lack of interest but a lack of bias. You seem to be impartial, caring only about the audience’s interests rather than your own.
C3: Cause, Craft, Caring
Virtus: Manliness, good sportsmanship, respect for values all around nobility.
Arete: Cause, standing for certain values or meeting high standards.
Virtue: Rhetorical virtue is the appearance of virtue. It can spring from a truly noble person or be faked by the skillful rhetorician.
Values: Takes on a different meaning in rhetoric as well. It does not necessarily represent rightness or truth.
Tactics for Building Ethos
- Brag:
- Get a witness to brag for you.
- Reveal a tactical flaw.
- Switch sides when the powers that be do: A variation is the Eddie Haskell ploy, which throws your support behind the inevitable. When you know you will lose, preempt your opponent by taking his side.
Chapter 7: Practical Wisdom
Practical Wisdom: The audience thinks you know your craft and can solve the problem at hand = Aristotle called this phronesis.
Tactics for Demonstrating Practical Wisdom
- Show off your experience: If you debate a war and you’re a veteran, you can show your experience, and it’s fine to brag about it.
- Bend the rules: If the rules don’t apply, don’t apply them unless ignoring the rules violates the audience’s values.
- Seem to take the middle course: The ancient Greeks had far more respect for moderation than our culture does, but humans in every era instinctively prefer decisions that lie midway between extremes.
Chapter 8: Disinterest and the Reluctant Conclusion
Libertas: Freedom and frankness
Disinterested Goodwill: Aristotle’s third ethos asset
Tactics for Demonstrating Disinterest
- Seem to deal reluctantly with something you are really eager to prove.
- Reluctant Conclusion: Act as though you felt compelled to reach your conclusion despite your own desires.
- Act as if the choice you advocate hurts you personally.
Cicero said: “You want them to be attentive, trusting and willing to be persuaded.”
- Make it seem you have no tricks.
- Dubitatio: Don’t look tricky, seem to be in doubt what to say.
- The Reluctant Conclusion: Act as if you reached your conclusion only because of its overwhelming rightness.
- The Personal Sacrifice: Claim that the choice will help your audience more than it will help you; even better, maintain that you’ll actually suffer from the decision.
- Dubitatio: Show doubt in your own rhetorical skill. The plain-spoken, seemingly ingenuous speaker is the trickiest of them all, being the most believable.